I almost never write about someone else's framework.

But you shouldn't miss Joe Hudson's map of the stages of emotional freedom. I deeply respect his work, and you can learn more here.

The map is a way to understand what emotional freedom actually is and where you are on the road to it.

First, 2 caveats:

• Later stages aren't "better" than earlier ones. Trying to advance through them or thinking that you're more advanced than someone else is just another sneaky way to avoid feeling your emotions.
• The stages aren't linear. You move back and forth between them. In a specific situation this week, I wandered between three of them.

Flowing: As an infant, emotions move fluidly through your body. You just cry when you're upset.

Compressing: You learn that some of your emotions are bad. Crying means you get ignored or punished. You start tightening your muscles to suppress the emotions behind your tears.

Acting out: Your emotions are in charge. You watch yourself over-reacting but can't stop. Raging when someone cuts you off in traffic or avoiding looking someone in the eyes after making a simple mistake.

Managing: You create self-control systems to keep yourself from acting out. Compressing happens subconsciously, but managing is intentional. Your head finds techniques and strategies to keep your emotions from running your life. For me, running every day kept me from acting out my anxiety on my family.

Feeling and allowing: You start feeling emotions again, but you don't direct them at other people or use them to control others. Nobody needs to change so you can feel more comfortable. A story goes with the feeling ("I'm right and they're wrong", "It's not fair."), but you explore the physical sensations of your emotions without trying to make them go away.

Reading signals: With enough allowing, the story around emotions dissolves. You feel fear, anger, or sadness and a reason might immediately arise, but you don't care about the story. The feeling itself is the signal. For example, when I notice feeling irritated or impatient with my partner, it's always because there's something I need to do for myself.

Blending: Fully welcoming your experience of every emotion allows you to stay present with whatever arises. That presence, in and of itself, opens the door to joy. You experience life as terribly rich. Because being fully present with loss, grief, or fear carries its own aliveness, the same aliveness that runs through joy itself.

You can't rush the process. The only way to the destination is through full welcoming of every emotion.

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