Did you know that to have great emotional health (and therefore great relationships) we humans need to do emotional hygiene, just like we do physical hygiene? So what does that even mean, and what does it look like? How do you do “emotional hygiene"?
I made you two 90 second videos to answer those questions. Dive into them here. (You can also see the transcripts there if you prefer to read. Just all the way down.)
EMOTIONAL HYGIENE PART 1 (102 seconds)
EMOTIONAL HYGIENE PART 2 (89 seconds)
Transcript for Part 1:
If you're a sensitive or deep feeling person and you find yourself getting easily triggered by things your spouse does or their tone of voice, or you forget your train of thought, or you go from one to a hundred in moments in a conflict, it's not just because you're highly sensitive.
It's a sign that your nervous system is going easily into SOS mode, or fight, flight, or freeze. In other words, Your nervous system is likely chronically dysregulated. And yes, you do want to learn how to regulate your nervous system in that moment, which you can do with SOS practices, so you can feel grounded, remember what you wanted to say, relate to your partner with your wits and wisdom fully intact.
which is akin to flossing your teeth after you ate something that got stuck in there. But even more importantly, if you don't want to get so easily dysregulated, you also need to consciously support your nervous system when you're feeling fine, calm, relaxed, normal. If you want a regulated nervous system, which is the foundation of emotional well being and a great relationship, just like you brush your teeth every day to prevent buildup on them, even if you didn't eat anything too sticky, you also need to attend to your emotional hygiene every day.
Even if you aren't activated or triggered, emotional hygiene is just as important for your emotional health as brushing your teeth is for your mouth health.
And that looks like spending time daily caretaking your nervous system in super tiny ways that only take seconds of your time, which I call peppered hygiene practices. And with regular deep emotional hygiene practices that clear out the accumulated stress in your system so you can take Think clearly again, stay connected to your highest intelligence and your heart and respond and communicate effectively to your spouse, no matter what mood they may be in.
And feel most calm, steady, light, and at ease
and fortified for anything that life might throw at you. Tune into my next video where I give you an analogy that helps you understand why this is so.
TRANSCRIPT FOR PART 2:
Imagine with me for a moment that you were a peaceful, empty cup. Now, imagine steadily pouring water into that cup. The water represents daily stressors, like your spouse's bad mood, a bill you forgot to pay, driving in traffic, etc. Whatever the normal wear and tear is for you of daily living.
Notice how in an empty cup, there's room to hold those stressors. There's room to hold the water without you overflowing. which is like melting down, fritzing out, malfunctioning. The space in your cup gives you the resilience to hold what life throws at you, Now, imagine that that cup is full of rocks.
The rocks represent stored stress from past stressors, big and small, that have accumulated over time.
You'd overflow so much faster because there's so much less space to hold it, right?
This is what happens metaphorically when we don't metabolize the stress of daily living, especially as HSPs. And it's gonna show up as reactivity, getting easily triggered, argumentativeness, feeling bogged down by emotions like overwhelm, anxiety, numbness, depression, disconnection, annoyance,
loss of sex drive, and so much more that makes having a great intimate relationship very hard to do. So this is a metaphor for a chronically dysregulated nervous system and to heal it you must start metabolizing the stress of daily living and the accumulated stress in your system.
In Foundations of Emotional Well-Being, my 4 week program, that's what you'll learn how to do so you can make room for not just the stressors of daily living, but also pleasure, joy, connection, and love. JOIN HERE.
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