Emotional Intelligence and Tics (and further reading)

I regularly talk about the importance of emotional intelligence in the context of Tics & Tourettes.

But what is the connection? I mean, my body is moving and twitching and I can't seem to stop it, but what on earth do my emotions have to do with it? And am I frustrated because of the tic? Or do the emotions make me tic?

I never even considered that my emotions would have anything to do with my ticcing back in the day when it ran rampant through my body. 

But the more I became connected to my own body, and the feelings it allowed me to discover (emotions), then I discovered how intimate my emotions were to the movements my body were doing by itself. 

Right now it is unlikely you're connected to or aware of the inside of the right knee.

Not until I've mentioned it to you. Now you're thinking about your knee. The front of your knee. The back of the knee. The sides of your knee. My words are encouraging you to move your awareness to this area of your body. 

Now, Imagine living each moment, every day, connected with that much awareness to ALL of your body, including the area of your body that you tic. 

If you're aware of where your tic starts. Your body doesn't tic. Because you're with the body. 

It's possible. But most of us spent so much time in your heads, we forget to be present and aware of our own body. 

That's when we tic. That's why we tic. 

The body is screaming for your attention. But you're so worried or frustrated or scared or annoyed of it, that you BLAME it. 

With each blame of our own body, we make it worse. We are literally emotionally attacking ourself. 

So we learn to improve our awareness of the intelligence of our emotional body. 

What does it mean to be 'in the body'? What are feelings and how do they reveal themselves to us? What should we do with emotions? What should we do if they're overwhelming us? How varied are emotions? What's the relationship between emotions and your thoughts? How do deal with 'bad' emotions?

This list goes on. But the more we improve and allow ourselves to feel our feelings, the less opportunity the body as to tic. By feeling, we dissolve the urge to move before the urge overwhelms us. 

I've learned from a variety of incredible teachers over the last few years and in my most recent weekly Mindfulness class for Tics I was asked if I could recommend some further reading on the subject.

Here are a couple of powerful book recommendations:

The Body Keeps The Score - Bessel van der Kolk

This is one of the most important books ever written on the understanding of our body, emotions and how we store trauma (however big or small.) If we tic, we have at some level stored trauma in our body. Get it on Amazon.

The Gifts of Imperfection - Brene Brown

Fully accepting ourselves is not taught in our schooling system. And so many of us dissociate parts of self because we don't believe we're 'good enough', in the ever-competitive world we live. Knowingly or unknowingly, these unintegrated parts of self cause dis-ease at different stages of our life. Our Tic is a clue to a part of self that is not integrated, and Brene Brown shows us the way to wholehearted (and whole body) living. Get it on Amazon.

 -d