Hi,
I'm Dr.
Denise Webb,
Clinical psychologist.
Welcome to my video on emotional neglect.
So today I'm going to talk about how you can jumpstart your healing from your childhood emotional neglect by doing three things.
In just a moment I'm going to share with you some very quick tips.
Doable and powerful tips.
That you can do in your everyday life.
That will literally give you a step up in the healing process.
And if you.
.
.
Do your very best to do them as often as possible.
You will actually begin to change yourself from the inside out.
But first I want to explain how very healable childhood emotional neglect is and why.
So almost all of the difficulties of the emotionally neglected adult arise from one particular thing.
It's basically that wall that you built.
In your childhood.
To block off your emotions.
That wall actually helped you a lot as a child.
It protected you in your childhood home that had little tolerance for feelings.
So it basically blocked off those feelings and kept them on the other side of the wall so that they didn't bother you and they didn't bother your parents.
But as an adult.
Now!
You do not need that wall.
You don't need it now.
In fact,
It is blocking.
Off the energy and motivation.
Direction,
Guidance.
And connection.
That you should have at work in your life every single day.
Your emotions are one of the most amazing resources of your life.
And they are right there inside of you.
Feelings are the carriers of messages from your body.
Straight to your brain.
A feeling is a physical experience that you have in your body and you are meant to feel that experience.
And notice.
And consider what that experience means.
And this is a.
What I just described as a connection between your brain and your body.
And by adding your brain into your bodily experience of feeling,
You can use this internal resource,
Your feelings.
To its fullest.
For example,
If you feel guilt in your chest,
Or your belly.
And your brain notices and considers.
You might realize that you need to apologize for something.
Or if you feel a feeling of unease in your body and your brain notices.
It basically might tell you that you need to set something right.
Frustration may tell you that you need to change your efforts in some way and try something different.
Hurt tells you that you have been wronged by someone or something.
Apprehension basically tells you to prepare for something.
Being separated from this amazing resource.
In your life.
Is really what leaves you feeling unfulfilled or lost.
Or disconnected.
From yourself.
And alone.
Or empty.
It's also why.
.
.
You might be too easily overwhelmed by other people's feelings or avoidant of conflict or distant from your spouse.
And now for the great news.
You can absolutely.
Forge and reconnect.
That bond between your body and your brain.
You can reconnect with your internal emotional world.
And learn how to listen to your feelings and use them.
This is my biggest and most fervent demand.
To teach as many people as possible this amazing life-changing process.
So that everyone who's willing to do this work to learn it.
Can benefit from all of the wonderful things that it will do.
Bring them.
Basically,
Those things are energy.
Motivation.
Direction.
Guidance.
Self-knowledge.
The ability to search for what you want.
Connection with other people that's genuine and real.
And an ability to be vulnerable and put yourself out there and be seen for who you really are.
All of these things are a description of really emotional health.
And all of these things help people thrive,
Not just survive,
But thrive in this world.
And I want you to have it.
There are three things.
That you can do to give yourself a great jump start on your healing.
The first one I'm going to tell you about is to learn everything you can about childhood emotional neglect.
There is a lot that you can learn,
And what I've discovered I've walked people through this process which I have with many many many many people Each thing that you learn about childhood emotional neglect,
It feels like you're learning something about yourself.
If this is the way that you grew up.
You will feel validated by each thing that you learn.
For example,
What I'm talking about just today.
That what your feelings are for and how your brain is meant to process them.
Is something that many people,
When they hear about it,
They feel like,
Oh,
I've always felt like something was missing in my life.
And this could be the missing link.
Peace for me.
So that's just one example,
But there's so much to learn and each step that you take along the way of learning about childhood emotional neglect,
How it happens and how it affects you.
Can feel very validating and also kind of informs you as you go forward.
The learning process is really the place to start.
Just learning about it,
What causes it,
How it happens,
Applying it to yourself.
And understanding the power of it and how it affects people.
Is really key.
The second thing that you can do is to change your relationship with your emotions.
You've always viewed your feelings because you were taught this as a child.
You've tended to view them as something negative,
Something to be avoided,
A burden perhaps,
A problem maybe.
Just a nuisance and something that not even worth paying attention to.
And if you treat your feelings that way,
Way for long enough.
You actually can end up losing time.
Touch with them.
