Your long term happiness and overall well-being depend on your emotional presence.

What is Emotional Presence?

Emotional presence is more than just feeling emotions; it’s about being in your emotions and staying connected to them in the moment.

You might think of it as living more fully in the present moment, firmly grounded in the now, while you are informed by both your past and the future you hope to create. It gives you the ability to attune your feelings and those of others, which allows you to be your true self and to create authentic connections and meaningful relationships.

When you’re emotionally present, you’re not just going through the motions of life. You’re fully engaged with life, connected to your inner world and the people around you.

A strong sense of emotional presence means you’re truly living with an open-hearted connection to your inner world, other people, and the world you live in.

Emotional Presence Entails:

1. Attunement with yourself. You are aware and intimately connected to your inner experiences, emotions, thoughts, and actions. You’re fully aware of your emotional states, without denying or avoiding them. You’re in touch with your needs, able to listen to your intuition, and you act in ways that support your welfare.

2. Attunement with others. You are able to tune into the emotions of others, in order to foster deeper, more authentic connections. You are sensitive to their feelings, needs, and unspoken messages, and you respond in a way that shows that understanding. You can create a sense of genuine connection.

3. Emotion regulation: You can manage your emotional responses in a way that helps you stay grounded and in charge of yourself. You can understand your emotions and you can modulate them in the service of your and others’ wellbeing.

4. Moment-by-moment awareness. You are able to stay conscious of how you feel in the present, without being swept away by old hurts or anxieties about the future. You’re in touch with what is happening in the moment, with an attitude of openness and curiosity.

Emotional presence is an ongoing dance between feeling, expressing, and managing your emotions. It’s a remarkable way to live. Unfortunately, unresolved emotional conflicts or trauma can rob you of this emotional capacity and deeply impact your ability to remain present.

How Emotional Conflict and Trauma Get in the Way of Emotional Presence

Unresolved conflicts and trauma leave lasting imprints on who we are. They can trigger reactive or avoidant behaviors that make it impossible for us to engage in  the present moment. When we feel triggered, our automatic response is either to react in a volatile way or to shut down. Either way, we avoid the emotions we need to process and heal.

These defense mechanisms might have helped you survive difficult moments in the past, but, in the long run, they prevent you from experiencing your emotions fully and making meaningful connections with others.

The Impact of Unresolved Emotional Conflicts and Trauma on Emotional Presence

1. Emotional Reactivity: Trauma can leave you feeling emotionally “on edge.” You are likely to react to present situations with the same level of intensity that was stirred up in past situations . It’s like you’re reliving old pain, stuck in the same story over and over again. Instead of responding from being grounded in your emotions, you might lash out and push others away.

2. Emotional Numbing: Sometimes, the pain becomes too much, and the only way to cope is by shutting down emotionally. While this may protect you in the short term, over time, it leads to emotional disconnection. You become distant – not only from your own feelings but from those of others, and this can leave you feeling emotionally isolated or alone; people in your life  may feel like they can’t quite connect with you.

3. Living in fear: Unresolved pain holds you in a default “alertness” mode. Your emotions and fears are closely linked, even when you’re not aware of it, and this makes it immensely difficult to stay grounded in the present moment. Instead of feeling your emotions as they naturally arise, you’re on guard for potential threats, which prevents you from experiencing or understanding your individual or collective emotional landscape.

4. Avoidance of vulnerability: To be emotionally present, you need to be vulnerable – to be able to experience and express / with and without words – all the range of emotions from love and joy to sadness, anger, and disappointment. But, if old experiences (or trauma) have taught you that vulnerability is dangerous, you might avoid your emotions, fearing that they’ll only bring more pain.

5. Disowning parts of yourself: When emotions are too painful, you might unconsciously push parts of yourself aside. This emotional fragmentation can leave you feeling incomplete, unable to access the full spectrum of your feelings or your true self.

How EMDR and Psychoanalytic Therapy Can Help You Rebuild Emotional Presence

The good news is that emotional presence can be reclaimed. Psychoanalytic therapy combined with EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Therapy) work synergistically to help you integrate unresolved emotional conflicts and trauma. It is a powerful path for emotional healing.

2. Create a safe space for vulnerability: Psychoanalytic therapy offers an attuned emotional space where you can express your emotions without fear. Over time, this emotional safety helps you feel more comfortable with vulnerability, which, in turn, enables you to open up to feelings you’ve been avoiding for years.

3. Work through defense mechanisms: Many of us develop defense mechanisms – like repression, denial, or intellectualizing feelings – in order to protect ourselves from pain. A skilled therapist can help you gently confront these defenses, so you can start to reconnect with your emotions, rather than repress them.

4. Reintegrate disowned parts of yourself: Through therapy, you can begin to reconnect with the parts of yourself you’ve disowned or pushed away. As you metabolize past experiences that have shaped your emotional world, you can reintegrate these aspects and become whole again, allowing for deeper emotional presence.

5. Strengthen emotional resilience: The more you confront and process difficult emotions, the more resilient you become. Over time, therapy helps you develop the ability to stay present with your feelings, even when they’re uncomfortable. Eventually, you’re able to build your own deep resources of emotional strength and presence.

Together, EMDR weaved in with a psychoanalytic therapy allow for an effective and in-depth processing and integration of emotional conflict and trauma.

You Can Reclaim Your Emotional Presence

Unprocessed emotional conflicts and trauma can steal the present moment from you. When you regain your sense of emotional presence, you claim your whole self in the now. While this kind of devoted emotional transformation does take work, its rewards are immeasurable.

What becomes possible when you step onto the path of healing to repair your past and embrace your future?

 

I offer psychodynamic therapy, EMDR therapy (EMDR certified), psychoanalytic therapy (certified), combined with CBT, and grounded in the neuroscience of psychotherapy and relationships in order to help people discover how to live fully in the present and create more fulfilling, successful lives. 

In particular I have an expertise working with creatives, performers, and artists of all kinds – writers,  actors, fine artists, musicians, producers, directors, fashion designers, and creative entrepreneurs. My office is in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. I provide in-person and online psychotherapy to people across California.

If you are interested in EMDR therapy, please contact me for your free 15 minute consultation to see if this therapy is appropriate for you.