How To Release Emotions

Life Learning Lessons: How To Release Emotions

For the past several months, I’ve been dealing with a rash that for the most part has gone away. However, there is still one section of my upper left arm that is hanging on. It changes of course from moment to moment, day to day. Some days, it is almost nonexistent and some days, it bothers me with an intensity that would make a grown person cry.

So the other day I was in a situation where I was working on a client site in close proximity with someone. This person was a touchy, feely person without strong boundaries. While their behavior was not with malicious intent, the touching and slapping they were doing around me was irritating to say the least. My body is very hypersensitive and the area they were touching was the area on my arm that still has a rash. It sort of felt like every time they touched this area, they were pressing the button on the atomic bomb and it was like, my arm kept saying – how lucky do you feel as they touched this part of my arm. The fear that comes up is that I’ll go off, lose control and go back into whatever is behind this rash on this particular spot on my arm. Right now, I cannot consciously describe what that is but I know without a doubt, it is there.

After a couple of times asking the person to not touch me especially not in this area, they continued. Of course I know they weren’t doing it intentionally as it was a subconscious thing within them. Something in them triggers this type of behavior in an autopilot mode where I’m sure they don’t even realize what they are doing. There is a very good chance; the action is mimicking something from long ago in their life that has now become a pattern. I understand that and can recognize it but it still makes it a very tough ordeal to experience.

However, here is where the series of events go into overdrive. After the second time of him hitting me in the arm, I picked up a chair in a joking manner and said, now go ahead and touch me there. I was trying to drive the point home enough so that he would stop. Fortunately he did but by that time, the itching had picked up dramatically and my arm was extremely painful. It was the kind of phantom pain that went deep to my bone and muscle and had nothing to do with the physical touch of being slapped. This was much deeper than that.

So I drove home and probably a good two hours after this happened or more, I all of the sudden found myself in a furry of rage at nothing or at no one. Yet, I was so full of rage. I was cursing, screaming at every little thing that seemed to go wrong on my computer or whatever was around me. At first, I didn’t even realize I was that full of rage until I stopped and took a look at myself. I kind of felt like a dog chasing his tail, who that actually caught his tail and then stopped and looked at what had happened. Yet, even in this moment, I could feel the deep rage bubbling up inside of me but with no explanation or connection to why it was there. From that point, the anger just increased exponentially to the point where it was unbearable. I wanted it to end. This led to me thinking thoughts of how can I end my life from this which of course then led to feeling like I wanted to cry but wasn’t able to cry. This all happened in a matter of moments and switched back and forth as easily as one could step forward or backwards.

It left me feeling like I was such a screw up and like I was just so darn messed up that I would never get through all of this that I am healing from. It felt like there was no tomorrow and no reason to go on. I struggled to keep myself from just wanting to give up. Again, this is in a matter of minutes or less and it switches from one emotion to the next so quickly.

I struggled through the next day of this wondering why all of this had happened and felt very sad for myself that anyone should have to endure this. After talking to Dr. Canali today about it and sharing with him what happened, so much more made sense.

You see, at one time in my life, I had no outlet for many emotions. It was not something that was allowed, condoned or even possible in my family. I was always a hypersensitive kid and that didn’t mix well with my family. We did not show anger in front of my father at all nor was I allowed to show tears without being told to grow up, whipped for it or being called a cry baby and humiliated. My mom was the one that seemed to be allowed to cry but then that was ok in my family because as I was taught, she was a woman or it was her time of the month so it was expected. That was the teaching I received from my Neanderthal father. Plus, the only anger I ever saw being dealt with in my family was my dad going off into a rage. There was no example I had to follow of watching someone release anger in a mature and safe manner.

Now fast forward to later in life when I have absolutely no clue as to how to deal with emotions in a healthy way and treat them as if they are a normal part of life. They were something to be feared, to be loathed and avoided at all costs. Yet, the stuffing of emotions deep within me got me many medical conditions from ulcers and illnesses, to migraines and daily headaches. So now, at my adult age, I am trying to parent myself and teach myself how to release emotions in a normal, healthy and balanced way.

Hearing from Dr. Canali that all of this that was going on, was my body and mind’s attempt to learn how to release emotions and deal with the emotions in a positive way, was like manna from heaven. Here, I had been beating myself up for it and getting lost in the fear of losing control rather than embracing the newness of my awareness for all that I was becoming conscious of. I thought it was a dreadful thing when in reality; this process is a good thing. If I can keep myself from diving deep into the fear of the moment and allow it to unfold and allow myself to learn from it, I know I will be able to transform some more of these deep hurts and lessons missed in my life. The more I get swallowed up by the fear of what is happening in moments like this, the more I am fueling the series of events to loop around in a circle with no exit.

