Your body keeps a physical memory of all of your experiences.
You have lots of memories stored in your brain that you can recount at any given moment. You can recall names, faces, where the event took place, what it smelled like. But over time, these memories fade or change as time passes and we mature. However, even when the memory begins to fade from your brain, it lives on in your body in the form of physical sensations and behaviour patterns.
The body doesn’t forget.
The events of our lives leave physiological imprints in our bodies, especially when we experience trauma or situations of extreme stress that cause the body to fight, flee, or freeze in order to cope.
In a perfect world, we would be able to release the trauma or soothe the stress response soon after it was triggered. But we don’t live in a perfect world, so we’re all walking around with physical imprints of past experiences (good and bad) stored in our bodies. Most of us don’t know how to release them because we don’t even realise they exist!
You may feel your body tense up when you have to ask for help or borrow money, or your face may get hot when you’re asked to speak in front of a crowd. The sensation is your body remembering.
It’s remembering a past experience when you asked for help and it didn’t go well. Maybe someone made you feel ashamed because you “should be able to handle it yourself.” Perhaps you were called to the front of your third grade class and asked a question you didn’t know the answer to, so you felt embarrassed and humiliated.
The body doesn’t have words to express itself, so it responds with physical sensations.
You can forget, block, or intellectualise the memories that are stored in our brains, but how do you work through the memories being stored in your body?
Animals shake when they experience trauma or anxiety. Think of a dog who’s been in a fight with another dog: Once the fight is over, both dogs will shake to calm their nervous systems and quiet the fight, flight, or freeze response. This enables them to move on without the physical memory of the situation.
Humans, however, don’t naturally do this. Instead we carry our stress, anxiety, and trauma around with us every day and use food and other addictive behaviours to soothe ourselves and quiet the emotional discomfort.
There’s nothing wrong with turning to food, sports or other means to soothe yourself, however, typically habitual behaviours provide a short-term solution, and you’ll continue to feel the discomfort until you release the memory from your body.
In order to release the emotions and create a more peaceful state of being, it’s important to create an emotional tool-kit to help regulate your nervous system and soothe the discomfort.
The first tool to put in your emotional tool-kit: non-judgment
When you feel emotionally triggered and tempted to turn to food or other addictive behaviours for comfort, try not to judge the reaction. Our bodies are programmed to seek pleasure, not discomfort, so it’s natural to try and find something to soothe the pain and make yourself feel better.
The need to soothe yourself with food or other means doesn’t make you a bad person — it makes you human.
The second tool in your emotional tool-kit: permission
Give yourself permission to feel — you have to feel it to heal it.
Often the reason we feel the need to numb what we’re feeling is because we believe that the emotion we’re feeling isn’t allowed. We think we’re not allowed to be angry or we’re supposed to be strong, so we can’t cry.
Giving yourself permission to feel allows you to have power over it — you control it instead of allowing it to control you, and in the process you create the space to heal.
The healing process will bring up lots of different feelings and emotions; many will be uncomfortable. When these uncomfortable emotions come up, allow them to come up without becoming attached to them; notice them for what they are and know that there is a natural ebb and flow to them.
It may be horribly uncomfortable initially, but allow yourself to witness them without judgment or reaction. This will allow you to respond objectively. Feelings aren’t forever. They come and go — if you let them.
The third tool in your emotional tool-kit: release
Now that you’ve allowed yourself to feel, it’s time to release the emotion from your body.
You can do this by gently shaking. Start with your feet and work your way up, one body part at a time, or you can turn on a song that mirrors the way you’re feeling and sing, dance, or cry until you feel physically and emotionally satisfied. All of these things will help give the emotion a voice and move the emotion out of your body.
Not quite ready to move your body? Grab a journal and write. No filter, no editing; leave the anger, frustration, sadness, and anything else you’re feeling on the page. Feel free to tear or safely burn the pages when you’re done as a symbolic release.
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all way to release. There will be times when moving your body helps, and other times singing or writing will feel more effective. Choose the method that feels best to you in the moment.
The fourth tool in your emotional tool-kit: forgiveness
This is the most important tool in your tool-kit. In order to truly heal, you have to be able to forgive yourself.
Beating yourself up for past transgressions isn’t productive, and certainly doesn’t make you feel good about yourself.
Understand that no matter what situation(s) led you to numb yourself with food, drugs, sex, or your self-soothing mechanism of choice, you did the best you could with the information you had on a physical, mental, and emotional level. You dealt with your emotions in the best way that you knew how.
Hindsight is 20/20, and it’s easy to get caught up in the “shoulda, coulda, woulda” spiral of shame when looking back on a situation. But when we’re in a state of discomfort, we don’t always have the capacity to think logically or rationally. Your brain and body respond to discomfort based on what feels like the safest option in the moment, and sometimes that means turning to habitual or addictive behaviours.
Forgive yourself because you did the best you could at the time, and move on knowing that you have the knowledge and tools to think differently next time.
Finally: time.
We have a tendency to look for the quick fix, but there’s no six-hour healing elixir that can magically erase the pain and discomfort from old wounds. Healing takes time.
Give yourself time to fill your emotional tool-kit and understand that healing is a journey — one that lasts a lifetime.
Of course, practice makes the journey easier, but there is no perfection. There will be times when you fall back on old patterns and behaviours, when that happens, reflect and reach into your emotional tool-kit and take what you need. You are equipped. You can do this.
