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Looking for an emotions worksheet? You’ve come to the right place.

This week I began Week 5: Emotions via the Chopra Ayurvedic Health Certification Program through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

But even before studying emotions via Ayurvedic teachings, I have been talking about it as it relates to your gut-healing journey. In case you want to review, check these out:

1. How to Deal with Overwhelming Emotions (in order to heal your gut) [Episode 58 with Kimberly Lucas]
2. Emotional Healing

There is a direct correlation between the emotions of our daily lives and healing (or a lack thereof) the gut.

So before I give you my emotions worksheets, I want to dive into all things emotions for context.

Happiness

In the world of emotional intelligence, happiness is always thrown around.

Here is what Ayurveda teaches,

Happiness for no reason is when you connect with your spirit-identity. Your place of reference comes from within and is called self-referral. It’s an internal state that’s independent of external circumstances, events, people, and things—when happiness doesn’t come from possessions, accomplishments, relationships, or any external event.

In other words, happiness comes from within. 

It does not rely on external sources. 

And having emotional freedom is a natural part of the process of reconnecting with the true you.

So What are Emotions?

Simply put, and according to the dictionary, basic emotions are a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.

It’s the yin and yang of comfort and discomfort in that all emotions will stem from one or the other. 

And because of this, our intuition is to lean into the physical sensations of comfort; crowding out the discomfort.

Your own primary emotions display by way of emotion words and an emotion vocabulary like:

• anger
• sadness
• happiness
• anxiety
• fear
• surprise
• love
• disgust 
• joy

[By the way, anyone else thinking of Inside Out right about now?!]

These emotions are changeable.

Think about how often on any given day you toggle between the above emotions.

However, the true self is unchanging.

And it is always in the silent and blank space between your thoughts. [Remember this from my article on meditation?]

Emotional Intelligence

According to the Chopra Ayurvedic Health Certification Program,

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize what emotion you’re feeling and to manage that emotion in a way that benefits you. It also includes your ability to accurately interpret and respond appropriately to the emotions of other people. 

By understanding this, we can use emotions for personal growth and ultimate gut healing​.

• Emotions start as thoughts in the mind, which create sensations in the body.
• Your conditioning determines your next though, based on how you identify yourself. This ultimately determines how you feel.
• You make choices based on your thoughts. Those choices reinforce your identity.
• When your identity or sense of self is challenged or reinforced, your emotions send signals to the brain and body.
• Emotions are your internal guidance system.

Remember how I always talk about fight-or-flight and the digestive system?

Well emotions also play into this. 

In the Ayurvedic Health Certification Program we studied this idea,

When you feel fear, anxiety, or other negative emotions, your body responds with the fight-flight-freeze response. This impacts your body by raising your heart rate and increasing the production of cortisol, adrenaline, and other stress hormones. This information continues to communicate back to the emotional parts of the brain and other systems in the body.

In other words, your own feelings are definitely playing into your healing (or a lack thereof).

And for the record, to this day, I have to focus on this in a major way to ensure my gut continues functioning optimally.

Before I healed my gut for good in 2018, I had no clue just how big of a deal my own emotions were contributing to the illnesses.

Repressed pain builds up emotional ama.

In the podcast episode I recorded with Kimberly, we talk a lot about how past traumas (that have been left to simmer with no healing) contribute to current suffering.

And this is precisely what the idea of repressed pain building up emotional ama means.

During Week 1 of the Ayurvedic Health Certification Program, the term Ama (a Sanskrit word) was explained:

Weak digestive fire; toxic residue that accumulates in the body

Emotions, like food and environmental factors, can be toxic as well.

And over time, that suppressed pain builds up emotional ama, leading to suffering.

Here are 4 things that cause emotional ama:

1. Anxiety or anticipated pain
2. Anger or pain from the past that wasn’t confronted, embraced, or released at the time it occurred
3. Guilt or pain directed inward
4. Grief or sadness from the past that wasn’t expressed

Now I don’t know about you, but I see myself (either in the past or still to this day) in ALL of them.

And each of them are a critical component to where we find ourselves in the present moment.

Unreleased emotional ama can lead to serious physical ailments.

“Ayurveda recognizes that about two-thirds of our physical ailments have an emotional root cause. Emotional release work can be a very powerful way of healing the body.”

Deepak Chopra said something in the course that I just had to share with you:

Suffering is pain that we hold on to. It comes from the mind’s mysterious instinct to believe that pain is good, or that it cannot be escaped, or that the person deserves it.

Sit with that thought for a moment.

Doshas and Emotions

By now, if you’ve been following my Ayurvedic series, you know that we are learning everything about the different doshas and how they relate to every last piece of our lives. 

In the course, you will learn about your own dosha and then how to navigate life by knowing it.

For the record, I am a Vata-type x 1,000.

Emotions Worksheet

Click HERE to save this article on emotions and the emotions worksheet for later.

Alright, now as promised, I wanted to give a free worksheet that you can use for your own journey.

While there are many feelings worksheets and other printable worksheets regarding emotions, I wanted to create one that incorporated the Ayurvedic teachings and what I’m learning in my independent work through the course. 

The reason is simple: I believe it is an important part of your gut-healing journey and I wanted to make it conducive for and to that.

People of all ages can use these Ayurvedic-based emotions worksheets and can take otherwise challenging situations and make sense of them.

This is what they look like:

And you can download the free resource PDF’s HERE.

Remember, for a full explanation of the 7 responses, you’ll find them in the full course.

At a general high-level, here are the 7 responses for emotional regulation (as indicated on the interactive worksheets):

1. Fight-Flight-Freeze
2. Reactive
3. Restful Awareness
4. Intuitive
5. Creative
6. Visionary
7. Sacred

The first two are fear-based; while the rest are love-based. This list is not based on facial expressions, but instead how we respond.

Wrap-Up

​Remember, there is no “correct feeling.”

There are just emotions and feelings; they are what they are.

WE choose what and how to deal with them.

What’s important is understanding how they are playing into your health.

And if the answer is, “I’m realizing I have no healthy coping skills,” then that’s the work you must focus on.

The Full Ayurvedic Series

This article is part of my full Ayurvedic series.

In addition to the hundreds of articles and thousands of hours I’ve spent in the last decade devoted to all things gut health and gut healing, I am working on becoming a certified Ayurvedic practitioner, so that I am able to give my clients the best, most comprehensive guidance for healing – 100% on an personalized level.

If you’re interested in working 1-on-1 with me, you can sign up HERE today.

Here are all the previous articles on Ayurveda you can binge-read now:

1. What is Ayurveda – [The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide]
2. Ayurveda for Balance
3. Ayurvedic Food List
4. Mindful Movement Exercises
5. Yoga vs Meditation
6. Kitchari Cleanse Recipe [One Pot Kitchari]

I have also put together an ‘Ayurveda in Gut Healing’ Pinterest board where you will find a ton of resources.

Xox,
SKH