emotional wellness
How To Keep Emotions From Getting Trapped
- dremagnet
- Emotional Wellness
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I did the Emotion Code muscle test & my body confirmed failure. I always have lower back pain, really tight hips, & found this is where shame & guilt get stuck.
According to Dr. Bradley Nelson, the average person could have HUNDREDS of trapped emotions. This seems daunting & overwhelming. I’m working on just failure, shame & guilt for now.
Check out The Emotion Code book on Amazon!
Yes I have trapped emotions & yes I’m working on letting them go. But I still have a life to live where all kinds of situations are happening. The external world doesn’t stop for anyone. There must be a way to keep my energy flowing so that my emotions don’t get stuck.
Thinking back to what an emotion is, energy in motion, it’s obvious that it needs to keep moving. The only way to allow an emotion to move is by letting it flow. There’s nothing you have to necessarily do except let it do its thing & get out of the way.
Easy enough. Wrong lol. The reason this is hard to do is because we feel these energies in motion (emotions) & most times they do not feel good.
When something didn’t feel good, I almost instantly went into defense mode, either resisting or trying to ignore it.
The truth is, the more you resist, the harder it is for it to continue on its flow. It literally gets stuck. But this energy has to go somewhere. If it cannot go through you, it will grow out of you.
This is what it means when a trapped emotion manifests as disease. This build up of energy makes its way to physical reality.
This is why my back hurts. My hips are holding on to an energy that I trapped there.
When you refuse to feel it, it doesn’t go away. It grows.
Jump To Contents
3 REASONS WHY EMOTIONS GET STUCK
1. You’re Holding Your Breath
BREATHE
This is HUGE! I used to always hold my breath. A really bad habit that I focused very intently on breaking. This is why I take breathwork very seriously lol.
I would notice myself not breathing for a while & then gasping for a breath after some time. How long was I not breathing for? I used to do this all the time when I was a kid/teenager, well up until my mid twenties.
I started to practice yoga & meditation when I was 27. Yoga taught me how to use my breath to support the movement of my body between poses. Without a steady breath, I don’t feel balanced or centered. This carries into my daily life off the mat as well.
The breath is our life force. It makes up the second Kosha (sheath/layer) of our energetic being. We have 5 Koshas: Physical body (food), Energy body (breath/life force), Mental body (thoughts & emotions), Wisdom body (intuition), & Bliss body (source/heart center).
Breathing is how we allow energy to move through us, keeping us calm & centered, while we process the thoughts & emotions of the Mental body.
The repetition & consistency of practicing yoga & meditation helped make steady breathing a habit for me. I don’t really hold my breath as much anymore. I catch myself almost instantly.
Now, the challenge is staying calm during unfavorable circumstances & when facing everyday stressors. The first & only thing you need to do is breathe.
Without a centering breath, I cannot focus nor have the mental clarity to think about what needs to be done. Without the breath, my body is tense. Which is the next reason emotions get stuck.
2. You’re Tensing Your Body
I hold a lot of tension in my head, neck, & shoulders. When I breathe, it’s hard to be tense. Breathing helps relax the muscles which then allows the energy to flow. I feel like it’s the tensing up that blocks it from flowing.
I catch myself tensing up when I’m doing everyday things. Simple daily tasks that should feel easy are so hard for me & it’s because I’m subconsciously in constant fight or flight.
My nervous system is very dysregulated & with good reason. I was living everyday in a sympathetic state, no wonder everything stresses me out. I’m holding tension, blocking my energy from flowing freely, & experiencing pain from trapped emotions.
Chronic pain is a common symptom of a dysregulated nervous system, which is why emotional regulation & nervous system regulation go hand in hand.
I practice checking in with myself constantly throughout the day to make sure my body is relaxed & I’m taking deep centering breaths.
After a lifetime of stressing about everything, it’s so liberating to be in charge of how I want to feel.
Why is my body even tensing up in the first place? It’s trying to protect me from feeling anything I don’t want to feel.
So I had to change my mindset & attitude towards feelings & emotions at a fundamental level.
3. You’re Thinking Too Much
FEEL
Don’t think about the feeling. Just feel it. It’s okay if it doesn’t feel good. Recognize & become aware of it, but don’t identify with it. It’s the thinking that keeps you reliving it, puts you in a loop, & traps the emotion in your body. Feel it & let it go.
Two fundamental truths that I had to adopt & constantly remind myself:
- I am not my emotions, I experience emotions.
- Struggling is a choice.
Emotions are human nature & I’m always going to have them. There is no point in trying to escape them, it will cause a lifetime of struggle.
The struggle comes when I resist the emotions & think too much about what I’m feeling instead of just feeling it without intellectualizing it.
I do not have to identify with every emotion. I replace “I am” with “I feel.” This lets me experience an emotion without becoming it. I can feel sad but I am not sad. Sadness is just an emotion that I need to experience in order to grow & transcend.
the simple truth
You have to let emotions move through you, it’s the only way & it’s simple when you innerstand that you are not your emotions. You are not even your body or the mind that processes them. You are the soul that is experiencing it.
Become the observer & you can remove yourself from it, as in not identify with it & just feel it.
We are supposed to feel emotions without becoming them. Our natural state is neutral, complete stillness. You are bliss. Feelings are temporary. You can experience emotions as quick or as long as your mind makes you. You can decide to let it go at any moment.
You have the power. We have a body, mind, & soul for a reason. Balance is somewhere in the middle. True freedom.
grounding practices
– Take calm & centering breaths
– Remember who & what I am
– Know my truth & my values
self care rituals
– Yoga
– Meditation
– Breathwork
– Journaling
