It’s the month of awakening on the blog, and this week, I wanted to explore some emotional wellbeing work.
So far this month, I’ve shared some physical wellness, writing prompts, and reflections on the hope experienced when the world starts to wake up again.
Today, I wanted to spend a little bit of time exploring why awakening is important for emotional wellbeing. It’s a little more reflective than actionable this time around, but I hope it still serves as a bit of inspiration for you.
What is emotional wellbeing?
I refer to the pillars of wellness in a lot of the posts I make, and I’ve found emotional wellness to be one of the foundational pillars for me. All of the pillars interlink with one another, and some may be more important for you than they are for me. That’s fine! It just means that we’re in different stages of our journeys, or have different immediate needs to address.
Emotional wellbeing simply refers to you your ability to navigate your own feelings. I’ve always been someone to feel emotions quite strongly, which I have learnt to appreciate more recently. But I’ve also been doing a lot of work on how to regulate, understand, and work with my emotions. I wrote a post back in January that explores some ways to understand your emotions in more depth if this is something you’re interested in working on.
What do I mean by awakening?
Choosing awakening as the theme for this month was primarily influenced by the first signs of spring being on the way. The world is waking up again, and I feel myself slowly coming back to life, too.
I think there are numerous ways to interpret the meaning of the word awakening – which is something I explored in my writing prompts post for this month.
The primary ways in which I’ve interpreted this theme for myself seem to be both basic and more all-encompassing. On a basic level, I simply feel like I have more energy and drive now because of the changing season. I feel more hopeful and excited about the future than I did in the winter.
On a layer with more depth, I’ve also found myself being open to more new experiences than I had before. I feel more in tune with what I’m feeling, and understanding the path that I’m on and how my values and emotions intertwine, which is something I wanted to spend some time exploring today.
What are the links between awakening and emotional wellbeing?
I think by being more in tune with myself, I’ve managed to make myself happier. I’ve always been an over-thinker, an over-analyser, and someone who feels things very deeply.
However, with the being contextualised with me being more alert to the situation, it feels more practical and more actionable. I’ve used this alertness to get to know myself, to be aware of my needs, and to be aware of how different situations and circumstances make me feel.
It’s helped me understand the kind of people I need to spend time with, the activities I want to do, and the work I want to be involved in.
I do feel like, by understanding my emotions and what makes me tick, I’ve been able to arrive on paths that can lead me to greater levels of wellbeing. Of course, it’s not always smooth sailing, but for the first time in a long time, I’m starting to feel like there are endless possibilities in front of me. And all of that stems from simply making myself more aware.
That awareness refers to both the inner and the outer spaces I encompass. I’m more aware of what is happening inside my body, my brain, and my metaphorical heart. At the same time, I’m paying more attention to my local community and the physical spaces I occupy.
I feel like one of the best ways to live a life more attuned to what makes you happy is to be aware of what makes you happy, essentially. I’ve spent a lot of time examining my needs, what I want from life, and whether the situations I put myself in serve that purpose.
How can you use awakening to contribute to emotional wellbeing?
I’m a firm believer that awareness is the first key to making changes. If you aren’t aware of something, if you aren’t in tune with yourself, then how can you expect to make positive change? How can you evaluate what you’re doing? How can you identify what aspects of your life feel off?
In this section, I want to reflect a little on the steps I’ve taken to reach new levels of what I consider awakening and how I’ve ensured I follow actual actionable steps in the hopes it will be useful to anyone reading.
Using Reflection to Become Aware
I spend a lot of time evaluating stressors and sources of joy in my life. I also spend a lot of this time reflecting on the emotions I feel.
I think it’s important to be able to identify and name the events and emotions, but also to think about the why. If something upsets me – why is that? If something brings me joy – what is it specifically about it that has done so?
For example, back in January I attended a party that was very close to my birthday. It’s a music scene I’ve been attending events in for a little while now, but this particular event left me with extremely positive feelings.
I felt full, almost to the point of overwhelm but in an extremely positive way. I think that’s a feeling that has been elusive for me for a while, and I took the time to reflect on why this event had left me feeling so nourished on a borderline spiritual level so I could ensure that it would no longer be a fleeting feeling for me.
Evaluate Your Surroundings and Experiences
I realised that the feeling of soul nourishment that came from this event was because of the sense of community around it. I haven’t always had a community around me, and at this event I was connected to so many people due to a shared love of music.
We’d all experienced similar events together, and it was simply the energy that emanated from being in a room full of people just connecting on a dancefloor. It was feeling seen, socialising, and chatting to people. It was going to my friend’s house afterwards to curl up with tea and documentaries together.
Obviously, attending this event was fulfilling some unmet needs, and it highlighted the connection or need fulfilment I was lacking and needed to seek out to feel this way. I looked at how I’d been living in the run up to this event – I was quite isolated through my own withdrawal from events.
So, part of my evaluation was recognising that I needed to ensure I recreated this kind of environment, and that when I attend events or socialise, I know what I’m looking to get out of it.
Live Life in Tune with Your Needs
Obviously, it’s not enough to just recognise these things. Manifesting and recognising a need for something can only get you so far – you need to actually take action to contribute to your manifestation.
So, recently, I’ve been trying to live life more in tune with the needs I identified from this event. I’ve become more discerning with where I place my energy and time to ensure that I’m in environments that serve this need. I’ve been pulling myself out of the self-imposed social withdrawal and making better decisions about how I spend my time. I’ve been planning social events to gather with like-minded people. When accompanied with the beautiful weather we’ve been having recently, I feel like life is on the up!
I think the steps to having a more fulfilled emotional state can be boiled down to the following steps:
- Identify your emotions and the events that inspire them.
- Evaluate why it makes you feel this way and how to ensure this need is met.
- Put action to your evaluation and ensure you keep finding ways to meet those needs.
I’m looking now to expand this into my work. I touched briefly on the development of some community workshops. I’ve been living in Kirkby-in-Ashfield for a long time, and although there are plenty of opportunities to get involved in the community, not all of them match my needs. I think there seems to be a demand for creative spaces for connection – safe spaces to have these social and emotional needs met, and I’m looking forward to completing the final few steps to make my desired contribution to the community a reality.
At the moment, I’ve created a Facebook group that lives in line with these principles. It’s very small and doesn’t seem to have much going on at the moment – but such is the way when starting from nothing.
In the meantime, if you’re interested in engaging in more personal reflection, I’ve also created a 31-day workbook for the month that’s centred on identifying what makes you feel alive and the needs you might need to meet. You can buy the digital workbook via my Etsy storefront if you feel like you want a more broken-down and guided version of the steps outlined in this blog.
Alternatively, if you find these posts useful, you may want to consider donating a small amount via Ko-Fi.
The Opaque Elephant 
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