Haleh Banani – How to be emotionally healthy

			How do you keep it together? When you're in the midst of chaos? When things are falling apart around
you? How do you remain emotionally healthy, that's what I'm going to share with you today. Many
people think that healthy positivity means you need to always look on the brighter side, that you
should never feel sad or never feel unhappy. And that's just not true. Healthy positivity means that
you're able to embrace all the emotions that you feel grief, sadness, whether it's anxiety, feeling
a little bit down, whatever it is, all of these are appropriate responses to the feelings that
you're having to things that are happening around you. And you don't have to shut them down. And
		

			just physical pain tells you there's something going on. If you start having pain in your side, or
in your back or in your neck, you start examining. And that's exactly what these emotions do, they
get us to stop, to examine, and to find out more about what's going on. And when you find that you
are able to so instead of let's say distracting yourself from these emotions, let's say you're
feeling anxious, and okay, let me just distract myself, I just need to, I need to watch something I
need to be with someone, instead of distracting yourself, I want you to do this step I want you to
first of all start breathing. And then I want you to label this emotion. What is the emotion? Is it
		

			grief? Is it sadness? Is it anxiety? What is it that you're feeling because once you label the
emotion, you can actually have a little bit of a distance from it, and you're not immersed in it,
you feel it? And I want you to look at it and think of this emotion. First of all, think about where
you feel it in your body. Is this sadness? Is it something you feel in your heart? Is it something
you feel in your gut? Where are you feeling it. And if you could give it a color or a shape or
something, imagine it in a physical form, then that way, you are able to wrap your head around this
and you can control it much better. So this is one of the one of the ways of dealing with emotion,
		

			you don't want to just distract yourself, you want to label it, you want to give it a physical form.
And there are times when a good cry will really help. We don't need to suppress our emotions. I know
that many people have been taught to suck it up, especially men in our society, they've been told to
Don't cry, and you're a wimp If you cry, and suck it in or suck it up actually. Second, it is
another form of advice. But a second up, don't let yourself feel those emotions. But that's that
really causes a lot of suppression. I deal with clients all the time, who have suppressed years and
years of these emotions. And they're not sometimes they're not even in touch with their emotions
		

			anymore. They don't know what they're feeling because they've been told what your feeling is wrong
and shut it down. When you start acknowledging these negative emotions when you embrace it, and
recognize that you know what, right now, I'm feeling really anxious, and I'm anxious because of
these reasons. It allows you to feel those emotions. And when you have a emotional you accept your
emotions without judging them. You're not thinking that you're a wimp, you're not thinking that you
are being weak, and you start embracing it. And you have this emotional acceptance. And that will
help you in dealing with life stressors, those individuals who have a healthy acknowledgement, they
		

			recognize when they have issues they recognize when they have negative emotions, and they accept it,
they are able to have a higher level of life satisfaction. They have a better ability to resolve
stresses and challenges that come up when you just pretend that a problem doesn't exist because
somehow you don't allow yourself to feel negative emotions. This is when you either are going to
become delusional when you don't accept the realities of life, the negativities of life, the
hardships of life, or you're going to just really suppress the emotions, the end it's going to come
bubbling up at one point or another. So make sure that you acknowledge the emotions that you have.
		

			And many times we don't think of like having positive healthy positivity. You don't think of it as
having negative emotions. But it really actually teaches us it teaches us to accept and maybe we
will never get to a point where we will
		

			Welcome sadness or grief or anxiety, the way we do happiness. But what we learned is that in
accepting get, then we are able to be at peace with ourselves, we are not judging ourselves. We're
not bashing or beating ourself up because of these emotions, it makes us actually pause, and to
really delve in and wonder what is going on here? Why am I feeling these, and as you start allowing
yourself to feel these emotions, then you can actually process it, then you can actually resolve
issues with your loved ones, were no longer pretending it's not there, because avoidance behavior,
pretending that something is not happening. If we don't accept that something is not happening, does
		

			not take it away, it is so critical for us to accept the things that we are going through and be
real with ourselves. That is a very critical part of being emotionally healthy. We recognize that
there are ups and downs, we recognize that there are negative emotions. And I want you to just
imagine, for a moment, not having any kind of challenging emotions, how would you know that you're
happy? If you never felt sadness? How would you know that you're proud if you never felt
embarrassment, so all of these emotions that Allah has provided for us is something that is giving
us some reminders, it is a kind of a, a sign on the road telling us that there's something wrong and
		

			if we acknowledge it, and we process it, we will be such healthier individual. So it's important for
us to recognize that a person who is emotionally healthy, and having a healthy positivity, as
opposed to toxic positivity is when you just think that you should have no negative emotions,
everything is sunny all the time. And if a negative thing, even if it comes up, you shut it down,
that's toxic, because you're not really you're not dealing with reality. But healthy positivity
means that you are dealing with the ups and downs of life, you accept the fact that you are sad at
times, you have grief, you have anxiety, you have worries, this is a normal part of life. And I want
		

			each of us to be able to accept this, as healthy positivity means embracing the negative emotions in
our life. We don't have to shut it down. We don't have to ignore them. We don't have to sweep it
under the rug, we really have to be able to accept embrace and when you do when you can accept all
the ups and downs, all of the negativity that comes then you are going to be able to handle life
stressors in such a better way. So tell me what you're going to do in sha Allah in dealing with your
emotions. When negative emotions tell me what is it that you feel generally? Is it sadness? Is it
grief? Is it anxiety? What do you feel most often? How have you dealt with it in the past? Was it
		

			something that you felt this is wrong? Oh my god, I'm failing. I'm supposed to be positive and I
shouldn't have these emotions. Do you start beating yourself up for having negative emotions? And
now if you were to embrace the emotion, how will your life change? How will it change? If you're
actually like, you know what, yes, I am feeling very, maybe I'm feeling very sad and feeling very
anxious about my job and feeling anxious about my relationship, and how are you going to embrace it
and how is it going to change by you just coming to acceptance and not judging yourself? So let's
share this on the comments and I would love to get your feedback. I always read all the comments and
		

			and I think it's healthy to discuss it. Thank you so much for tuning in. Salaam aleikum.