Releasing Emotions stored in the Body

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Release of emotions

Dealing with emotions is never easy. Even less so, when they happen to be very painful, traumatic, or intense. To avoid having to face the potential pain and discomfort, we tend to ignore them. Not realizing that by doing so, the harm that they can (and will) cause only intensifies. Releasing emotions stored in the body is a key component of mindfulness, yoga or any mind-body practice.

When we chronically fail to express ourselves adequately, our repressed emotions build up and fester until the compounded emotional toxicity is eventually forced to make itself known by showing up in a number of ways, such as through insomnia, hostility, anger, fear and/or anxiety.

To help avoid this, in this article, I will explain how trapped emotions can influence our thoughts and perception, and why releasing the emotions that are stored in the body can set us free. Not only mentally, but also physically and spiritually.

Releasing trapped emotions and energy blocks

Repressed emotions can fester like an invisible wound, weakening the body’s defences and draining our energy.

We may succeed in hiding these unresolved emotions from others, and maybe even from ourselves, but they are still there, trapped in our body. Until we give them the attention and care that they need, they will remain there indefinitely manifesting themselves in harmful ways and unknowingly shaping our perceptions and behaviors.

Releasing emotional blockages

An emotional block is the collection of unhealed and repressed emotional wounds we have experienced in the past.

By now, many of us know that our mind and body have an enormous influence on each other. And multiple studies have explored the many possibilities that this powerful bidirectional mind-body connection offers. However, did you also know that everything we say, think, and feel is experienced as much in your body as in your mind?

In fact, our body is a map of every experience we ever had, and while we may have forgotten about certain events on a conscious level, the body does not. Every single stressful event that we experience can trigger our sympathetic nervous system.

This is the branch of our nervous system that cannot be controlled at will and which is in charge of our fight-or-flight response. Our muscles tighten, our pupils dilate, stress hormones are released in our body, and our heart rate speeds up, among other things. All of this occurs in an attempt to give our body an extra burst of energy and strength so that it can handle whatever threat it is facing.

Our body is a map of every experience we ever had.

Whether this an actual life-threatening event or merely an upcoming deadline that is stressing us out, does not matter much. The physiological effects remain the same.

As long as we are able to calm ourselves down again once the “danger” has been dealt with, this automatic reaction is harmless and even useful. If the traumatic event is ongoing, however, or if we fail to deal with it adequately, our body remains flooded with stress hormones for an extended period of time. These hormones then get lodged in our cells. And muscle tension and energetic imbalances become chronic.

To make matters worse, our bodies do not have words to express themselves. They are, therefore, forced to respond with physical sensations and psychological tension. But as many of us are not completely in touch with our own bodies, we fail to understand the message.

Benefits of expressing emotions

Seeing that a large amount of emotional blocks occurred and manifested themselves when we were either too young to consciously remember them or at times when we were not yet capable of dealing with them, it comes as no surprise that recognizing and subsequently addressing them can be particularly hard.

You have to feel it, to heal it.

Here we can actually learn something from animals.

Have you ever witnessed two dogs fighting? The fight can often be intense and rather gruesome. But once it is over, both dogs will literally “shake it off” and walk away. As we can see, their bodies will literally tremble and shake as this nervous energy is released. A rather smart technique that calms down their sympathetic response and allows them to move on without the physical memory of the fight.

We humans, however, do not do this. We have learned to hide and suppress these natural physical responses, and we often carry our worries, stress, and anxiety around with us. Day in, day out. Instead of “shaking it off” and getting rid of the underlying cause, we often make matters worse by trying to soothe ourselves with short-term and addictive tools.

This process usually starts when we are still very young as many of us learned that repressing emotions was the right thing to do. The act of not expressing “negative” emotions, helped us to fit in and earn love. And for some of those who put up a particularly tough front and hid their emotions well, it may have even led to some admiration from others.

But, as mentioned earlier, repressed emotions do not simply disappear. They are here to stay, and even more so when we try to ignore them.

To be able to move on, we need the opposite of repression: expression.

Of course, knowing how to express yourself is key. As is knowing to whom you express yourself. But, over all, expressing emotions can have an enormous healing effect:

Reduces anxiety and stress
Eases negative feelings and depressive symptoms
Helps to see problems in a new light
Improves the ability to connect with yourself and others
etc.

Sitting with painful emotions

It is also important to note that expressing ourselves is not always the right option. For example, sometimes our feelings are so intense that we cannot possibly express them in a constructive way yet. We know that we need to calm down first. However, the more we try to make ourselves calm down, the more agitated we become.

This is where mindfulness comes into play. Instead of frantically trying to calm the storm, we let it pass through us. Giving ourselves permission to feel everything fully. No matter how “negative” the emotion may seem.

Dealing with emotions in this way, takes their power away from them, and more importantly: you also create the space to heal what is (and has been) bothering you. What was unconscious, becomes conscious. What becomes conscious, we can let go of.

Takeaway

Many of us have a habit of burying our pain deep inside. This first began out of necessity, and then became a habit. But constantly trying to attempt to move on as quickly as possible, is, in fact, not a very effective solution.

When we fail to deal with emotional pain when it presents itself, it will always resurface again. Although these repressed emotions may seem non-existent to us on a conscious level, they are, in fact, constantly being re-lived on a subconscious level.

This is why learning the process of releasing emotions stored in the body, can have such a healing effect. Be it through expressing ourselves, or by learning how to sit with painful emotions and letting them flow through us in a mindful way.

Would you like to learn more about releasing stress, and releasing emotions stored in the body? Please take a look at my course “Release Stress through sound and frequency”. Courses are available from SonicYogi.com and the Insight Timer meditation app. This course looks at how mind-body practice (meditation, yoga, sound therapy and more) can help in releasing stress, and adjusting perceptions and behavior patterns to realize a greater sense of ease.

Sources:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5585554/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2723854/

https://www.inbody.es/2018/01/06/how-we-manifest-our-emotional-blockages-in-our-body-a-gestalt-perspective/