WHAT ARE TRAPPED EMOTIONS?
We all learned in high school physics class that matter is made up of molecules. (don’t worry I promise this isn’t a science lesson)
All molecules vibrate at a different frequency.
Organs, tissues, cells, even thoughts and emotions have a vibration.
Negative emotions and negative thoughts have a different energetic frequency than healthy cells and positive thoughts. (I know this sounds like woo woo hocus pocus, but just stay with me here.)
We feel an emotion, then it is processed, and it passes and we regain a balanced state. There are millions of times in our lives where we have a certain emotional reaction to something, but in 30 seconds it passes and we never think about it again. Then there are those handful of times where (whether we are conscious of it or not) we don’t let go of it. When we don’t process and release them they can get “trapped.” *I’m using quotes here because I want you to understand that we’re not talking about something being physically trapped. A doctor can’t go in and remove it with a knife and a pair of tweezers. This is on an energetic level.*
When an emotion is trapped it vibrates at it’s yucky frequency, affecting our physical health and wellbeing. At some point in time, this distortion, or imbalance, of the energy field will cause symptoms such as uneasiness, emotional ups and downs, depression, and/or physical symptoms.
WHAT ARE EXAMPLES OF TRAPPED EMOTIONS?
Do you ever wonder why you may be triggered by some things but not by others? You know how certain people can get really angry over something that somebody else may not think twice about?
Maybe for you it’s sitting in traffic. You feel a ball of heat right in the center of your chest and you just want to scream all sorts of obscenities (I know we’ve all been there.) Or maybe when you watch a movie and there is a death scene you just can’t stop the grief you feel in the pit of your stomach. I know people who get really irritated when they feel left out of something, even when it’s unintentional. For many people it’s watching their team lose in a sporting event, because it brings up feelings of humiliation, criticism, or not being good enough that may have been felt in childhood.
Whenever an event brings up a negative reaction or feeling, that’s probably because it is resonating an emotion that already resides within you. It would only take a minor incident to provoke it’s emergence.
WHY DO THEY GET TRAPPED?
Age: Being too young to know how to cope with a situation, such as abuse can result in emotions not being processed. Often times we have trapped emotions that occurred during our childhood because we were to young to deal with the situation.
Not expressing it at the time: Perhaps allowing the emotion to be experienced and expressed would cause embarrassment, or make the painful situation worse. So we pushed it deep down where nobody would know about it, and just carried on.
Severity: At any age, the situation could be so dire, that facing it and dealing with it at the time would be just too difficult and the pain too great. Remember, we’re all human.
Talking ourselves out of how we really feel: When you get upset over something and think to yourself “I’m so stupid for getting so worked up over this.” Without giving that emotion a voice or a way out it’s staying put. By not honoring the emotion and giving it space to be felt, we give it more power to take up residence and torment us.
When we experience trauma alone: When we can’t reach out to others and share our emotions, or talk about what we are going through we aren’t able to fully process what has happened.
When it’s a new emotion: Something that has never happened to us before means that we may not have the coping skills for that event. If we don’t know what to do we can freeze up and not allow the emotions to pass through and be experienced.
Remember, trapped emotions aren’t bad. They can only harm if you don’t let them go. So when these emotions come up but become suppressed, ignored, numbed, they are not being processed and therefore get stuck.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series, where I’ll share how trapped emotions affect our bodies, and how to release them!
