Friends, I recently conducted a lesson on experiencing emotions through the body. And I’m ready to share this activity with you. This is a video lesson conducted as part of the festival of somatic practices. Since the recording of the lesson was not from the very beginning, I will write here what was said at the beginning in text. I, the presenter, Elena Vokulenko, a graduate of the annual program Women's Somatics, a practicing psychologist with experience more than 15 years, somatic therapist, leader of group classes on experiencing emotions through the body and therapeutic dance practice Gabriella Roth's Five Rhythms. I studied somatics and working with psychosomatic symptoms for 4 years, from 2019 to 2022 inclusive, with Alexandra Bezrodnova and her team of teachers, the “Body My Home” project, and with Alexander Volynsky. My class is about how to experience emotions environmentally, through body. How to express emotions without harming yourself and others, and without destroying relationships with loved ones. Most of us learned to suppress our emotions because showing emotions was dangerous. This skill was formed in childhood; it is something we learned from our parents and educators. When people were shamed, scolded, and silenced for showing emotions. Often what scares us is not the emotion itself, but the fear of this emotion, the fear of “destroying everything.” And I, as a psychologist, often encounter the problem that people are too constrained physically and psychologically. And then this affects their health, quality of life, and ability to enjoy life. The problem is that unlived emotion does not end, does not disappear and does not dissolve in the body! The stopped emotion is locked inside the body, and the body freezes, it cannot move freely and breathe deeply, it holds the “forbidden” emotion inside itself. And then this energy remains in us, and we continue to suppress it!!! And the further, the more. Emotions continue to accumulate inside us, and we continue to suppress them. And one side of the issue is psychological: reconsider your beliefs, learn to accept yourself in difficult emotions, don’t spread rot, don’t shut yourself up. This is a separate big topic, allowing yourself to feel all your emotions and live them. Today we will not deal with this issue. And the second side is practical, somatic. How to experience emotions through the body, how to work with fear, helplessness, anger, freezing, and how to be more alive. How to face and live through emotions. The main idea of ​​this practice is to learn to express emotions not at another person, not at the offender, but to experience feelings physically. Express emotions with the body, and not with discussion. Without the idea of ​​getting rid of the emotion. Express physically, not from the mind. Don't say, "I'm angry, I'm angry." And to become this anger yourself - I am anger. Be this emotion, listen to it with your body, and notice how it wants to manifest itself in the body, what movement is born in the body. Our goal is to become alive, free, spontaneous, feeling, breathing. Remove the shackles from the body, revive the body. We want to reprogram our nervous system so that experiencing emotions is safe. We will learn to express emotions freely. For example, when a baby cries, he does not cry “at someone,” he simply cries outward. We will learn to express emotion outwardly in its purest form. You can imagine an emotion as a natural phenomenon, like a thunderstorm or storm. 3 principles of free expression of emotions: – without harming or causing pain to yourself, other people and space. Now we will go to the “Five Directions” practice. Each emotion is associated with some direction of movement. Five directions: down, up, compression, expansion, and circulation. For each movement there is a definition. category of emotions. And then watch the video. You can contact me for personal advice on psychology, somatics and psychosomatics. You can make an appointment by private message on WhatsApp or by phone +7-904-329-6721. Psychologist Elena Vokulenko.