There is a direct link between expression and wellness, and repression and mental illness.
If we are repressing our emotions, our thoughts and feelings, we create a great amount of stagnation in our system. When we are repressing what we are feeling, we keep all that emotion in our system, and it builds up and has a certain effect on our mental health.
When we repress our emotions, we create fertile ground for confusion, delirium and psychosis. The build up of emotion (energy in motion) has an effect on the mind, though it is in our expression of our emotions and thoughts that we see the fluid movement of energy that creates openness, appreciation and flow.
When we are able to express all that is within us, we create clarity of mind. This is because as we express and release our emotions, our mind will, quite quickly after releasing an emotion, be able to integrate and becomes clear. There is great clarity of mind and senses when we are free of the emotions that have built up within through repression.
On the healing journey, we will want to be able to express all of our emotions. To be free of repressed emotion brings wholeness. And we can build ourselves up into stronger and healthier people through expression of emotions and thoughts.
Expressing our emotions may look like crying, or it may look like sitting very quietly with the self and feeling through our inner space. Sometimes we may want to move around to express our emotions, and sometimes it may look like simply talking to another that we will be expressing our thoughts and beliefs for more clarity and peace of mind.
Once you begin expressing, once you start out on that path, you will want to continue moving through everything that is repressed in you. Sometimes it may be that you are talking in tongues, to express something, or it may be in artwork; painting and drawing, that you find your release.
Whatever it is that is within you, give it free expression. Give it the most expression you can give to yourself, without harming others, but with that full release in mind. Once you start doing this you may find that you begin to become more healthy in mind, body and spirit.
If you need help, seek out a friend or family member, or professional support to help you release what is going on within you. Remember the five emotions of love, grief, envy, anger and fear, and the four learned emotions of anxiety, hate, guilt and shame. Releasing each different emotion looks different in its release, and each emotion will feel different in its release.
Be gentle, be calm, be able to give yourself the fullest expression of what is within. Do this at your own pace, and only take on what you can handle in the moment. If you start to become overwhelmed, breathe through it. Breathe through the release and know that after you release the emotion or thought that it is gone for good. You only need to release an emotion once for it to be out of your system. In doing this practice of releasing what is repressed within you, you will move towards being mentally well.
