Often times you may get stuck in your mind chatter and allow those thoughts to persuade your actions. They can become overbearing to the point of causing distress. This can leave your body in turmoil that leads to the fetal position, being slumped over, or agony. At this state, you have allowed the feelings of depression, anxiety, anger, grief, sadness, or fear to take control of your body and perception of reality. With the emotional release tools, you can take the power of your emotions rather than allowing them to control you. During this process you can feel a little lighter, a sense of calmness, in alignment, and at ease. All the while being able to have authentic and intimate relationships with others.
If you have been denying your emotions for a long time, your body may be suffering as a result. Denying emotions doesn’t make them go away and instead weighs on your body. Your body will take any chance it can get to feel a little lighter and get rid of the baggage. The next time you get triggered and it all unleashes in wrath, an outburst, or a crying episode.
In order to loosen up and release that emotional baggage, you must manage to get your mind out of the way and allow yourself to feel. Your body has the ability to radiate from within and generate health, well-being, and pleasure. The body allows you to step into cellular knowing the truth of love because it knows what feels good. Your body isn’t interested in the fear patterns, conditioning, or the results from your mental choices that prevent you from stepping into your power.
By practicing emotional release you allow yourself to drop into your body and declutter the mess you’ve made.
Where Stress Gets Stuck In The Body
Just like plants depend on good conditions such as robust nutrient soil composition, water, and sunlight to thrive so does your body. The soil is the foundation for the plants to thrive just as your gut is the foundation for your brain. Poor soil depletes the plants of quality nutrients and stunts their growth just as poor nutrition, stress, trauma, and toxins lead to an unhealthy gut and stunt the brain from having quality thoughts and emotions.
Some examples of an unhealthy gut may be tightness in the stomach, constipation or diarrhea, inflammation such as puffy cheeks and eyes, food sensitivities and intolerances, autoimmune disease, mood swings, and anxiety and depression, just to name a few issues.
Nevertheless how healthy your diet is if you live in an unhealthy environment and have unhealthy relationships you will have an unhealthy gut. Stress in all forms could have the biggest impact on affecting the health of our gut.
Scientific literature in social genomics, the study of the environment, social threats, and isolation on our genes, supports the connection between poorly or dysfunctional gut to childhood trauma or abuse. This can also be in the form of parental neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, mental abuse, or a divorce in the family.
As you can see, stress and trauma can literally be seen in the body and have the biggest impacts on our gut and our mental health. One such disease that has been studied to be often caused by stress and trauma is Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or vice versa of having a poor diet causing psychological stress such as tension, heart palpations. and abdominal pain.
How Emotional Release Therapy Works
Emotional release can be used any time and anywhere. It can be guided or on your own. I’ve even experienced emotional release while driving in a car or sneaking away from a meeting by letting out the tension I was holding.
Emotion literally means energy in motion. In order to release stuck emotions, you need to be moving that energy by opening a channel within yourself. There are two ways to do this: movement and sound. This can look like regular exercise (i.e. running and vocalizing sound, dancing with breath, power boxing), sighing, screaming, or crying.
At times, you may need to use your mind’s eye to see how you’re feeling or find the origin of it. Imagery such as drawing can help you visualize what’s going on internally without having to analyze or interpret in a cognitive way what you’re experiencing.
This visualization is that access point for you to connect with your body. Mind you that this doesn’t need to be a professional or skilled visualization. You can use whichever medium you like such as painting, drawing, chalk, or even canva.com. Once you have that visualization, you can take that imagery into some form of movement to recreate what you’re feeling.
This approach of using the language of movement and sound rather than the language of words allows the energy to flow within your body and bypassing the controlling and sensory mind.
Emotional Release Techniques
Emotional release examples begin with sound, you can move energy by sighing, moaning, grunting, etc. This can even look like an adult temper tantrum or crying outbursts.
Another form of moving energy is bringing breath awareness to each part of your body while letting out sighs or another sound with your breath. This can be done either sitting or laying down. This can look like imagining a ball of golden light that starts at your tailbone. Breathing in through your nose and out of your mouth.
You can begin to bring that ball of golden light up your spine when you’re ready. This ball of golden light can also increase in size while you’re circulating your energy. Go at your own pace. You can stay as short or long in each area.
Focus on the following areas:
1. Root or tailbone
2. Pelvis or sex center
3. Upper abdomen or stomach
4. Heart center
5. Throat
6. Forehead
7. Crown above your head
Remember to breathe at your own pace. Inhale through your nose and exhale out your mouth with sound. You can include hip movements or shaking different body parts during this practice.
This next practice focuses on movement to connect with how the body feels.
