Many of us grew up in environments where emotions felt too big—where we had to suppress them, manage other people’s feelings, or walk on eggshells. As adults, this can make emotions feel overwhelming, leading to reactivity, shutdown, or spirals of self-doubt.
This is where emotional resilience comes in. When you have the tools to hold your emotions without them taking over, you’re no longer at the mercy of your nervous system. You can navigate relationships with clarity, set boundaries without guilt, and respond to life with more ease.
In this newsletter, I’m sharing why emotional resilience is such a game-changer when it comes to healing codependency. You’ll get to explore a practice to help you hold your emotions with more steadiness so they don’t feel so overwhelming or all-consuming.
For paid subscribers, I’ve included a meditation to guide you in this practice and shadow work prompts to deepen your practice. You can upgrade your subscription by clicking the link below.
By the end of this post, you’ll have tools to navigate emotions with more confidence and clarity so you can start moving through life feeling more steady, even when the waves hit.
Where does a lack of emotional resilience come from?
If emotions feel unmanageable, it’s not because you’re broken— it’s because, at some point, you didn’t have the support to hold them. Emotional resilience is built in childhood through co-regulation: a caregiver attunes to your emotions, helps you process them, and reassures you that your feelings are safe to feel.
But when that doesn’t happen and emotions are ignored, invalidated, or punished we learn to fear them. We either suppress them (to avoid rejection) or become consumed by them (because we never learned how to process them). This creates patterns of:
Over-responsibility: Managing others’ emotions while neglecting your own.
Avoidance or numbness: Disconnecting from emotions to stay ‘in control.’
Reactivity: Emotions exploding outward due to unprocessed pain.
Self-doubt: Second-guessing your own feelings, fearing you’re ‘too much.’
For those healing from codependency or anxious attachment, emotions often feel like a threat because, in the past, expressing them risked disconnection, abandonment, or conflict. But healing isn’t about getting rid of emotions; it’s about learning how to hold them with self-trust and compassion.
When I think back to my lived experience, I’m sure there were many moments that attributed to this, but one that stands out the most was when I finally shared with my mom that I was experiencing sexual abuse from my dad. I was terrified to tell anyone, but I had reached my breaking point. I begged her not to tell him I told her, and the first thing she did was call him. I remember my mom crying, my dad yelling, and I was absolutely terrified. All my worst fears culminated in that moment. I was called a liar, made to feel wrong about my experience, and in that moment I learned to silence myself to protect my mom from experiencing pain and tried to stay in control by dissociating from my emotions. Basically, I shut down and numb… and I notice I still do this today when I am really dysregulated, or when I’m experiencing discomfort around my emotions and feelings.
My mother wasn’t a bad person, she was a woman who didn’t have the tools to hold my pain because she had never been taught how to hold her own. Understanding this has been an important part of my healing, but it doesn’t erase the impact of what I experienced. True healing didn’t come from waiting for her to be the mother I needed, it came from learning how to be that mother for myself.
Reparenting is the process of offering our inner child the safety, validation, and compassion we didn’t receive. It’s how we heal the mother wound—not through our physical mothers, but by becoming the caregiver we longed for, deserved, and needed. Every time I hold space for my emotions instead of rejecting them, every time I offer myself the tenderness I once sought from others, I am rewriting that story. And this is available to you, too.
Building Emotional Resilience: A daily practice
One of the most powerful ways to develop emotional resilience is learning to self-regulate—to meet your emotions with presence instead of fear. Here’s a guided practice to help you build that muscle:
The Emotional Anchor Practice
This practice helps you ground yourself in moments of emotional intensity, so you can respond rather than react.
Step 1: Name what’s happening
When you feel overwhelmed, pause and name it. Say (out loud if possible):
“I am feeling [emotion].”
“I notice my body is [tight, shaky, numb, etc.].”
“My mind is telling me [thoughts running through your head].”
This helps you step into the role of the observer instead of being consumed by the feeling.
Step 2: Locate safety in your body
Find one part of your body that feels neutral or safe (even if it’s just the tip of your nose or your fingertips). Gently place your hand there and breathe.
If your chest is tight, notice if your hands feel warm.
If your stomach is in knots, focus on the solid feeling of your feet on the ground.
This reminds your nervous system that safety exists, even in discomfort.
Step 3: Offer yourself reassurance
Silently or aloud, say:
“This feeling is safe to feel.”
“I do not have to fix this right now.”
“I am here with myself.”
This rewires your nervous system to recognize that emotions are not an emergency.
Step 4: Give the emotion a path to move
Once you feel more grounded, support the emotion’s movement:
For anger or frustration: Shake out your arms, press into a wall, or exhale sharply.
For sadness: Place a hand on your heart, soften your jaw, and allow tears.
For anxiety: Hum, sway, or press your feet firmly into the ground.
The goal is to allow the emotion to pass through without suppressing or amplifying it.
Integrating resilience into your life
Building emotional resilience isn’t about never feeling overwhelmed, it’s about knowing you can meet your emotions without being consumed by them. The more you practice anchoring yourself, the more trust you build in your ability to handle what arises.
You deserve to experience your emotions fully without fear. You are not ‘too much.’ You do not have to hold it all alone. And you have the capacity to build a relationship with yourself that feels safe and strong.
Whenever emotions feel overwhelming, return to this practice. With time, it will become second nature and you’ll move through life with a deeper sense of ease, no longer at the mercy of what arises, but standing in your own grounded presence.
For paid subscribers: If you desire to be guided through this practice, you can listen to the meditation in the audio of this post. This will help you establish a deeper connection with yourself and start shifting the way you experience your emotions. You can also explore more shadow work prompts for journaling below. We’ll dive into these more in our Shadow Work Sunday Chat 💬
Not a paid subscriber, but want to get more 1:1 support and access bonus meditations and masterclasses? Right now you can join for only $63 for a whole year of support!
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March 12th | 10am (PT)
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📱AMA Chat | Codependency Alchemy Chat
March 26th | 10am-12pm (PT)
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Every Sunday in the Codependency Alchemy Chat
Every Sunday you’ll get shadow work prompts dropped in your inbox. This is where we take our healing to the next level. With over 200 members, it is clear that we are looking for a place to process, vent, share, and be witnessed. The Shadow Work Sunday Chat is a place for you to go to explore the theme of the month and be seen in wherever you are on your journey: struggle, grief, joy, celebration, confusion— all of it is welcome!
Is your relationship aligned?
Before we can understand if our relationship is truly aligned, we must turn inward. Often, our perception of misalignment stems from triggers, unmet needs, and old wounds that cloud our view of what’s really happening. By exploring these layers, we can uncover whether the issue is rooted in our past or in the present relationship.
