Feeding Our Emotions: Gratitude Through Emotional Awareness
Feeding Our Emotions: Gratitude Through Emotional Awareness
As the seasons shift and the year winds down, I’ve been reflecting on what it means to truly feel — to allow the full range of emotions to move through without judgment. Our bodies hold so much wisdom, and when we listen closely, we learn that emotions are not the enemy. They are the messengers of balance, healing, and self-awareness.
Hormones & Emotions — Understanding the Inner Connection
Our hormones are our body’s chemical messengers — powerful substances like cortisol, estrogen, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin released by the endocrine system. They quietly regulate our energy, sleep, metabolism, and — most importantly — our emotional and behavioral responses.
High cortisol → stress response (fight, flight, or freeze)
Low serotonin → low mood or lack of motivation
In other words, hormones set the stage for how we feel and respond to the world around us.
Feeding My Emotions
Seven years ago, I learned to feed my emotions — one of the most powerful tools I’ve ever practiced.
Feeding an emotion doesn’t mean indulging it. It means nourishing it — with attention, curiosity, and compassion. When we feed an emotion, we allow it to complete its natural cycle instead of starving it with suppression. That’s how it digests and transforms.
The Cultural Disconnect
Our culture often teaches us to hide what’s real. Sadness means weakness. Anger means danger. Fear means failure.
We’ve learned to perform calmness instead of embody wholeness.
But emotions aren’t problems to fix — they’re messages to feel and understand.
When we suppress them, they leak out sideways through tension, illness, burnout, or conflict.
When we honor them, they move through us and release.
The Generational Pattern
Emotional repression is often inherited:
“Child is sad.” Caregiver says, “Cheer up.”
→ Message learned: sadness isn’t safe or acceptable.
→ Adult result: smiles through pain, disconnects from authentic feeling.
“Child is mad.” Caregiver says, “Don’t be angry.”
→ Message learned: anger is bad.
→ Adult result: suppressed boundaries, resentment, or explosive outbursts later.
Imagine instead:
“Child is sad.” Caregiver says, “You look sad. What’s making you feel that way?”
→ Teaches emotional awareness and empathy.
“Child is mad.” Caregiver says, “You’re really angry right now. That’s okay — it’s not okay to hit, but it’s okay to be angry. What happened?”
→ Teaches emotional regulation and self-understanding.
Your Key Truth
“All feelings are valid — but not all behaviors are.”
That’s the heart of emotional maturity.
Feelings are data.
Behaviors are choices.
When we separate those two, we create space for emotional honesty and accountability.
My Story
I was a middle child — often the listener, the peacekeeper, the one who quietly absorbed more than I expressed. I learned early how to read a room, how to stay steady when others wavered. But sometimes, being the listener meant my own voice faded into the background. I felt things deeply but didn’t always feel seen.
As I grew older, I got good at holding it all in — pushing forward, staying strong, taking care of others. But when I transitioned from the fast pace of the restaurant world into the calm of the spa world, something inside me slowed enough to listen. For the first time, I noticed the patterns — not just in my clients’ bodies, but in my own. The same tension I released from others, I began to recognize in myself. The places where I’d tucked away stress, grief, and unspoken emotions.
I’m still more of a listener than a talker, and I believe that’s a gift. Listening — to others, to our bodies, to the quiet truth underneath our thoughts — is powerful. I also value words and understand their weight. I choose them carefully and stand behind them when I speak, because words, like touch, carry energy. But I’ve learned that staying silent about what we feel isn’t strength; it’s disconnection.
You don’t have to speak your emotions to someone else if that doesn’t feel right. You can write them down. You can breathe them out. You can whisper them into the steam of a hot shower, or release them into the wind from the top of a mountain. What matters most is that they’re given a voice — that you let them move through instead of holding them in.
A Simple Practice: Feeding Your Feelings
Take a piece of paper and write down your main emotions.
Here are a few to start: Sad, Mad, Happy, Excited, Scared, Tired.
Under each one, write what makes you feel that way.
This is you — your inner map. It’s beautiful. It’s human. It is you. You are perfect just this way.
Then, when you notice a feeling arise — acknowledge it.
Talk it out, write it out, breathe it out.
And when you look at your list, notice what brings joy, laughter, and peace — and do more of those things.
You are in control of your choices, your healing, and your energy.
You are a whole, feeling, perfect human being — designed to feel it all.
Understanding the Layers: Hormones, Emotions, Feelings, Moods & Behaviors
To truly understand our emotions, it helps to know how the body and mind work together behind the scenes.
Hormones, emotions, feelings, moods, and behaviors are all connected in an elegant rhythm.
Hormones — The Chemical Messengers
What they are: Biochemical substances (like cortisol, estrogen, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin) released by glands in your endocrine system.
What they do: Regulate energy, sleep, metabolism, and — most relevant here — emotional and behavioral responses.
Example:
High cortisol → stress response (fight, flight, or freeze)
Low serotonin → low mood or depression tendencies
Hormones influence emotions and moods at the biological level.
Emotions — The Body’s Instant Reactions
What they are: Automatic, short-term physiological responses — your body’s first language of reaction.
Where they come from: The limbic system (especially the amygdala) detects something meaningful, and the body reacts before your brain interprets it.
Example: You see a snake → fear → heart races, muscles tense.
Emotions are the raw data of your inner experience — fast, instinctive, bodily.
Feelings — The Mind’s Interpretation of Emotions
What they are: The mental experience of an emotion once you’ve labeled and thought about it.
Example: The emotion is fear, but the feeling might be worry, unease, or dread.
How they develop: Feelings arise when your brain’s thinking centers interpret what the body’s emotion means.
Feelings = Emotion + Thought + Awareness.
Moods — The Longer-Lasting Emotional Climate
What they are: General emotional states that last for hours, days, or even weeks.
What causes them: A mix of hormonal shifts, environment, sleep, stress, diet, and unresolved emotions.
Example:
A bad night’s sleep + stress → irritability all day
Balanced serotonin → stable, uplifted mood
Moods color how you interpret and respond to daily life.
Behaviors — The Outer Expression
What they are: The actions or reactions that come from your emotions, feelings, and moods.
Example:
Emotion: anger
Feeling: frustration
Behavior: snapping at someone or taking a walk to cool off
Behavior is where inner experience becomes visible action.
The Body Keeps the Story
In massage, I often feel these emotional layers reflected in the body — tension in the shoulders that speaks of overwhelm, tightness in the jaw that holds unspoken words, or a heavy chest carrying unprocessed grief. The body never lies; it simply waits for us to listen.
When we bring awareness to these patterns, healing begins — not just in the muscles, but in the heart.
Simple Tools for Emotional Awareness
Try weaving small moments of awareness into your day:
Step outside and breathe fresh air.
Write freely for five minutes without editing.
Place a hand on your heart and name what you feel.
Move your body — even gentle stretching releases emotion.
These practices invite your emotions to move, soften, and speak — rather than stay trapped beneath the surface.
November Invitation: Gratitude Through Emotional Awareness
This month, I invite you to feed your emotions — to listen, move, write, and honor what your body and heart are asking for.
Gratitude isn’t just about what we have — it’s about how we feel.
When we thank our body for holding space for every emotion, we reconnect with its wisdom.
Take a few quiet moments after your massage, before bed, or during your morning coffee to check in with yourself.
Ask: What emotion is asking to be fed right now?
Listen. Breathe. Trust that whatever arises is meant to move.
If you need a space to reconnect with your body and emotions, I welcome you to join me for a session this month — a moment of stillness, awareness, and release.
Feel. Release. Repeat. This is how we return to balance.