4 Ways to Move Through Your Emotions: LOVEolution Project
I’ve written extensively about how humans like to repress their emotions and the side effects that result. Now, let’s look at how we can experience all of what our emotions have to offer so that we can move through any roadblocks to our personal and transformational growth.
Emotions are energy in motion.
Panache Desai
Here are four steps for how to experience emotional health.
- Become Aware
We have repressed our feelings for so long, it can be intensely uncomfortable when we become aware of our emotions, especially sadness. The word depression has become our “go to” because we do not know how to transform our sadness into an authentic state of happiness; this is a lost opportunity for growth. Instead, we quickly turn to pharmaceutical intervention, which makes us numb. Pharmaceutical companies will continue to prey on us while we play right into their hands of marketing illness. Feeling sad? Take this pill.
A dear friend of mine who experienced some very challenging events in life did decide to turn to medicine, and she said for two years she didn’t cry.
I very much believe that medicine can bridge the gap to health, but YOU need to cross the bridge.
- Sit with your emotions
When you have lost your way, the only thing left is to slow down and just observe with a desire to understand. We need to remember what emotions are—a wave of energy that offers an opportunity to evolve in our human experience. It is that simple. Don’t judge, just be the observer and look for ways to progress.
Additionally, you may want to become aware of the behaviors you may engage in to avoid your emotions. Many try numbing with an addiction (food, drugs, sex), and this only results in a moment of instant gratification instead of long-term emotional health. Numbing can quickly take control, causing you to lash out and misdirect frustration, which really comes from the lack of understanding your emotions. These are just a few of the many behaviors that stem from emotional repression.
- Move Emotions Up and Out
Many, including myself, have taken the route of traditional talk therapy. For years it was even considered cool to go lay down on a therapist’s couch. However, there we sat talking about the same things in life, over and over. At some point, in order to evolve, we must move how we feel forward; this means letting go of how this will look in the future or how it looked in the past.
Feelings are a gift to help you transform, and there are many tools to move emotions through you. However, you have to find what works best for you. Here are a few places to start:
Forgiveness of self
Forgiveness does not have to be a two-way street; just let go of your story and recognize we are all here to make mistakes in this human experience.
The physical practice of yoga and breath
Yoga asanas allow you to focus on the releasing of emotions. The practice of yoga is intended to help you surface your emotions in a gentler way. This is why when we attend a hip opener class we may feel emotional afterward, as we store emotions in our physical body. Pranayama is personally my favorite way as I intentionally set a breath cycle to visually release things that are no longer serving me.
Crying
Crying is one of our greatest emotional releases. Yes, our society has turned this into a form of weakness by telling us big boys and girls don’t cry. We need to work together to change this perception. We ALL need to cry! Next time, instead of telling your friend not to cry give them a hug and let them cry it out. Give your friend the space to be vulnerable and release. You do not have to be the “fixer.”
- Let Life Teach You
Many of the challenges in our life come as a gift to teach us a lesson. With this gift we need to accept responsibility for our own healing, as only YOU can be your FIXER. Start with the relationships in your life, as this is usually a great source of emotion for us all.
Just as with our emotions, we need to evolve in our relationships, too. This means we sometimes get angry or frustrated within the relationship. Instead of reaction and blame, sit down (face to face) and have a gentle conversation to understand how you got there and how to move forward. Maybe it is time to let go, but finding and appreciating the love with compassion will pave a beautiful road with the gift of a lesson.
Understanding emotional wellness will be the greatest gift we can give our children and ourselves.
Now more than ever, we need to embrace our emotional wellness as we continue to live in a world that is moving at epic speeds.
The increasing level of technology that continues to remove emotion and connection from our conversations and experiences is ‒ and will continue ‒ to negatively impact us if we don’t start to pay attention.
The good news is that many of us are sensing that we need to find the courage to break this cycle. This will only allow for us to grow and re-align with our whole, authentic being.
