The emotional side of personal healing is one near and dear to my heart.Growing up sensitive and expressing my sensitivity in a self destructive way as a teenager (anorexia) was not the optimal way for me to cope with my emotional side. I have come a long ways since then but I still am extremely sensitive so therefore need tools to help me navigate the challenging spaces of my own personal reality. One of my light bulb moments was when I read about the need to be emotionally independent. Looking back on my life path, I realized that much of my challenges that arose were largely self inflicted because I was emotionally dependent. I was emotionally dependent on other people to make me feel like I was okay. I made them (being the outside world) responsible for my well being. If they treated me well, I would be happy and in harmony. If they treated me less than well, I would immediately blame myself and wonder what I had done to affect their emotional state. As long as my external environment was harmonious I was fine. How realistic is it for your external environment to always be harmonious? Not very! I needed to make my internal environment harmonious to me and stop needing my external environment to make things okay inside myself. This is emotional independence. This is knowing that you alone are responsible for your own well being. No one else can give this to you. This allows you the freedom to let go of needing to make everybody else around you happy; because guess what, you can’t do that! You are not responsible for their well being. They are responsible for that. When I learned this, my whole spirit became lighter. I didn’t have to carry the burdens of everyone else who was less than happy and make me responsible for their well being. This is liberation! So when you are feeling emotionally troubled about something in your life, ask yourself if your emotional state is arising because of something that someone did in your external world. Are they making you unhappy? Did a light bulb go on? When people challenge you, emotionally speaking, it is your perfect opportunity to claim emotional independence; make yourself responsible for how good you feel in each moment. Learning how to be emotionally independent would have saved me years of psychotherapy when I was younger! So, claim your own emotional independence from now on. I challenge you to do this in your own life! You will become a much happier individual moving forward. More on emotional healing next time…