Trapped Emotions are the unexpressed and unresolved emotions that exist within our subconscious mind or emotional body. These locked away feelings can accumulate over time and cause distress if they are not addressed and released.
Anxiety was once described to me as not an emotion at all, but a build up of multiple emotions a person feels simultaneously and is unable to process or make sense of.
So when we have a build up of unprocessed emotions in ourselves, they can and often do, lead to anxiety issues.
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What is an Emotion?
Emotions are powerful forces that shape how we interact with the world around us.
At its most basic definition, an emotion is e-motion or energy in motion—it often comes up as a feeling in response to our environment and affects our physical and mental states.
An emotion happens when we take energy and an experience and mix them together, that experience will deliver a vibration to us in our energy body which then flows to our physical body/cells.
Essentially, the lower the vibration the worse the feeling, the higher the vibration the better the feeling.
Emotions can be triggered by internal stimulations such as thoughts, memories, recall of strong experiences or even certain sensations in the body. External stimulations like smells and sounds can also provoke emotion. They are essentially our shortcut to understanding how we feel about a situation.
What Exactly is a Trapped Emotion?
A trapped emotion is an emotion that has been left unresolved in our body. It is the energy of an emotion that was not expressed and released, instead it became ‘locked’ in the cells of our physical body.
The longer we keep these emotions locked away without release, the stronger they will become until they are literally ‘trapped’ within our bodies.
When this happens, trapped emotions can cause blockages in the body’s energy field and stop us from living our lives to the fullest or reaching our full potential.
Emotional Health is not the same as Mental Health
Many people often use the terms “emotional health” and “mental health” interchangeably, but they are actually quite different.
Emotions refer to vibration or changes that you experience during any given event. They come and go like waves in an ocean, and can range from positive emotions such as joy and playfulness to negative emotions such as fear and anger.
Mental health on the other hand refers to the health of our mind or mental body — the condition of our thoughts, beliefs, outlooks and behavior patterns. It’s about how we adaptively think about our situations, and our ability to be resilient when every situation may not turn out perfectly.
While it’s important to acknowledge that vibration or emotion can affect mental health, true mental health transcends vibration because it is rooted in a deeply entrenched sense of self-worth that resonates at an incredibly high vibration no matter the circumstances one might face.
Emotional Health – the new Mental Health Movement 2.0
I remember when the physical health trend started back in the early 2000s (this is in New Zealand mind you, and we were a bit behind) it all of a sudden become trendy to start working out and take care of our bodies.
Next came the mental health and well-being trend, which has seen a massive spike in wellness activities such as yoga and mindfulness practices. Meditation apps and mindfulness courses have become ever popular.
But in spite of working out 5 days a week, meditating, journaling, drinking green juices, we’re more anxious than ever…
For me personally, my meditation and mindfulness practices actually made me more anxious. What meditation and mindfulness actually did was make me far more aware, which is great… but with that awareness came a deeper awareness of how I felt… and I felt awful.
So turns out there are a few ways to deal with these emotions that we are yet to process and found themselves lodged within us.
Over the past few years I found a few very helpful teachers that lived and breathed this stuff but were relatively unheard of.
These days, we are just starting to realise the importance of emotional health. Just recently, in the past few months actually I’ve noticed a lot more awareness around emotional health, its exciting to see people are starting to take some of these practices on board and heal themselves from anxiety and depression.
How We Process Emotions as Human Beings
As human beings, we are all equipped with the capacity to not only recognise, but also process a vast range of emotions and feelings.
According to David Hawkins, vibration is a fundamental part of this process. Our emotions oscillate between two distinct vibration patterns: positivity and negativity. Much like a pendulum that swings between two extreme points, our feelings tend to fluctuate between these two vibration frequencies. When exposed to the right stimuli the vibration can be shifted into one direction or another; this helps us cope with our emotions in any given situation so that we may experience a more balanced life.
In order to truly embrace emotional health, it is important to embrace both vibration patterns. It’s not enough to only focus on the positive side of things while ignoring the negative aspects of life. We must learn how to recognize and process both in order to create a more balanced and healthy lifestyle.
Unprocessed Emotions can Lead to Anxiety and Depression
Many of us are unaware that physiological and emotional ailments can be caused by trapped vibration in our bodies.
Each emotion we experience carries a specific vibrational frequency — positive emotions have a higher vibration than negative emotions, which accumulate over time in our cellular memory if they’re not processed. As these low vibration trapped emotions build up, they cause an overall lowering of vibration in the body, which can develop into anxiety and depression if left unchecked.
