If you truly wish to overcome the pain from your past and experience sustained emotional buoyancy, it’s imperative that you release your emotional baggage.

Let’s face it, we’ve all experienced some kind of trauma – whether it’s physical or emotional. None of us go unscathed. And if we don’t consciously process and release the traumatic events from our past we unintentionally recycle situations that reinforce our fears, shame, anger, worry, concern, hatred, guilt, despair and depression.

Emotional trauma an invisible epidemic that makes us miserable and it’s the source of many of our illnesses and problems. It’s the common denominator among all my clients.

Unresolved trauma prevents us from reaching our full potential. It influences our emotional, mental and physical health. It underpins our fears, doubts, negative self-talk, depression, anxiety and panic attacks. It also influences how we perceive life, causing us to make the wrong assumptions, overreact to innocent remarks and misinterpret other people’s behaviour.

To avoid feeling the immense pain we are harbouring, we tend to avoid certain people or situations and fill our lives with distractions and dysfunctional behaviours that give us an instant pleasure rush – such as sex, pornography, drugs, alcohol, gambling and even shopping. If our emotional trauma remains unprocessed, dysfunctional behaviour and/or substance addiction runs rampant.

While practising emotional selectivity helps to instantly uplifts your spirits and generate a sense of wellbeing, ultimately you’ll find it difficult to sustain an elevated state of being if you are weighed down by your emotional baggage.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting that your life will be permanently free of challenges or down days. However, triggering situations will no longer elevate your heart rate or cause you to feel frustrated. Instead, you’re more likely to experience a sense of joy, peace and contentment for no specific reason.

So how do leave your traumatic past behind, once and for all?

Feeling into your pain

The most widely known and accepted method for processing trauma is to identify the emotion, and to feel it fully. When you allow the full intensity of the emotion to wash over you, it’s processed and released.

Now, this is easier said than done. It’s not always convenient or appropriate to process and release your emotional baggage in the moment it arises. For example, you might become emotionally triggered when you’re at work, out in public or with someone you’ve just met and saying, “please don’t mind me I just need to process some emotional trauma,” would be really awkward and weird.

Also, it’s not always possible to consciously conjure the same painful feeling and level of intensity in a safe environment, on command. When I first applied this method three things happened:

1. I couldn’t evoke the emotion, so I felt like I was faking it.
2. If I was able to successfully tap into the emotion it was often only for a very brief period. I’ve found that emotions can be really slippery little suckers, as soon as you start feeling into them they quickly disappear altogether.
3. I ended up drowning in the emotion. And no matter how much I felt into the emotion, there was no real ‘release’ or ‘relief’. There was no ‘bottom’.

Effective methods for releasing emotional baggage

Fortunately, I stumbled across other emotional release processes that are far less painful and significantly more effective. The beauty of these processes is that they can be applied at a later time. I discuss each of these methods in my third workbook (which I’m currently writing), but to give you a brief insight they include:

• Writing about your traumatic experience (which is much more effective than talking about it!)
• Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR)
• Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which is often referred to as Tapping
• Applying humour
• Washing your emotional wound with the light of God
• Using electro-magnetic frequencies
• Taking homeopathy or flower essences. Most people would be familiar with Rescue Remedy, which is a Bach Flower Essence.
• The Emotion Code. This is the modality I recommend to all my clients.

When doing my own emotional release work, I drawn on one or a number of the aforementioned modalities, depending on the issue and depth of the wound.

The Emotion Code

Speaking from personal experience, along with feedback received from clients, The Emotion Code is by far the fastest, easiest and most painless method for releasing emotional baggage, regardless of how long you’ve been carrying it around. Clients love it, because it’s not only simple and affordable to learn, it actually works!

If you already know how to muscle test, you’ll easily be able to start releasing trapped emotions after reading Dr. Bradley Nelson’s book, The Emotion Code. If you’re new to muscle testing, Dr. Nelson’s book includes detailed instructions. And, he also has a YouTube channel with hundreds of videos that direct you on how to muscle test and use The Emotion Code.

Aside from mastering muscle testing, the most difficult part is knowing the right questions to ask. The way you frame each question is vital for successfully uncovering and releasing all associated trapped emotions, and this comes with experience and practise. It’s also something I can assistance clients with.

Summary

Learning to release my emotional baggage was a game changer in conquering my forty plus year battle with anxiety and depression. Sure, I still have my ups and downs, but I’m no longer riding an emotional rollercoaster. Day by day my lie is becoming richer, more colourful and joyous.

Now, I’m naturally able to be, and remain, fully present in the moment. For me, mindfulness is no longer a practise, it’s my way of being day to day. Also, I am more observant and less engaged in the dynamics occurring around me. I’m able to discern how I’m feeling moment to moment and act accordingly. On the odd occasion that something does trigger me or push my buttons, instead of reacting automatically or unconsciously, I now have the awareness, skills and tools to catch myself, respond in new ways or process any remaining unresolved trauma.

In my next post, I’ll discuss why creating a new life narrative is an essential part of inner work.

EMOTIONAL TRAUMA VIDEO SERIES

If you benefited from the information shared in this post, you’ll enjoy my Emotional Trauma video series on YouTube. Below are a few to get you started…