How To Practice Self-Care When Love Messes With Your Emotions & Mental Health

All those feelings can really mess you up.

Self-Care Tips When Love, Feelings, & Emotions Mess With Mental Health & Wellness Unsplash 
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Love, feelings, and emotions; we all experience them. While you're probably familiar with falling in and out of love, and the emotional rollercoaster that comes along with it, you may not know just how much this affects your health and wellness.

When struggling with your relationship and love life, some of the best advice is to take care of yourself emotionally. Sex and love are strong forces. Do you let them unconsciously rule your life?

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RELATED: Why Constant Fighting Kills Your Relationships — And Your Health (According To Science)

These are both very emotional experiences, and any drama in your relationships and intimacy can dramatically affect your life. How you deal with emotional upsets in your relationships have a profound effect on your overall health.

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How many times have you been heartbroken? What did it do to your body? How hard was it on your mental health to go through a breakup? What does your body feel like after a huge argument with your lover? Did you engage in any self-care after?

There is no doubt that relationship problems affect your physical well-being. Often, it's the people who are closest to you that treat you the most poorly and vice versa.

Relationships become emotional battlefields.

This is not good for your body.

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During your past love and relationship struggles did you know which self-care techniques to use to soothe your negative emotions and feelings? 

You and your partner can learn how to become each other's healers instead of wounding each other in your relationship. You can begin by nurturing all the various emotions that arise when relating to others that affect you deeply. You can learn how to express instead of repressing your emotions. Also, you can learn how to communicate in a way that creates connection instead of upset and defensiveness.

Stop letting your emotions drag you down in a relationship and learn how to take care of yourself emotionally when it comes to sex, love, and intimacy. Otherwise, you'll find your body aging faster than it needs to. You'll find your heart shutting down due to built up resentments and unspoken words.

This needs to change. You are evolving. Instead of pretending things are OK, it's time you look deeper.

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Are you ready to empower yourself, your emotional health, and your relationships?

RELATED: 5 Tips For Taking Care Of Yourself When You're Depressed

Traditionally speaking, medical doctors help with your physical health. Therapists, psychiatrists, and psychologists work with mental health, but you may not think about a doctor healing your emotional health.

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Emotional health and wellness can be anything that isn't directly seen with the naked eye. Everyone operates from the subconscious. The subconscious is considered to be your emotional and energetic bodies.

Some theorists will tell you that you operate from your subconscious 90 percent of the time, not from your mental mind. You operate only 10 percent from your conscious and analytical mind!

So no matter how much you think your thoughts are affecting you, it's actually what is happening on a subconscious level that's affecting your mental and physical health. And this needs to be addressed in order to take care of yourself emotionally.

Now, what is your subconscious?

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Your subconscious can be anything from unhealed emotions from your past, to belief systems, to attachments to people. It is everything you don't see, but still feel. The ailments from your subconscious often lead to your anxiety, depression, and even physical pain and disease.

These ailments can come from traumatic events you have experienced — either as an adult or in childhood — or it can be inherited from your parents or ancestors.

Taking a pill to fix an emotional problem isn't going to work if you want to live a fulfilling life. Having support and skilled healers to help you face your most agonizing emotions will enhance your health. Knowing how to process your emotions in a productive way is one of the most powerful skills you can have as a woman.

What role do emotions play in the healing process? 

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The short answer is everything. Emotions are stored in certain parts of our bodies. For instance, anger can be stored in the liver or gallbladder. Something like unworthiness can be trapped in our reproductive system.

When these emotions get stuck or trapped in certain areas or organs of the body, that organ or part of the body may start to have issues or cause pain. Eventually, if it isn’t healed it can lead to diseases, such as cancer.

Often times, when women have problems conceiving children or problems with childbirth, it could be because of the unworthiness they've felt in their life.

RELATED: 4 Essential Ways To Take Care Of Yourself When Healing From A Destructive Relationship

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Many people are just beginning to understand how emotions play a huge role in their health. But many haven't learned how to be in their bodies (where the emotions are) and instead hang out in their heads. You, too, might be making up stories in your mind instead of feeling your uncomfortable emotions.

When you are upset with someone, it is easy to make up stories in your head. Start telling yourself how horrible that other person is and make them out to be a monster (in your mind). That is big storytelling and it doesn't help you get closer to releasing those stuck emotions. It seats them in deeper.

Brene Brown, an amazing speaker, researcher, and storyteller says, "The most powerful stories that are told are the ones we tell ourselves." But they are often not true. She talks about how to reckon with your emotions and change your story.

Did you know that you could be a love addict? You create energetic cords when you fall in love with someone.

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Do they go away when the relationship is over? What have you experienced? It's not always easy to stop thinking about a past lover. You are sharing emotional energy with them through that cord.

It's important to clear the unhealthy cords you've created from a past love relationship that has gone sour, especially with an abusive relationship. If you don't, you'll keep running the same unconscious stories and keep attracting unhealthy relationships.

Your heart won't be open and available to creating healthy connections.

When you have negative or traumatic relationship experiences, they can invoke negative emotions. You're an emotional being, so it is natural. Often you don't process these emotions properly. You've been socialized to avoid these negative emotions at all costs and that they are not “socially accepted.”

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You probably didn't learn in school how to practice self-care.

So many people do things to avoid emotions, such as go to the gym, eat, watch tv, call a friend, or get into love relationships. The problem is, even though your mind may forget about the emotion, the body hasn't. Consciously feeling your uncomfortable emotions prevent them from getting trapped in your body.

Your emotions don't stay silent. They may stay dormant for a while but not silent. They'll eventually manifest in various ways. It could be physical pain, it could be through anxiety and stress, or depression too.

The stress, depression, and anxiety are signs that are telling you that you're not paying attention to something that needs to be released and healed on a subconscious level. If you don't listen to these signs, in time, it gets worse.

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This means it could lead to a more serious disease, such as cancer, that more often than not can be fatal. Or you suffer significantly for the rest of your life. Some would argue a life of suffering is not worth living.

Freeing yourself from stuck emotions and feeling and becoming more emotionally aware is a process and a journey.

RELATED: How To Take Care Of Yourself (Without Being Selfish And Self-Serving)

Anna-Thea is an educator and author. If you would like to learn how to take care of yourself emotionally check out her online coursesIf you would like to find out more about Galeet and her service, visit her website.