"Emotional freedom is a homecoming to your own heart and fullest power. It salutes authenticity, not conforming to someone else's notion of what to feel or how to be." —Dr. Judith Orloff, author of the New York Times bestseller Emotional Freedom: Liberate yourself from negative emotions and transform your life (2009) The middle of the night, before you can fall asleep or early morning thoughts that swirl and fuel agitation, worry and fear preventing you from falling asleep. The feeling of being lonely and falling prey to the purport by society that the simple solution is to find someone to be romantically involved with. Ratcheted chronic anxiety that cements you from pursuing something new or chasing your dreams or simply enjoying your everyday life. An assumed negative default in perspective when it comes to the world, the future, especially your future and what is actually possible no matter what your age. In sharing each of these scenarios, maybe you most strongly identified with one, or maybe none of them spoke to you, but moments of one or two rear their heads in your life when your energy is depleted or life temporarily becomes exhausting. And hopefully, maybe you recognize your former self in one or more of these and now are able to celebrate having broken free of the counterproductive emotional patterns that were learned and accepted as "how life will be". Wherever you find yourself on the continuum of learning the skills of attaining emotional freedom, after reading/listening to today's post/episode you will have a clear path forward for identifying with the latter description in the previous paragraph. I picked up Dr. Judith Orloff's book because I needed to read it. I knew the skills I needed to improve the quality of my emotional life were lacking, but I did not know what they were or, if I had a sense of them, how to strengthen them. Dr. Judith Orloff defines emotional freedom as increasing your ability to love by cultivating positive emotions and being able to compassionately witness and transform negative ones, whether they're yours or another's. Choosing to become emotionally free is entirely the choice of the individual. Whether healthy emotional patterns were modeled by your parents or not, you can learn them, apply them and shift how you engage with the world, how you experience the world and thus how you move forward and elevate the quality of your life experience. Have a look at the benefits of setting yourself free emotionally: BENEFITS of acquiring the the skill of EMOTIONAL FREEDOM liberation from fear navigate adversity without going on the attack, losing your cool, or being derailed by it choose to respond constructively rather than reliquishing your command of the situation whenever your buttons get pushed communicate more successfully and gain more confidence in yourself and empathy for others no longer feel disconnected or lonely feel more comfortable in your own skin be part of nuturing relationships discover more contentment become more flexible with life own the moment no matter whom or what you are facing "be more fiercely alive" liberation from the compulsive tyranny of negative emotions such as worry and anger so you can choose more joy Now to do the homework, the steady and consistent exercises to welcoming the emotional freedom you seek into your everyday life. Today I would like to share with you 34 tips, practices, ideas and insights that spoke to me and what I thought would speak to TSLL readers/podcast listeners. However, there is far more detail in Dr. Orloff's book, Emotional Freedom, which I highly recommend reading and keeping as a resource to return to as you incorporate and habituate the new practices that can improve the quality of your everyday life and cultivate more joy. 1.Discover your emotional patterns: Know thyself What emotional type do you most define yourself as? The Intellectual, the Empath, the Rock, the Gusher (chapter 4 details each