Think of the emotional body as an energetic copy of your physical one. Just as your physical body gets dirty, so does your emotional body.
Lets go through a few scenarios –
Earlier today you might have been cut off on the road with your mother in law in the car, unable to swear and release the anger or frustration you experienced, you stored that feeling. Later on you might have been told off by your boss when you had done nothing wrong, because you weren’t able to express your anger and frustration you stored that one also. Because everyone was out that evening and had no one to off load too or talk through these situations with so you decide to medicate with a few beers and head to bed. In the days following these occurrences you may still be in a bit of a bad mood but you’ve generally forgotten why.
Another scenario might be experiencing frustration at work all day through many smaller occurrences, nothing of note but you feel frustrated and angry, you decide to head to the gym to blow off some steam. Now blowing off steam physically will work to some extent BUT essentially what you’re doing is expelling energy and that energy may or may not contain the energy that was causing the discomfort earlier in the day. You leave the gym with less energy but not necessarily free from those particular emotional vibrations.
So with those two quick examples you can see how these days with our fast paced lives its easy to create energy blockages which then bring down our vibration and overall feeling of wellbeing.
Some experiences are far worse than others and they too would add to the emotional blockages over the days, months and years. If we’re living a reasonably fast paced life you can see how easy it would be to get overwhelmed.
So anxiety comes in when we feel something trapped within us and we’re unable to identify the specific emotion. Anxiety, not all the time, but a lot of the time, is a result of these balls of mixed emotions trapped within us.
Depression, again not all the time, but a lot of the time, starts to be felt when we are experiencing more negative emotions than positive ones, and its hard to feel positive or happy when you are filled with these unprocessed balls of negative energy.
Essentially the garden is filled with weeds we don’t know how to remove.
How to Process Trapped Emotions
The key to releasing these trapped emotions is to feel them. It’s not enough to just recognize that they are there – you must genuinely experience and process the emotion in order to truly eliminate it from your system.
While it can be difficult to express our emotions, some of us find it even harder. For me personally, I was somebody who never showed how they felt and many thought that meant I had a cool exterior – but in reality what the problem was down to is something much more complex: my inability to process negative emotions.
Processing trapped emotions involves identifying and acknowledging the emotions that you may have been suppressing or avoiding. This can be done through various methods such as journaling, talking to a therapist or trusted friend, or engaging in self-care activities such as exercise or meditation. It’s important to be kind and compassionate towards yourself as you process these emotions, as they may be difficult to confront. It may also be helpful to reframe your perspective and try to understand the root cause of these emotions, as well as finding healthy ways to express and release them. Remember that it’s a process and it’s okay to take time to work through your emotions.
Trouble Accessing Trapped Emotions
There are many teachers and practitioners who specialize in helping people release trapped emotions.
These individuals may be trained in techniques such as talk therapy, expressive therapies like art or music therapy, or energy healing modalities such as Reiki or EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique).
These teachers and practitioners can provide a safe and supportive environment in which individuals can identify and process their trapped emotions and learn healthy ways to express and release them.
They may also teach techniques and tools that individuals can use on their own to continue the process of releasing trapped emotions in their daily lives.
Emotional Health Teachers and Services
When starting to look into practitioners that deal specifically with emotional health its important to find one that you vibe with with.
There are teachers out there that are just too airy fairy for some but work tremendously well for others and its important that if we dont get the desired results, we keep looking. And Id even go as far to say, if you get great results with one teacher, go and study further methods as you never know what you’ll find that might help a friend or family member.
Here are some successful teachers in the field of emotional health that I have studied and found their work to be greatly beneficial.
Brad Yates – E.F.T (Emotional Freedom Technique)
Brad Yates is a well-known practitioner of EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), also known as tapping. EFT is a form of energy psychology that involves tapping on specific acupressure points while focusing on a specific emotion or issue. Brad Yates offers a range of EFT services, including one-on-one sessions, group workshops, and online courses. He has helped thousands of people release trapped emotions and overcome challenges such as anxiety, stress, and traumatic experiences.
Free Learning: EFT is a great place to start with your emotional healing journey as you will find most of Brads work free on his Youtube channel filled with over 1000 videos.
Paid Learning: You can also check out his full courses covering not only emotional healing but general topics like abundance.
Max Strom – Breathing and Yoga
Max Strom is an internationally renowned teacher and author who specializes in helping individuals create a connection between the body, breath and mind. He teaches a unique approach to breathing which helps us to become more aware of our feelings and behaviours and better manage stress, anxiety and other emotional difficulties. His breathing services offer a variety of techniques including mindful breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, yogic breathing exercises, whole-body relaxation and heart-centred meditation – all of which help to promote emotional balance, resilience and physical wellbeing.
