What are trapped emotions?
The simple answer is that some emotions, for one reason or another, do not get fully processed at the time they are formed. And you guessed it, the emotions that tend to not get fully processed are the unpleasant ones. At this point, the “how” of it is not fully understood. What we do understand is that when we choose consciously or unconsciously to truncate the natural acceptance and feeling of the (unpleasant) emotion, it gets trapped in the body. Oops! These emotions can get trapped anywhere in the body. Often the location of the trapped emotion has some sort of symbolic message. A couple of examples would be, experiencing someone as a real "pain in the neck" and voila, you have this pain in the neck. Or if you are "shouldering" too much of the burden and then one or two of your shoulders is stiff. It may very well be that if you have a chronic discomfort somewhere in your body that you can not link to some injury, it might be a trapped emotion. No guarantee, but it is worth investigating. Some massage therapists have noticed that when working on a client, an emotional response that is totally unrelated to the client’s current experience might express itself. An example might be sadness or tears. The reason can very well be that a trapped emotion was lodged right where the massage therapist was working on some discomfort for the client. Simply feeling this during a massage is not enough to release the trapped emotion. You have to go through a specifically designed process to release these unwanted guests, who at this point, probably stink like rotten fish. Don’t worry; the process is quick, painless and rewarding!
So as strange as this might sound, it’s very common. The average adult has about 350 trapped emotions. That’s a whole lot of truncating going on. Note to self: feel your feelings. Completely! Don’t ignore them or stuff them under the proverbial. Be aware when someone else is hurling some dysfunctional or otherwise undesirable emotion in your direction. Notice it and do not “pick it up”. It’s not yours. Let it go. And if you find yourself in the midst of an unpleasant emotion, as tempting as it might be, don’t press the pause button. Feel what you are feeling. Thing is, our hectic world allows insufficient time to process life’s upsets or even to simply chill long enough to get in touch with one’s self. We’ll talk more about this in a future article. So look for an article to come about creating a daily practice that restores you body, mind and soul. And no, this doesn’t come in pill form. You have to earn it through daily consistency. More later. But for now, you might want to consider having a session with a Certified Emotion Code Therapist to see if you have any emotional hitchhikers lurking in parts unknown. Releasing your trapped emotions can have resoundingly positive effects on all of your relationships as this helps you to overcome the “ball & chain” obstacles of your past. Your present is busy and demanding enough without squeezing the remnants of a dysfunctional past into it as well! Blessings to you! (Source: The Emotion Code by Dr. Bradley Nelson)
