Resources for Emotional Healing
I’ve written this in response to a number of clients asking if it is ‘normal’ to experience strong emotional releases during or after a healing session.
The answer is YES.
A large part of healing is processing the emotional stuff we have often unconsciously suppressed.
This stuck emotional energy blocks the free flow of your energy field and can result in physical disease (more about this here).
Some Eastern traditions use the concept of ‘samskaras’ - energetic imprints (both positive and negative) from past experiences.
The metaphor of digestion.
Emotional ‘digestion’ works well as a metaphor. When we fully digest our emotional stuff we have more energy. A stronger and more resilient energy body. The wound is healed.
In my experience, there are often layers and layers to this process.
It can be uncomfortable and it can be joyous - sometimes clients burst out laughing sometimes tears. When we suppress emotion there is a numbing to life - a form of energetic armouring. By numbing the pain, we also dull the sheer delight and pleasure of being.
Healing is ultimately a spiritual process. The results are precious liberation. Freedom from our conditioned responses to emotional triggers. To be ‘at cause’. Centered in our being.
The Guest House - Jaluddin Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
— Jalaluddin Rumi from Rumi: Selected Poems, trans Coleman Barks
Christopher Hareesh Wallis - Video Links
Very worth watching if you enjoy his style.
How to process your emotions - let them flow through - feel them!
You are not at the mercy of your emotions.
How to use framing to change your life experience.
How to Digest Emotions (extracted from Christopher Hareesh Wallis)
Emotional digestion happens fairly easily and naturally in the following context:
a) You can acknowledge and take responsibility for your feelings (without blaming anyone)—“this is what I’m feeling, and it’s totally normal that I’m feeling this, given the situation and my past history; no one’s to blame, but it’s my job to digest my emotions, since no one else can do it for me.”
b) You value yourself enough to take some time every day to fully be with whatever you feel, giving yourself the space to both feel and digest it.
c) You can recognise that your stories about what you feel are just that—mental fabrications that seek to explain the feeling and thus gain an illusory sense of power or control over it, and you recognize that believing these stories inhibits emotional digestion.
d) You can lay the stories and interpretations aside and bring the raw feelings in close, welcoming them into your heart, while affirming your ability to digest them—“I welcome this feeling, whether not I like it. I permit it to pass over me and through me. I let myself feel it fully. I’m not trying to get rid of it too soon, and I’m not hanging on to it. I can digest this. And when I do, I become stronger.” (I’m not suggesting you repeat exactly these words, I’m trying to point towards the kind of attitude that is effective).
The Guest House - Jaluddin Rumi