Emotional Digestion

Emotional digestion is not so different than that of food. Both move through the body via the path of the digestive system. Both require digestion, assimilation, elimination and integration. Undigested emotional charges are often at the root of digestive issues. They build up physically, blocking the space needed for proper digestion of food. There is no escaping the mind-body connection.

When an emotion is overwhelming and can’t be digested in real time, its charge is stored in the body until it can be processed. In interest of not feeling this charge, we don’t breathe into the place we store it, resulting in involuntary chronic contractions. These contractions often land in our organs, our fascia, our digestive system. In this way, the energy becomes physical, effecting our health and wellbeing.

Chi Nei Tsang is the art of emotional digestion. This is done by bringing a gentle, listening touch to the organs and the entire abdomen, in order to bring one’s consciousness into these places of contraction, via the return of the breath. Once these places are contacted, emotional processing begins. We don’t need to understand why we feel the way we feel, or to know where it came from. Sometimes we find emotional charges from before we could even speak. They can’t be rationalized, and the power is in embracing their irrational nature. We need to validate our emotions, releasing them from judgement, guilt and shame, so they are free to digest. (Please see Establishing Safety, Working with Triggers for more on this). My teacher, Gilles Marin, calls emotions "the food of the soul."

Assimilation is the ability to take the wisdom from the emotion, setting us free to eliminate what we don’t need. From there, we integrate a new level of spaciousness, free of that emotional charge. This process often takes place during sleep, in dreamtime, the only time we allow ourselves to be 100% emotional. Chi Nei Tsang triggers dreamtime and it’s very common during a session to sleep, or enter an altered state.

*Learn more about Chi Nei Tsang