Top 10 Tension Areas for Unwanted Feelings
1. Lower Back: Anger
If you sit on frustration, the lower back is a common place for storing repressed anger. For relief, learn to constructively articulate frustration and address conflicts with others in the moment. Sounds simple? Believe me, it’s not. Learning to harness the power of anger and turn it into a creative force is key to living a dynamic and rewarding life. Strive to convert anger into assertion, express it constructively, not destructively (my personal experience). You’ll be rewarded with a surge in confidence, energy and healthier relationships.
Note : I would like to apologise to those who was affected by me during my ‘fiery’ days. I seek your forgiveness. Thank you.
2. Stomach & Intestines: Fear
When you’re afraid, you tend to tense your stomach and intestines. Sayings such things as, “I’m sick to my stomach,” are usually bodily responses to conflict. The more you deny or repress fears, the more physical reactions you’re likely to manifest. Begin by acknowledging your trepidation and talking it through with someone you trust. Consider all your choices and outcomes. The more you can express the fear in words, the less of a hold it will have on your body.
3. Heart & Chest: Hurt
Here’s an example that I read — “I recently worked with a woman who was complaining of chest pains. A series of medical work-ups found no psychical cause for her symptoms. Was she supposed to live with chronic discomfort? Reluctantly, she turned to therapy. When I asked her if someone she loved had hurt her, she guffawed and brushed my question off as psychobabble. A few sessions later, as she spoke about the demise of her last relationship, she began to cry uncontrollably. For too long she ignored her broken heart. She needed to mourn the relationship and honour her sadness. After this release, the tension in her chest finally lifted.”
4. Headache: Loss of Control
If you’re a major or minor control freak, you’re in for a real challenge. No matter how strong-willed you might be, an emphasis on control will eventually lead to burnout–and splitting headaches. Not all difficulties in life can be solved by intellect or trying to control everything. In fact, many problems are exacerbated by controlling tendencies. Letting go, accepting what you can and can’t control, and developing a mindfulness practice are the steps you need to take to cure your headache habit.
5. Neck /Shoulder Tension: Burdens and Responsibilities
Shouldering too many responsibilities is a pain in the neck. If you suffer from neck and shoulder tension, it’s likely that you’re overly burdened. Rather than ask for help from others, you’re likely to do everything yourself. This most often leads to neck and shoulder tightness. Learn to delegate, ask for support, decide what is really worth taking on, and for goodness sake, share responsibilities with others.
6. Fatigue: Resentments
Resentment stresses your entire body and does more damage to you than the people you resent. Blaming others, playing the victim, reliving the events–these are the empty calories of self-expression. Resentments keep you from living in the moment and experiencing the benefits of being present. When you focus on those who wronged you, you are giving them free real estate in your head. Instead, try to focus on forgiveness , or at the very least, moving on. Strive for more fulfilling relationships, add a healthy dose of self-care, and you’ll feel years younger in no time.
7. Numbness: Trauma
When we’re overwhelmed by an event, we tend to numb our feelings. This is our psyche’s way to disassociate from overpowering pain or danger. Traumatic events are not always life-threatening — they can result from a brush with real or imagined danger or a history of childhood abuse or neglect. Over time, if you don’t process the trauma, the memory of it gets lodged in your body. As a result, you deaden your feelings when vulnerable; trusting others is impossible; and true intimacy is lost. Any situation that makes you feel unsafe causes you great confusion; you freeze up or go blank. The first step toward freeing yourself from trauma is recognising the power it has over you and asking for help.
8. Breathing Difficulties: Anxiety
Breathing difficulties, a panic attack that leaves you gasping for air, a suffocating feeling when anxious. These are the symptoms in folks who are repressing great sadness. They don’t want to cry and avoid mourning heartbreaking events. Instead, they choose to repress sadness, move on and focus on something else. But restricting tears is a lot like holding your breath. When you finally cry, it comes gushing out; equal parts pain and relief. Freeing bottled-up sadness is like sucking in a dose of fresh oxygen. It’s refreshing and liberating!
9. Voice & Throat Problems: Oppression
Oppressed people are not allowed to have a voice. If you grew up in an oppressive atmosphere, speaking your mind or expressing your needs was dangerous. You also carry around a harsh inner critic. As a result, as an adult you tend to withhold feelings. When you have the impulse to speak up, you resort to your childhood tendency to silence yourself and repress your voice. This clash between the impulse to speak and the impulse to withhold causes much tension and often manifests in throat and voice problems. In therapy, journal writing is a great way to expose your inner critic and start talking back to it. Hopefully, you will soon realise you have the right to be heard.
10. Insomnia: Loss of Self
When you go through life-changing events–good or bad–people tend to lose sleep. You experience anxiety when your life circumstances are in flux. This can happen during times of stress or times of great personal growth. For me, sleeplessness is most often associated with the fear of the unknown. Write down your fears or, better yet, talk them out with a close friend. Learn to work with change, rather than repress your fear of it. When you work with it, you’ll be able to hit the pillow and have sweet dreams.
Toward a More Rewarding Way of Being
Releasing bottled-up feelings is fundamental to psychotherapy; it offers you respite from the psychic stress of repression. People always feel relieved when the weight of repression lifts. You will feel a surge of confidence, a product of a stronger emotional core, which I attest to. Group therapy is also an excellent tool in building stronger and healthier relationships.
When you take better care of your feelings, you take better care of yourself and those you love. You come to appreciate and value your relationships more. Take the time to consider how you manage your feelings and what your psychosomatic pain is trying to tell you. Not only will you feel happier, many studies show you might even live longer.
As I personally love guided meditation — There are many “Letting Go” guided meditation you can find in you tube for your use.
Wish you well.
Peace and Love to all 💞
Comments