Honoring Emotions & Discovering Freedom

Awakening our Energy. Trusting Life’s Flow. Discovering Freedom.

Embarking on a journey of discovering our freedom, requires the practice of detaching. Detaching from everything we have been taught to become attached to. However… to expect letting go of these attachments to feel like instant freedom – or even light, liberating or expansive – would be deceiving.
In truth, detachment is deeply emotional. Letting go of attachments – whether to people, outcomes, identities, old stories or beliefs – will reveal everything we’ve been holding beneath the surface: guilt, fear, shame, grief, resistance and uncertainty.

We aren’t just letting go of the thing we’re attached to; we’re letting go of the story it carries – the one that says, “I’ll only be safe when…” or “I’ll only be happy if…” or “This needs to happen or I will not be okay” These stories set us up for suffering.
These stories (and the suffering) live within the emotional body, rooted in the navel chakra, and when we start to loosen our grip on the story, old emotions rise to the surface to be acknowledged and released.

To fully acknowledge, feel and release these emotions – that come from our old and often conditioned stories – the awareness and activation of our chakra energy systems is very helpful.

The navel chakra teaches us how to feel. Not to analyze, fix or suppress, but to simply let the emotion move through like a wave.
The throat chakra then gives us the voice to transform the emotion. When the throat chakra is balanced – it has the ability to truly listen. True listening (without judgement) gives us the option to stop repeating old stories that ruminate in our mind and gives us the voice to tell a new story. One aligned with love, truth, trust and freedom.

Together, these chakras remind us that every emotion wants to be witnessed, not avoided.
When we can simply just feel and allow the body to experience emotion without the mind trying to explain, justify or attach meaning to it – we open the door to profound healing.

The third eye, our inner witness, helps us see when we are being swept away by emotion or story. It helps us pause, breathe and return to presence. This is the practice of discernment – seeing the emotion without becoming it, hearing the story without believing it.

The heart chakra and solar plexus energy centers – when working together – gives us the wisdom, compassion, courage and confidence to continue sitting in the often-uncomfortable space of feeling the emotions.

As we do, the root and crown chakra energies awaken – grounding us in trust and connecting us to our higher-self. We begin to understand that freedom isn’t about controlling what happens, but about trusting what unfolds.

When we detach from any outcome and trust in the unseen order of life, something miraculous happens: we begin to move with life rather than against it. We begin to feel whatever arises without needing to attach it to a story or a meaning.

This is the real meaning of surrender.
Surrender is not giving up – it’s handing it over to a greater force or a higher power. It’s a sacred act of faith that allows life to breathe through us.

And as we allow ourselves to feel, lighten up and soften our grip, we find that freedom was never something we had to chase – it has always been within us, waiting for the space that only letting go, presence and feeling can create.

This week, I invite you to practice gentle awareness:
Notice when you feel the urge to hold on, control, or fix anything or anyone.
Notice emotions that arise. Notice the meaning or story you are attaching to the emotion and instead of suppressing, feeding, fixing or explaining the emotion or the story…just be present and breathe.
Let the energy move through you. Trust that the intelligence of your body and the wisdom of your Soul know what they’re doing.

When you honor what you feel and let it flow, love and the truth begin to rewrite your old stories – effortlessly, honestly and beautifully.

This week’s Intentional Reflection Questions

1. Where am I still holding on?
   Notice one situation, person, or outcome you’re afraid to release. What would it feel like to loosen your grip, even slightly?
2. What emotion am I resisting feeling?
   Within every emotion is a meaning we have attached to it. Beneath every attachment is a feeling we don’t want to face – fear, guilt, shame, grief, anger, or sadness. What could this emotion teach you if you were truly ready to feel it, listen to it and see it?
3. What new story am I ready to tell?
   If you were to feel, speak and see the bigger picture from this truth, how could that change things? How would your story – and your life – begin to shift?

These reflection questions are never easy to sit with and answer – but they will open your awareness and give you the tools to transform whatever story isn’t serving you in your life right now. This is important because the action you now take from a new transformed story will be different from the action you took from the old story – your behavior, your actions and your life will literally change with a new story leading the way.

Lead with your heart and find the courage to ask yourself the tough questions. Love yourself enough to feel whatever emotions need to be felt, acknowledged and released. Trust this process enough to find the patience and the presence to release an emotion and the old story it’s attached to, so you can tell a new story – let yourself open to a higher consciousness – so you can let freedom into your life – then you act from this new place!

Namaste my friends;
Leslie 🙏💙
leslie@wellnessdefined.ca