“When it comes to an overwhelming experience, like a trauma, the brain encodes the memories as pictures or body sensations,”
- Kelly Vincent
Why do emotional blockages occour?
Emotional blockages are suppressed emotions like grief, fear, anger and other "negative" emotions.
Unfortunately we have never learned how to handle them.
In contrast, you probably heard the following before:
"Real men don't cry!"
"You don't have to be upset"
Our brain always tries to find a solution for uncomfortable situations
So it creates automatic responses to avoid these emotions
It's our brains idea of protecting us.
We often cover up or distract ourselves to avoid these emotions with social media, gaming or other things like cigarettes, alcohol, etc.
The problem is: Not expressed, emotions will get stuck in the body and can even lead to disease.
The Bodies Alarm System
The body is always in contact with us. It will show us when there is a problem in our system. We often cover it up or remove this sign (bodily symptoms) with painkillers or other things.
The body has no choice but to show us repeatedly and more intensely that something is not going quite right.
Old proverbs like "You make me sick" show, that we already know about the connection between symptoms and emotions.
Here are some more ideas for emotional blockages becoming physical:
- Stomach pain: Stress, fear, anger
- Lower back pain: A strong sense of responsibility, which is even overwhelming.
- Knee pain: Inflexibility, insecurity, excessive self-control - Toothache: No healthy way of dealing with anger / aggression
Disclaimer: I am not saying that all symptoms/illness are based on emotions, but they really have an impact on our bodies.
So symptoms are a good signal for us to be introspective and check if there is something the body wants to show us.
What are Emotions?
To release emotional blockages, we first have to understand what emotions even are.
Deriving from the latin and literally meaning "Energy in Motion", it is simply energy moving through our body.
Emotional energy in itself is neutral, but through thoughts and memories we give it meaning.
Because we have not learned to really feel emotions and let them flow through the body, we are creating blockages.
The basic function of emotions, which is being in motion, is disrupted because we tend to avoid feelings and try to hide them.
We can know learn to celebrate emotions as a means to really experience life in all its abundance.
Not only the supposedly "good" emotions.
Finally: How can we release emotional blockages?
Now that we know the basic qualities of emotion, that they are meant to be fully experienced, flowing through the body we can use meditation to allow these old blockages to be released.
So allow this practice to take up some time and begin by thinking about any bodily symptoms, which you feel intensely at the moment.
Then go through the explained steps to bring flow back in your body.
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