It is a process to learn to heal these things and to fully reclaim one’s life. It is not a quick fix of I’m through this part so that’s it. We as humans are constantly evolving or hopefully we are and through that constant evolution, we are becoming more and more who we really are. To deny this or stop this process is denying the inner truth about our self. It isn’t easy going through this but as I have learned through the many other experiences that have come my way, there is the reward of a life filled with so much more than I could have imagined.

*For more articles, check out the Mind Body Thoughts Blog*

The Body In The Shutdown Process, Part 3

For Part 2, Click Here - June 25, 2009

At the end of the session, Dr. Canali did some major adjustments on my neck because there were still some stiffness and alignment issues. You see, as our bodies become overwhelmed with fear and as they repeat the stories of old, our bodies change biologically and physically. So as these things are released, the body then has the ability to come back into balance and alignment. The neck adjustments don’t always feel good and often my body tries to hold itself back from these but again, if the fear part of my brain allows my body to let go, the outcomes are unimaginable.

When we left Dr. Canali’s office, I felt so much different than when I came in a few hours earlier. Yes, I did have two sessions that day because my body had so many mountains to cross through. I still remember one patient there looking at me and telling me that I looked much different than I came in. He said he could tell that I was in a lot of pain. And yet now, I was walking out of there without hardly any pain. My legs were moving like they had never moved before. The stiffness in my neck and shoulder were basically gone. I felt a little out of it as if time had quickly passed by that day and I needed to catch up. So we went to a park off of the bay and just enjoyed some down time in the sunshine and in nature while I was able to process more of what had gone on. It was a beautiful time to just be there and take it all in.

The plan was to make the 270 mile trip back that night but it was getting late and I really felt that my body needed rest instead of the stress of driving the distance. We stayed overnight and it felt good just to relax in the hot tub at the hotel and enjoy a peaceful night of sleep.

As I went into the night, I noticed that I was holding my body as I was before my sessions just as if it was full of pain and stiffness. Noticing that, I told myself why am I doing this? For my body doesn’t feel bad and there is nothing wrong. I no longer needed to hold my body in this way. Then it would release. Of course as Dr. Canali explained to me, that the pattern I was holding before was now in my conscious mind and it allowed me to make different choices and to do something about it.

I also shared with Dr. Canali that I believed this was the most acute physical situation I had been in since I had known him. Seeing how my body was in such a state of shutting down, even beyond that which I was able to pick up before the session and then seeing that allowing my body to heal and the results that followed were eye opening. It was not like I needed anyone to tell me this was or was not possible. It was something that was proven to me through my own body. I knew from firsthand experience that this truth was not what someone told me but it came out of my own body where I could see it, touch it and feel it.

I’m reminded that there is no greater truth than which you can connect with in your own body, mind and soul. There is so much more out there than what we are currently aware of and although the fears may be strong and although we may feel overwhelmed as if there is no hope, this is the moment being given to us so that we may truly discover another part of ourselves. It is a gift that we can either open or ignore. If we choose NOT to open it, we may trick ourselves into thinking it has gone away. It will continue attempting to get our attention. At some point we will either continue to ignore it or we will begin to listen to it. Through listening and opening to all that it is, we give ourselves one of the greatest gifts any human could have. That gift is truly knowing ourselves and how we impact the rest of the world by becoming more human.

The Body In The Shutdown Process, Part 2

For Part 1, Click Here - June 24, 2009

Oh please let me hide. I wonder if I can withdraw myself enough into the table so that no one will notice I’m here. Maybe this will all go away. Maybe everyone will go away. Do I really want to be here? I’m scared. I’m not sure there is a way out.

That’s how I felt walking in the door of Dr. Canali’s office. My body was overwhelmed with fear and while it wanted to be held, reassured and validated; any perceived touch felt like a nuclear bomb going on inside. It was such conflicting thoughts and desires that confused my mind into an endless stream of thoughts.

I could feel the heaviness in my chest preventing my body from really breathing. The breath was in lock step with wanting to hide for if I barely breathed, no one would see me. I felt the stiffness of my body not wanting to move and being in pain when I did. Outside of the pain and stiffness in my body, I felt very little. The trembling and shaking in my body were present and very annoying to me. They remind me of the early days of the paralysis when I would shake and have seizures while feeling all alone. Everyone would watch me from a distance feeling helpless while my body went through all these violent movements being afraid and alone. While I now know that the trembling and shaking is the nervous system letting go, I am still frightened by it as a trigger to a very scary moment in my past.

A lot of the session is a blur to me. There are little bits and pieces that I remember but not enough to draw a complete picture. I do remember some of those moments. Most things early in the session would startle me. And it is still imprinted in my mind that Dr. Canali told me “he and Quayny believed in me”. That’s something that I never got growing up and often I struggle to have the confidence in myself because no one was there for me. Those appropriate timed words were priceless and they brought tears to my eyes.