Your body is the inner guidance system that will tell you what you desire. Desire is a divine impulse. Desire and pleasure are not only part of being human, but it is also an energy of all nature and the universe. Desire is the inhale and letting go of desire is the exhale. Whether you ascend to the heights of heaven first or descend to the depths of hell, at some point you will know to follow love wherever it takes you. The Guru model and path appeal to some and are appropriate for a certain level of consciousness. Listen to your soul and inner guidance in all things and follow your truth.
Humans have lost the natural capacity to be in touch with their bodies due to the confusion, guilt, shame, and fear around pleasure and sexual energy. Pleasure is a powerful healing force and is on the other end of the same spectrum as suffering. Pleasure is the driving force to find your purpose.
One way to increase sexual energy frequency is a movement exercise where you begin to shake your entire body. You may have seen this when dogs are stressed or after a deer has been chased rapidly in the woods because the shaking of the body is a way to let go of any trauma or stress held within.
The Exercise: Shakti Shake
The Shakti Shake is the movement of energy in the body. Shakti Shake basically means to shake it off. It stimulates blood and lymph circulation, brings awareness inwards, gets the energy moving, reduces stress, and makes you feel good.
Begin by standing up and shaking your entire body. Bring movement into all extremities and shake them as fast as you can. Shake out the legs by shifting your weight from one leg to the other. Shake out the feet and ankles. Shake out the arms and the wrists. Shake the hips and belly. Wiggle your shoulders. Shake out the face. Shake your body in a way that feels good to you whether that’s staying in on spot or moving around the room while you shake. Get your energy moving in the body. If you like, bring out some sounds whether it’s a sigh, a scream, or even a laugh. Let it all out.
Stop all the movement and put your hand to your heart and close your eyes. Feel all the lifeforce moving throughout your body. Breathe into your heart and let it expand. Breathe into your beautiful, pumping, strong heart. Take deep breaths while expanding the heart’s energy. Send gratitude to yourself for being open to sending this magic to your heart.
Take a couple more breaths as you feel your heart slow down. Feel the life force within you, surrounding you, and beyond in the infinite cosmos. Slowly blink your eyes back open.
How does your body feel?
7 Tools Of Releasing Emotions Stored In The Body
The next tools I am about to share were taught to me by ISTA. By acknowledging and feeling your emotional body with deep respect, you have the potential to gain clarity of things you need to let go of, such as negative emotions, in order to expand your capacity for creativity and life force energy to flow through you.
During this practice, it is key to witness yourself and see what emotions arise, and to let go of what no longer serves you. You need adequate space to practice and not be disturbed. Make a space with a few comfortable pillows and wear comfortable clothing.
Hand Scream – Place hands over the mouth to muffle the sound. Scream from your belly and not your throat into your hands either with sound or silently. Move your belly and hips to keep energy flowing.
Pillow Scream – Place a pillow in front of you and bring your mouth to the pillow to muffle the sound. Scream into the pillow from your belly and retract your belly like a cat to keep energy flowing. This exercise is good for expressing being overwhelmed or smothered.
Power Stomping – Move your legs as if running in place and have arms mirror leg movement. Scream out “Haaaa!” Or scream into your hand and keep energy moving.
Wailing/Grief Ritual – Do this either standing, on your knees, or laying on your back. Allow your head to fall backward, open your throat, chest to the sky, your arms extended out to the sides, and open your mouth into a wail, “Ahhh!”
Pelvic Thrusting – Lay on a bed or top of pillows or cushions on the floor. Have a pillow in front of your pelvis. Thrust your pelvis into that pillow as if you are fucking. Make grunts as you thrust into the pillow.
Pillow Pounding – Kneel in front of a pile of pillows or cushions. Make your hands into a fist and pound the pillows with your forearms. Make noises that best suits what your feeling as you pound into the pillows.
Tantrum – This exercise is much like when you see a toddler giving a fit. Lay on your belly or your back. Be on a well-supported surface. Throw a temper tantrum as though you are a toddler. Shake your arms, thrust your pelvis into the floor, shake your legs, scream out, cry out, or pound into the floor. Flow with what comes up in you.
Aspecting/Voice Dialog – Sit on a pillow and have another pillow across from you. The pillow across from you represents the other person who you still need to forgive or a part of yourself. Allow yourself and the other person or inner self to have a dialogue by moving back and forth between pillows. When you are on the pillow across from you, have a conversation with yourself in a way you think the other person or inner-self would communicate.
Use the 7 tools listed above between each dialogue before moving on to the next pillow. Continue the dialogue until you find a resolution and then move on to the next person. This can take from 5 minutes to a couple of hours. If you find you feel stuck in the head, look deeper find the emotions under the thoughts.
The views expressed in this article intend to highlight alternative studies. This article is for informational purposes only. This article is not, nor is it intended to be, a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment and should never be relied upon for specific medical advice.
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