Explore Your Emotional Authenticity
Want to raise your vibration? If you have been ignoring your emotions, then you’re creating vibrational density. Learn to let your emotions become your allies through your life’s journey.
Take the next step and move past judgment, away from fear, and beyond the boundaries of your comfort zone when you become a member of Gaia. Start your streaming here with Signing Your Soul Signature with Panache Desai.
About the Author
Post-Traumatic Growth and the Hero's Journey
Post-Traumatic Growth and the Hero’s Journey
A companion to Dark Night of Our Souls for anyone considering what growth after trauma can mean.
A note before you read: This article discusses trauma and suicidal crisis. Read at your own pace. If you may hurt yourself or someone else, call emergency services. In the United States or Canada, call or text 988 at any hour. Elsewhere, contact the crisis service where you live.
After a film about trauma ends, the room can feel strangely ordinary. The dishes still need doing, and your phone may light up with a name that changes your breathing. You may recognize yourself in a story and still be unsure how to understand that recognition.
Dark Night of Our Souls brings first-person accounts of combat, abuse, grief, chronic pain, addiction, and loss into conversation with clinical research and spiritual inquiry. Guided by Richard Rudd, the film includes perspectives from Danielle Alexander, Trung Ngo, Anderson Todd, John Vervaeke, Nadine Purdy, and other contributors. They examine how a person can live after an experience changes their sense of safety and identity.
The film moves between research, personal testimony, spiritual traditions, and the mythic pattern Joseph Campbell called the hero’s journey. That range needs context. When someone in the film describes a practice that helped them, the account belongs to that person. It does not become a recovery protocol for every viewer.
This article stays with the film’s central ideas and the questions they raise. It does not prescribe a trauma practice. The material is educational and cannot diagnose or treat trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, or any other health condition.
What Is Post-Traumatic Growth?
Post-traumatic growth is a research term for positive psychological change that some people report through the struggle with trauma or severe adversity. Psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun described changes in five broad areas: appreciation of life, relationships with other people, personal strength, new possibilities, and spiritual or existential understanding. The American Psychological Association’s overview explains the concept and its development.
Researchers locate the growth in the struggle that follows, rather than in the traumatic event itself. No survivor is required to produce growth from harm. Some people do not identify with the idea at all. The event can remain unnecessary, undeserved, harmful, and costly even when a person later finds a different way to live.
A report of growth tells us little about whether trauma symptoms remain. Research has found that perceived growth and post-traumatic stress symptoms can exist at the same time. Their relationship varies with the person, the kind of trauma, age, and time since the event, according to a meta-analysis indexed by the National Library of Medicine.
In ordinary life, growth may be less visible than the word suggests. A relationship may begin to feel trustworthy again. A boundary may become clearer while an old priority falls away. An ordinary routine may carry new importance. None of these changes erases grief, symptoms, disability, or the cost of what happened.
Why the Film Uses the Hero’s Journey
The hero’s journey is a story pattern associated with mythologist Joseph Campbell. In its familiar form, a person leaves known ground, crosses a threshold, undergoes an ordeal, and returns to ordinary life changed. The Joseph Campbell Foundation describes it as a movement from the familiar world into an unfamiliar one and back again.
Dark Night of Our Souls uses that pattern as a language for meaning-making. The film describes crisis as a call, trauma as a kind of descent, and integration as a return to life with a changed understanding of oneself. For some viewers, that story can give shape to an experience that has felt shapeless.
The metaphor has limits. Trauma is not an adventure someone must welcome, and survival does not require a heroic identity. A story pattern also cannot establish how long recovery should take or which form it should assume.
The film places this mythic lens beside a disaster-response curve. The curve moves through pre-trauma, impact, a temporary heroic phase, disillusionment, and reconstruction or recovery. Its most useful feature may be the uneven line. An early surge of action can give way to exhaustion. Later growth can coexist with periods of distress. The film emphasizes that the route and timetable differ from person to person.
