Have you ever noticed how much lighter you feel after you’ve had a good cry? Or how babies will shake their fists as they scream? As sentient beings, we are meant to release our emotions through energy – in fact, “emotion” can be thought of as “energy in motion”. This mechanism is inherently built into our system to disperse unneeded energy from our bodies. Dog owners will recognize this in action when their companions get spooked or triggered by another animal; their hackles raise and their ears and tail perk up, and once the “threat” has passed, the dog will instinctively shake the adrenaline out of their system, and they go back to neutral.
As humans, we have been programmed to suppress the ability to process and release emotions as they come along. This is detrimental to our physical, emotional and spiritual health. In the book, “Molecules of Emotion” by Candace Pert, she explains how neuropeptides (tiny proteins in the body) carry emotional information and bind to receptors throughout the body, specifically in the immune system and nervous system. Suppressing emotions can literally make us sick.
What’s even more fascinating, is that every single emotion has its own energetic frequency that affects the body in different ways. Have you noticed how “heavy” grief feels? You’re literally feeling the frequency of the emotion in your body. The majority of people I’ve met and spoken to about their journey of unravelling and releasing suppressed emotions have found that they suppressed anger, guilt, shame and grief because they were never taught how to allow these emotions to process and release from their bodies.
When emotions get suppressed, they will typically manifest quietly at first in the form of frequent colds or immune system deficiencies. This is the body’s way of “knocking you down” so you’re able to sit, feel and heal through the emotions. If they’re neglected for longer, they will typically move to inflammation and autoimmune disorders, fatigue, chronic pain, muscle tension, nervous system disorders and other forms of “dis-ease” in the body.
Where your symptoms manifest in the body also give you hints as to what the emotion is and points to other clues that can help you connect the dots. For example, issues or pain on the left side of the body are correlated to your “feminine” side, your receiving side, and your mother’s lineage. The left is the side of embodiment. The right side of your body is correlated to your “masculine” side, your side of taking action, and your father’s lineage. If you have issues or pain in your back, like millions of us, the back of the body represents the past and the things we hide about ourselves. Even different body parts relate to different emotions – for example, issues in the throat, thyroid or neck can be manifested from “not speaking up”, feeling like you can’t express yourself, hiding your voice to please others, staying small and abandoning your own truth. There are some amazing resources to learn more about trapped emotions and their correlations with the physical body through authors such as Louise Hay and Dr. Bradley Nelson in their books, “You Can Heal Your Life” and “The Emotion Code”, respectively.
Your body is incredibly intelligent and is always trying to heal itself and find different avenues to rebalance itself. All your emotions ever want from you is to be seen, felt, and validated. Research in the field of Neuroscience and trauma have found that many of the root of our trapped emotions are frozen in our childhood - and some studies point to even earlier, like trauma in the womb that still greatly affects us in our adult lives.
In the energetic field of the body, suppressed and trapped emotions hinder the flow of energy (also referred to as “chi” or “lifeforce”) throughout the body, which is critical in maintaining balance of good health.
The good news is, it is never too late to begin to heal and release trapped emotions. Modalities such as breathwork, massage, reiki, sound healing, movement, meditation and journalling, to name a very brief few, can really help to bring trapped emotions to the surface so you can acknowledge, feel and release. Emotions like to trap themselves in the deep fascia layers in the body, and so any practice that allows the body to feel safe enough will gently move the energy through the fascia and to the surface to be released.
Releases can range from almost undetectable to big, deep releases. No release is the same and it doesn’t mean one is more important than the other. Yawning, crying and/or shaking are all forms of common releases.
After a release, people often feel physically lighter and freer. This feeling of “lightness” often goes hand-in-hand with space to feel the energy of love more deeply than you have before. Other benefits of emotional release are improved sleep quality, better digestion, hormonal balance, increased and sustained peacefulness and overall increased vitality.
A simple step you can take daily is to try your best to notice when emotions come to the surface throughout your day. Take a moment to pause what you’re doing and sit with the feeling of the emotion without judging it. Allow it to move through your body and understand that it is simply energy bringing attention to a pattern and/or a belief you have carried with you for your lifetime.
We are blessed to be human and have the capacity to feel such a range of emotion! It’s time to release the emotional weight that we’ve been carrying so we can feel lighter, brighter and more authentically ourselves.