🌀 Emotions VS Feelings, and the Stories from My Nervous System

Hi, Hello, Friends! 🤓

Sundays have become sacred for me.

They are slow. Introspective. Full of grace.
A little yoga. A little journaling.
Sunday’s help me come home to Self.

As time goes on, I will learn what works for me and those reading here on Substack. But for now, I’m leaning into rhythm over rigidity.

And I want Sundays here to also be a space for grounding.

For prompts, reflections, and whatever is *helping, holding and not harming* as I move through what my therapist just today gave me a name Liminal Space! (Yes, it has a name! I knew it must have a name. And yes, I’ll be diving back into that one soon.)

I want this publication to stay open and accessible, at least for now. Most of what I write will likely live outside a paywall not because I don’t believe in my words, but because I believe in sharing them. If something here helps you feel a little less alone, please use it. If it inspires a page in your journal , on your substack, or a softening in your body, I’d love to know. Please share if you feel connected.

Why I Journal This Way

I feel you will need a little context on why I journal this way, and I love telling short stories long and long stories even longer.

Trauma Therapy introduced me to two modalities that I feel have become really central to my healing right now, Somatic Work and IFS (Internal Family Systems). Combined, they’ve helped me connect to my body and inner world in a way I never could before. You will hear me say this over and over I am sure.. I just didn’t have a language or the capacity to even take a step on the road.

I needed to experience what I now know and can give a language to, is an entire fracturing of my ego. My ego died, and the distabilization that created is what led my dang near crawling in a terrifying fragmented state, into trauma therapy. Now, I feel less fragmented but gosh.. those first 3 months… I truly felt like I was dying every single day.

To be honest, I don’t think for me, one would have worked or will work without the other. I have lived my life disembodied split from the very body I live in.

I’m also in Pelvic Floor Therapy, which I began after a difficult stretch of complications from surgery to remove advanced cervical cancer cells this past December. This also was the catalyst of an unfortunate series of events which I am still battling each new checkpoint with my health. Step by Step, I will get to the all cleared stage!

This work is also deeply somatic. At first, I couldn’t release anything. The tension and trauma in my body were so held, so buried, that even with breathwork and guidance, nothing would let go.

It took time. Presence. A therapist who stayed with me. And eventually something shifted.

There was a moment when all the holding I didn’t even know I was doing… finally let go. Not through willpower, but through surrender. Through safety.

I had never experienced anything like it before. It was beautiful. My body deserves this.

But here’s a glimpse into how my brain would have take this, the reality of that trauma being held in my body would have consumed me and sent me into a shame spiral. But now it calls me to show up with presence, curiosity, and compassion.
Because there is a path through this. And I AM ON THE ROAD walking it, one breath at a time.

If you’ve seen the Pixar movie Inside Out, you already have an idea of what IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy is about.

If you remember in the movie, different emotions Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust live inside a girl named Riley and take turns “driving” her reactions. IFS builds on a similar idea: that we all have different parts inside us, and they each have their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.

But in IFS, those parts are not just emotions they’re more like roles shaped by life experiences. Here’s how they’re grouped in the model:

• Managers: The parts that keep you in control. They’re perfectionists, caretakers, planners trying to prevent pain.
• Firefighters: The parts that react when pain breaks through our capacity. They might overeat, shut down, lash out, scroll endlessly anything to stop the hurt as fast as possible.
• Exiles: These are the younger, wounded parts that carry shame, grief, fear, or trauma. They’re often hidden away, but they need healing the most. This is the inner child, this is the one you really have to go back for first and have a calm gentle seat next to. And then you just have to listen and be present and safe. This is the hardest so far for me. My inner little girl is very wounded, and she needs radical compassion.
• Self: Your true core. Calm. Compassionate. Curious. Present. When you’re in Self, you’re able to listen to your parts without judgment and help them heal.

IFS isn’t about getting rid of any parts it’s about creating inner harmony, flow, and rhythm. The goal, I am told is for each part to feel heard, cared for, and no longer stuck in the past.

I will just share a couple infographics going over IFS to give better understanding, and please take the time to go from here and learn more. I am only at the In-Between, the liminal space. There is so much more to learn and integrate!

As time goes on I will share a few of my actual journal pages over on Notes. I truly believe it helps to see what this kind of inner work looks like in real time especially when all of it feels like stepping into a brand-new universe.

I’ll also include a few pages from the past, in case other prompts or reflections resonate more with where you are right now.

Take what you need. Leave what you don’t. And let it meet you where you are.

This Week’s Journaling Prompt 🖋️

You’re welcome to use it as is, or adapt it.

💭 A part that’s present today:

“Who showed up the loudest in me this week?”

(the part that still waits for their return, the protector trying to stay ‘cool,’ the exile that feels discarded)

🌀 Name the emotion:

Name the emotion, even if it’s layered, messy, complicated. Name it.

(grief and tenderness, shame wrapped in longing)

🧠 What is my Body telling me?

What’s is showing up loudest in your body today?

(chest tightness, hives, tingling in my hands, heavy legs, shallow breath)

🌸 What helped or what is holding?

(what is holding me in this?)

(“I placed one hand over my chest. I whispered, ‘You don’t have to earn your worth. You are safe.”)

🪞Integration how I’ll walk with this part today:

*Mine might look something like:

“I’ll let her be seen without rushing to fix her.”

or

“I’ll move slower than my panic wants me to.”

Thank you for meeting me here, friends! 💌

A la Luna,