Where the Two Ideas Meet
Post-traumatic growth gives researchers language for changes that some people report after severe adversity. The hero’s journey gives storytellers language for departure, ordeal, transformation, and return. They describe different kinds of knowledge, yet both are attempts to understand how a life continues after its earlier assumptions have been disrupted.
For viewers who find the framework useful, it may open questions that have no forced answer:
- Did this experience divide my life into a before and an after?
- Which beliefs about myself or the world no longer hold?
- Has the way I relate to other people changed?
- Which parts of the experience remain difficult even alongside change?
Some people will recognize their lives in those questions. Others will not. Post-traumatic growth is a possibility described in research, not an assignment.
Common Questions About Post-Traumatic Growth
Can I Experience Growth and Still Feel Terrible?
Growth and distress can exist at the same time. A stronger boundary does not erase nightmares. A renewed relationship does not cancel grief. Post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic stress can develop alongside each other, and improvement rarely moves in a straight line.
Does Trauma Always Involve Another Person?
Trauma does not always involve another person. It can follow a serious accident, disaster, illness, sudden loss, combat, or interpersonal violence. The National Center for PTSD describes a wide range of reactions that may follow traumatic events. Questions about forgiveness or contact apply only when another person was involved.
How Long Does Post-Traumatic Growth Take?
There is no reliable timetable. The National Center for PTSD describes recovery as an ongoing process that happens little by little. Acute safety, housing, money, physical health, social support, and access to care can all affect what is possible at a given time.
Do I Have to Forgive Someone If Another Person Was Involved?
Forgiveness is not a condition of post-traumatic growth. The film includes personal testimony in which forgiveness matters to the speaker. That account reflects one person’s process. Another person may choose distance or no contact while still wanting accountability. Forgiveness and renewed contact are separate decisions.
Can Meditation, Breathwork, Ritual, or Plant Medicine Help?
The film suggests that meditation, breathwork, ritual, and plant medicine may help some people in some circumstances. It presents these approaches through testimony and discussion rather than as a universal protocol. Each person’s case is unique, and these practices differ in their evidence base, legal status, risks, and required support. Questions about whether any of them fit a person’s health history belong with a qualified professional.
Does Post-Traumatic Growth Mean the Trauma Happened for a Reason?
The concept does not require that conclusion. Growth after harm does not retroactively justify the harm. A person can find meaning in what followed while still regarding the event itself as senseless, preventable, or wrong.
Is Post-Traumatic Growth the Same as Recovering From PTSD?
They are different concepts. PTSD is a mental health diagnosis. Post-traumatic growth describes positive changes a person may perceive after struggling with adversity. Someone may report growth while still having PTSD symptoms, and someone can recover from PTSD without describing the experience as growth.
When the Questions Need Clinical Context
The National Center for PTSD explains trauma symptoms and treatments with strong research support. In the United States, SAMHSA’s Find Help page provides treatment locators and referral services. A licensed clinician can consider symptoms, current safety, physical health, medication, cost, and personal preferences in a way that a documentary or article cannot.
Continue the Conversation
In Dark Night of Our Souls, survivors describe experiences that resist a clean before-and-after story. Contributors from clinical research and contemplative traditions approach post-traumatic growth from different directions. Their accounts sometimes use different language for the passage from disruption toward return.
The film’s value lies in hearing how particular people understood what changed for them. Viewers can consider those accounts without adopting every conclusion or practice.
Watch or continue Dark Night of Our Souls on Gaia.
Editorial Sources
- Dark Night of Our Souls: Gaia
- Growth After Trauma: American Psychological Association
- A Meta-Analytic Clarification of the Relationship Between Posttraumatic Growth and Symptoms of Posttraumatic Distress Disorder: PubMed
- Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell Foundation
- Common Reactions After Trauma: National Center for PTSD
- Coping With Traumatic Stress Reactions: National Center for PTSD
- Understanding PTSD Treatment: National Center for PTSD
- Trauma-Informed Approaches and Programs: SAMHSA
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: United States
- 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline: Canada
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