Dont let the “Breathing and Yoga” put you off. I’ve found Max’s teachings to be the most significant I’ve come across. You could say what he teaches is exactly what I was looking for. I cannot recommend Max’s teaching’s highly enough.
Free Learning: He does have an app where I believe the 5 min version of breathing is free of charge, you then pay to access the longer sessions. I personally purchased the app and use the 30min version daily. Also you can check out his TED Talk on Breathing and Anxiety here.
Paid Learning: Max has online courses available, I purchased “The End of Anxiety Online Video Course” and it changed my life, no exaggeration. I see he’s just released “Breathe to Heal Online” which has the End of Anxiety course included. Check them out.
Dr John Amaral – Energy Healing
John Amaral is a renowned energy healer and personal growth expert who has helped thousands of people transform their lives through his unique approach to energy work. He offers a range of services, including one-on-one sessions, group workshops, and online courses, all designed to help individuals tap into their own inner wisdom and power to create positive change in their lives. John Amaral’s work is based on the belief that we are all connected and that our thoughts and feelings have a direct impact on our physical and emotional well-being. By working with John Amaral, you can learn how to harness the power of your own energy to create the life you desire and overcome challenges such as stress, anxiety, and negative patterns of behavior.
Free Learning: John offers a free 7 day course called the “Go from Fight-or-Flight to Flow in 7 Days”. You can check that out here.
Paid Learning: He also offers 2 more paid courses called “Discovering the Fundamentals of Energy” and “Higher Heart and Brain Activation”. I have completed the first two courses and can recommend them but not the third. These mini courses are offered on completion of the 7-day free course and are roughly $49 USD each for lifetime access.
Dr Bradley Nelson – The Emotion Code & The Body Code
Bradley Nelson is an international best-selling author and a chiropractor who has been widely recognized for his groundbreaking discoveries in the field of natural health and healing. Most notably, he developed both the Emotion Code and Body Code, two powerful energy healing systems that use muscle testing to identify and release imbalances in the body’s energy system. The Emotion Code works by identifying emotional traumas that are held in the body due to past experiences or unresolved issues, while the Body Code focuses on releasing bodily dysfunction such as allergies, viruses, bacteria and other imbalances. Sessions can be completed remotely or in person.
Free Learning: Watch his interview with James Colquhoun on Gaia (free trial) discussing Trapped Emotions. You can also head to his website discoverhealing.com and learn more about The Emotion Code and The Body Code.
Paid Learning: If you’re sold on the idea of experiencing The Emotion Code or The Body Code you can search for practitioners around the world via his website also – and even become a pracitioner.
Dr Joe Dispenza – Meditation and Breathing
Joe Dispenza is a leading expert in the field of meditation, healing and transformation. His mastery in this area has led him to develop various forms of powerful meditative practices that can help individuals cultivate self-awareness, reduce stress, and reconnect with their true selves. Joe’s meditation services cover a wide range of approaches such as traditional mindfulness meditation, guided visualizations, chakra meditations and breathwork. With Joe’s expertise and guidance, you can awaken to your higher potential and learn how to use your greatest asset – your mind – to manifest the life of your dreams. Joe Dispenza’s extensive portfolio of meditation services offer something for everyone looking to grow spiritually and emotionally.
He’s written four best selling books “Evolve Your Brain”, “You Are The Placebo”, “Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself” and “Becoming Supernatural”. All books are great but if you had to pick one go with Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself.
Free Learning: Dr Joe has created a series on Gaia called “Rewired”. You’re able to sign up for a free trial to Gaia to watch this series for free.
Paid Learning: Along with his four books he has many meditations available for sale on his website along with mini courses and hosted seminars he runs worldwide.
Conclusion
In conclusion, trapped emotions are emotions that we may have suppressed or avoided and that can become stuck in our physical and emotional bodies.
These trapped vibrations can have a negative impact on our overall health and well-being, causing physical and emotional issues. Fortunately, there are many techniques and practices that we can use to identify and release trapped emotions, including the ones mentioned above.
It’s important to be kind and compassionate towards ourselves as we work through our emotions, and to find healthy ways to express and release them. Remember that it’s a process and it’s okay to take time to work through things at your own pace.
If you’re struggling and need a hand, dont be afraid to ask, there are many professionals available that specialise in Mental and Emotional health, it may be helpful to seek support from a trusted therapist or professional before starting any practices above.
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