This subtle body that emanates a distance from your physical and etheric bodies is the place that holds all of our emotions.
This is our “feeling” body. This subtle body translates vibrations into feelings. These feelings emcompass all- joy, happiness, anger, sadness- all mixed up in one whole.
The emotional body connects the soul to the mind. We begin with how we feel and then we think about it. It is the pathway for the soul to communicate to us.
But in this day and age, most of us ignore this subtle body. We are taught to rationalise our feelings turning them into something they are not. We have moved away from “feeling” our feelings and into “thinking” our feelings and in the end not figuring anything out. When we don’t acknowledge the feeling, whether good or bad, we essentially begin to shut down and become blocked. If someone tells us we shouldn’t feel a certain way, we dismiss an important part of ourselves. Feelings are real, they are there for the moment to be looked at and processed and allowed to flow through. However, when it comes to pain or anger or any other negative emotion, most of us turn away from them because these are not feelings that we are “allowed” to have. But they are just as valid as feeling happy and joyful and peaceful.
Most of this stored emotion is projected into our physical body and becomes the tension and tightness that we see in our clients.When we do release work with them, we are releasing so much more than the muscular tension or the fascial tightness. We are helping them release years of pent up emotions. The reason Pilates helps so many people function better is not only on that physical plane. It is so much more than a mind body modality.
You as an instructor may not realise the extent of the release and sometimes neither will your client. But you will see them begin to seem brighter, stand straighter and have more energy as the days go by. You,as the instructor do not need to know what the emotional release is about. The trauma that caused it becomes irrelevant, but with the release begins the healing process. This may all be happening at an unconcious level to start off with but many clients become much more aware of their emotional body as they become more aware of the physical one. It’s a win/win situation.
And if Pilates make your client “feel” better, what more can we ask for?