Because kind of like I don't know.
Let's say you have a little scar on your arm and it just doesn't bother you and you never notice it.
It's,
You don't even experience that scar.
And emotions are the same way.
If you don't pay attention,
If you don't notice them,
If you don't value them.
They'll kind of go away.
They're kind of on the other side of that wall.
But if you shift your view of what emotions are for and what they mean,
If you shift that view and you start to see them as something that is valuable.
That tells you something about yourself.
It might inform you about your past,
A certain feeling.
Your feeling might hold a memory for you.
Both positive and negative.
Your feeling might be warning you.
It might be.
Trying to send you a message about something that you need.
And this is why if you start to pay attention to your feelings and if you start to value them,
And get curious about them.
I mean,
If I could make any one change for you.
With a magic wand,
It would be to make you start to be curious about your feelings.
Because that is the thing that will change your life.
Entire world.
If you're curious about your feelings and you start to.
.
.
Be interested in them instead of viewing them as a hobby.
Problems.
Everything will turn a corner.
Now the third thing I want to talk with you about that you can do to jumpstart your healing is perhaps the biggest one,
And that is It sounds ridiculously simple.
Trust me,
This is so powerful.
It is to start paying attention to your feelings.
Making a concerted effort and a great way to do that three times a day.
Pause for just a moment.
Turn your attention inward.
Close your eyes if you can,
But you don't have to.
People do it when they're driving.
I do it when I'm in the process of all kinds of things that are if you're doing something mindless washing the dishes turn your attention inward and ask yourself What am I feeling right now?
Focus in on your body.
Most feelings happen in your belly,
Your chest.
Some people say they feel it in their throat.
Some feelings you can feel in your head.
But most of them I would say are in your belly and your chest.
So really just tune in.
Turn your attention inward,
Close your eyes if you can,
But you don't have to,
And ask yourself.
What am I feeling right now?
And focus in.
Keep all distractions out of your mind.
Focus just on what's in your body and ask yourself that question,
What am I feeling right now?
And it's very interesting because when you first start doing that,
You might come up with nothing.
I find that that is very common with emotionally neglected people and that is because that wall is still there.
Just because you express a little curiosity,
It doesn't mean you're going to break the whole wall down.
But the great thing is,
Each time,
You do this exercise.
You are literally taking a little chip out of that wall.
Even if you don't experience a feeling.
So if you do this exercise and you think to yourself,
Ah.
I didn't feel a thing.
It's okay.
You don't have to feel something each time you do it.
All you need to do is say,
Well,
I did it.
And then.
Do it again.
A few hours later.
If you can do it three times a day,
That's the very best.
If you can't,
That's okay.
If you do it once a day,
Even if you just start out doing it once a week.
Just do it,
Because every time you do it,
You take a chip out of that wall.
And if you do it.
Long enough and enough times.
You will find that You will.
Start to get inklings of feelings.
And that is because you are forging that connection between your brain and your body.
Taking that wall out so that the blockage is no longer there.
This is an amazing process that has made a dramatic change And by dramatic I don't mean sudden.
I mean impactful.
Change in many,
Many people's lives.
I've helped people do it.
I've witnessed people do it.
I've even been through this process myself.
And this is why I know how very powerful this is.
Once you start to have feelings,
And glimmers of feelings.
Then you can start learning how to name those feelings.
How to identify them and you can start getting curious about not just what am I feeling but Why am I feeling this?
And that's taking us into further steps.
But all of these steps are very,
Very doable.
And I have watched,
As I said,
Many,
Many people do it,
And I hear from people online.
I don't know,
Dozens of people a day.
Telling me how.
This process has changed their lives.
So I very much encourage you to do it.
And I hope that you have a great day.
Found this video helpful.
If you have something you'd like to share about it,
Maybe your own experience with childhood emotional neglect.
Your experience of this training.
What you feel about your own wall and your own experience of trying to take these three impactful jump start step.
Share it down below in the comments section because I would really like to hear it.
And it's really great for emotionally neglected people to share with each other because it kind of flies in the face of what you were taught in childhood,
Which is don't share your feelings.
Don't share emotional experiences.
And when you share in the comments,
You're doing the opposite of those negative messages.
That were unhealthy that you learned as a child,
Unfortunately.
Well,
Thank you so much for watching.
Take care,
Bye-bye.