One such moment was when I could feel my hands and arms in an almost rigid form where they would not move. Quayny kept working with me to just focus on moving my fingers which was difficult beyond rationale. But as we went and she kept me focusing on what I felt, I stated that it was as if I wanted to take a baseball bat and hit someone. Of course, I’m still not sure who that “someone” was but it had so much power to those words. Quayny suggested that I take an imaginary baseball bat in my hand and make the motion as if I was doing that. To just feel the energy of it and the motion of it. As I did this, the tension in my hand and my body began to change. It began to let go and allow someone to begin the physical touch with me.

Another moment in the session, I told Dr. Canali that I really wanted to get up off the table and run as fast as I could and as far as I could. That’s the response that I get when confronted by fear. It is also known as “fight or flight”. So Dr. Canali told me that we were going to use that energy to bring about a change in my body without going into the fear part of the brain. He put the flat part of my feet together and had me lift the pelvic area of my body to help stretch the psoas muscle. When I did this, the pains that shot down through my legs were so intense that I screamed several curse words out. It was not so much a physical pain, although it was showing up that way. It was the connection to the fears locked within me.

At that moment, I felt the pain that connected me to a time many years earlier where I had felt the same thing. Actually I had buried this one pretty deep because until this current connection was made, I was not consciously aware of it. That pain was the same thing I felt in my legs early on in the paralysis when it was just hitting me. It was the pain that took my body by surprise and was so intense, that after that I could not feel a thing in my legs. They were numb and nearly dead. So when we hit this moment in the session, all of that came flooding back to me.

We pushed this reaction further in the session which then caused a shaking and trembling in my legs but as I allowed myself to connect with this and allowed it to take place, the pain and tension released. The tears started to form much as they are doing while I’m writing this because it allowed me to truly feel my legs for the first time in my ENTIRE life. Let me repeat that because this is a very big thing for me. I began to really feel my legs for the first in my ENTIRE life in a way I had NEVER felt them before. It was electrifying, pulsing, and warm and my legs felt alive. I could feel the touch around them. They felt like they were part of me instead of just being a body part that held me up as I moved around in a day. It was truly a moment in joy for me.

The specifics of the rest of the session are ones that I just don’t recall. So much was happening and taking place. I was going into the fears and not letting the fear part of my brain (amygdala) take over. I was finding my power as I released these things and went deep into the pain. The desire to freeze was there but the more I went and allowed my body to heal in the way it needed to, the more freedom I had.

For our bodies do know what is needed to heal and yet we stay in a state of “survival” locked into our fears. This prevents us from healing and growing in ways that are essential to our becoming more and more human every day. Often the fears are unconscious like they were in me before I went to the session but they are there. It is through the touch of a skilled person who can be there through all of this with someone that we are truly able to go from survival fear into being connected intimately between our mind and body. I had to be reminded of this even though I know it to be true and I work with it. The fear part of our brain is strong but when we empower ourselves from the inside out, we are the ones who are strong.

--- come back tomorrow for Part 3 ---

The Body In The Shutdown Process, Part 1

Lately, I knew I had been struggling a lot in life. There have been so many things that have blasted me that the overwhelm I was feeling was taking me under. However, I thought I was dealing with it and taking care of business so to speak. In mind mind, I thought I was handling it and not letting it get to me.

By Sunday, it had begun to get the best of me as I woke up that morning with pain shooting through my neck and shoulder. As the day progressed, the pain worsened and my shoulder/neck muscles became very contracted making movement difficult. I had someone work on me a little while I laid on the massage table but as badly as I wanted to be touched, my body was repelling anything that they did. My thoughts were that I so badly wanted to be held and told that everything was going to be ok but at the same time, I did not want anyone to touch me. For the more I was touched, the more I connected to intense pain from one end of my body to the next.

Of course, I've been down this road before through paralysis, stiff neck episodes, muscle pain, back pain and my body generally just freezing up. This was not new to me but when I could not feel my legs or most of my body, I knew that it was time to take action. There was no doubt at that point that if I waited any longer, the result of this could get extremely serious.

I called Dr. Canali (Evolutionary Healing Institute), the one that knows how to bring me back from this. And of course, he told me what I knew he would and that was I needed to get down to see him for a session. To me, it wasn't really about needing him to tell me that as it was I just needed to draw the line in the sand with myself. Otherwise, I would have discounted all of this and attempted to brush it off trying to "think" it would get better. I know myself enough on this as I've been through this before.

For today's blog entry, I'm going to include what I wrote before I went to see Dr. Canali. It is my line in the sand of what all was going on. Please check back for the next day's blog entry to read more about the healing part of the session. It is just too much information and material to post all at once. The emotions and overall big picture is the important point, not the individual items.

Journal Entry 06/21/09

Snakes
Nightmares of snakes – startled by them, surprised by them but to afraid – almost paralyzed to move and get away from them. Sometimes I don’t jump out of bed and be startled but it is where I can barely close my eyes and go back to sleep. Seems to happen in the early morning hours.

Been plenty of snakes around the yard this spring and in the past few weeks. I’ve groomed the lawn to just about take away any cover they might have and they still come around. I’m almost afraid to go out around the lawn but if I do, it is only during the daylight hours. I’m watching every step I take and our grass isn’t that tall either. I’m completely on guard the entire time in the yard and even around the pool now that one got inside.

I was upset with Jeff because he had put the gas can away in its place but pushed it so far in the cubby hole we have for it. A couple of weeks earlier I had seen a small little baby snake crawling around the vicinity. So I made Jeff pull the garbage can out so I wouldn’t have to reach back in there to get it.

Snakes have always scared me. Even seeing pictures on TV or in a magazine or where ever they might be. I either have to leave the room, shut my eyes or just block them out. They scare me and I’ll usually jump immediately when I see one. It doesn’t have to be real. It can just be a picture.


Family Nightmares
I’ve had so many recurrent dreams lately where my family is all killed in either a car crash or suicide/murder type situation. Whatever way it happens, it is a violent end to their life and I’m the only one left out of the family. I then have to go and identify their remains and take care of all their funerals, burial and possessions. The weather is snowy and cold during these scenarios.

Seeing the horrible scene of their deaths all together is more than I care to see. Taking care of all their possessions and the legal stuff is exhausting.

This one has played out time and time again, night after night. It is almost like a movie that just won’t end. Exhausting, tiring, and frustrating to say the least on this.

Prosperity
Reading the book “open your mind to prosperity” and it was going good until I got to the chapter on tithing which the author said you needed to give your money to the place where you get your spiritual growth. I don’t go to church nor do I want to go to church. The author claimed that just giving money to charity didn’t fulfill this part and you really needed to be going to some type of church. My take on it was that no matter what I did or how I helped, it would be never good enough. The anger in me that started to come out reading this was enormous. It was like a volcano erupting that went on and on. I was feeling motivated by this book although it had religious references in it until this point and it deflated the balloon as quickly as it inflated. Up until this point, I had hope but it got obliterated at this point.

The Everything Else Bucket
It seems like everything I’m doing lately is just coming up empty handed. I get so many ideas and try to pursue them but everything I’ve done seems to have fallen flat, empty handed, on the short stick so to speak. I’m frustrated beyond comprehension at life with everything that it seems like I face and with the shortfalls in my life. I try to look on the positive side, but it seems like the bucket only comes up empty. I keep wondering when and if things are ever going to change for me.

Depression has set in. I feel it. My body feels it. A lack of interest in a lot of things. A lost interest in sex or going through the motion without feeling anything.

Anxiety has been attacking me lately and making a hot summer feel much worse.

A week ago, I was basically shutting down from a lot in life because it was more than I could handle. Too many problems arose from the AC repair to the pool system problems to whatever else was going on which I can’t even remember at this moment. It was like, bam bam bam thank you bam bam bam some more. I know I said a few times that I really can’t take any more. I was at the end of my rope and had more than enough.

The Hiding
Lately I’ve wanted to just hide. Find a corner of the room and hide behind a chair so no one could see me, get to me or hurt me. It is like I’m hiding from a war, a battle or people just beating the daylights out of someone. These people seem familiar but I don’t know for sure who they are. If I had to offer a guess or write a fictional story, it would have as the main characters, my mom and dad. But the hiding is from something of fuzzy details.

I sometimes don’t even want to go into the store or go outside. I want to stay away from people and a little afraid of them as well as me going off on them. Sort of like how I will sometimes get around the holidays.

The Pain
This morning I was awakened early by the pain in my neck muscles. It hurt so bad that it woke me up. I’ve struggled all day with it and felt so tired all day as well – worse than many of the past many days of being tired. I tried to relax in the pool and take it easy. I can feel the pain and stiffness go all the way down to my low back as it makes walking difficult and breathing very labored. I feel the restriction in my chest as my lungs try to breathe.

After the last workshop, I felt so good – so full of joy, hope and peaceful that lasted for a couple of weeks.

Jeff tried to work on me and while I so badly wanted to be held and told that everything would be ok, my body did not want to be touched. I really hate it when this happens because it really messes with my mind.

So I called Dr. Canali today just because I wanted all of this to be real and that it wouldn’t be something I would just discount as the day went.

--- come back tomorrow for Part 2 ---