emotional freedom | David M Masters

How to Release Pent-up Emotions

If you really want to live a better life, your best life and make the world a better place, you’re going to have to learn how to release pent-up emotions. Pent up emotions are highly destructive to the human body, leading to the deterioration of the immune system, resulting in more susceptibility to illness and disease. Pent up emotions are the leading cause of premature death.

All that suppressed emotional energy is like a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode. The pressure builds and builds until something has to give, and it’s your physiology which is compromised as you cannibalize your own life force just to make it another day.

A healthy human being finds a way to process energy in a flowing manner allowing the life force to flow to and through the body, refreshing and nourishing in a natural wave of life-sustaining current. Pent-up negative emotions block the natural flow of life and love energy which is healing and allows you to continue to grow and expand in ways only you can.

You need to find a way to release the pressure which builds over time, or else something very bad is going to happen to you or those around you who you care about.

There are many ways to release pent-up emotions. Some are destructive, like when you strike out at someone emotionally in an over-reactive response to something that would have otherwise been innocuous. Embarrassing as this explosive event might have been, you did experience some relief from those pent-up emotions, finding a way to save you from further deterioration.

Certainly, there are more productive ways to release pent-up emotions without having to compromise your circle of influence, potentially causing damage to your social network. If you keep up this destructive method of releasing emotional pressure, it won’t be long, and your friends and family will find other places to be.

Plus, you wouldn’t want your people to think of you as a toxic influence on their life, right?

I have been blessed to discover years ago that there are effective methods to release emotional blockages and to resume healthy energy flow. My path led me first to prayer, followed by Neuro-linguistic Programming, hypnotherapy, then to Reiki, among many other modalities to find healthy ways to let go and get back into flow.

How to Release Pent-Up Emotions

You know when you’re approaching your body’s need to release pressure when you start getting edgy, feeling uncertain, anxious, stressed out, fearful, suspicious, or paranoid. Your subconscious is looking for danger signs to target for release. Any slightest indication of something appearing not to be in perfect order will trigger your (over-reactive) defensive alarm system, initiating an attack with the veracity of a kill-or-be-killed response.

These feelings of uneasiness or fear are your early warning system, notifying you that an explosive event is eminent. Knowing this, you can prepare for more healthy alternatives for releasing your pent-up emotions.
Therapy is a good method. You don’t have to seek out a paid professional, a good friend you can trust, who will allow you to express your emotions without judgment will work. Even an anonymous stranger who doesn’t know you (you don’t have to reveal your identity) can be an angel in human form, who will listen to your story, allowing you to in effect release some of your emotional pressure. You can walk away and let it go.

If you are in your body’s natural energy flow of love, memories and the emotional baggage which accompanies them is able to move about freely through your body, to and through your consciousness and out of your body without having to find places in the body to hide, where the emotional wounds fester, causing the deterioration of the immune system, body systems, and organs.

Accept

To start letting go you must accept that things are just as they are, and even though someone else’s actions or reactions feel like they are focused on you, they never are. When people act or react inappropriately, it is only an expression of their need to express and release their pent-up emotions, it has very little to do with you, except that they know no other way to release the emotional pressure which is causing them discomfort and pain.

Realize that things are just as they are and feel free to express yourself without judgment and realize that you have no need to judge anyone else who is only doing the best they can, just like you. (We’re all in this life, together.)

Allow

Allow all emotional states to be in all people as well as within yourself. Now that you know that your bad feelings are only your pent-up emotions looking for release, you can let them be, allowing yourself to fully feel the emotions and let them express themselves naturally. No need to resist or deny your feelings. If you need to cry, cry. If you need to scream, scream.

Activate

Take action to activate positive energy flow in and through your biology. Engage yourself in any activity which makes your heart sing. Resist stagnation by gently encouraging blood flow and oxygenation of your body. Do a little light exercise to increase your biological flow and your energetic flow will follow.

Absorb

Let yourself soak in the ideas surrounding the basis for your feelings, seeking to understand what it might be like to be in the other person’s shoes, to have lived their life which led to whatever is the source of your discontent. Seek to understand empathetically with compassion, not taking it personally, and let it be. For more severe feelings of angst, you can initiate a form of meditation or prayer.

Appreciate

Find a way (or ways) to use this reminder that the most powerful energy for healing is love. Do something that allows you to appreciate this life, to be grateful, and express compassion and love. When you think of this event or anything associated to it, snuggle a pet, do something nice for someone else, volunteer, or make a donation to a worthy cause.

Take action to memorialize your allowance of “what is” by expressing gratitude and appreciation.

If you feel bad, do something good, and you’ll feel better.

Absolve

Absolution sets you free. If you can understand that the source of your ill feelings really doesn’t have anything to do with you (even though it feels like it was directed at you) you can empathize with the source’s need to do, say, or initiate whatever transpired which resulted in your feeling bad. You may have only been acting as the shock absorber for this person, which helped him or her release some of their own pent-up emotions.

From this perspective of understanding, you can find the love within yourself to forgive this person without judgment or the need to feel sorry (which would be condescending) for him or her.
There is no need for the other person to apologize to you for no crime was actually committed. You do not need to communicate your forgiveness to the other person (because they may not be able to understand it) for this forgiveness is for you, from your heart, filled with love and compassion.

Also, remember to be kind and loving enough to absolve yourself from any wrongdoing, or for harboring bad thoughts or discontent about this. Sometimes feelings may be pushed down and repressed for many years, since very early childhood.

Love and forgive yourself.

And finally,

Let it Go

No need to belabor it. True forgiveness has no need to revisit or reflect on this event, except to appreciate the hidden treasure or lesson which may have been hidden within it.

You are love and you are free.

What If Nobody Could Hurt You?

What if nobody could ever hurt you, ever again?

If you’ve ever been in a knock down drag out fight you know what it feels like to be hit by someone. Adrenaline and other hormones cascade overwhelming your state of being as you as immediately find yourself in fight or flight. Being part of a brutal smackdown is no fun and the trauma, pain, and suffering that comes from the physical abuse can endure and cause even more suffering as you try to heal from the event over time.

How curious is it when we are similarly affected by the spoken words of someone?

When you feel as though someone has disrespected, insulted, ignored, judged, or rejected you, BAM! Just as though you’d been kicked in the guts, all the pain, emotional and physical with all the feelings and hormone overload.

When this happens to you, those words, which cut like a knife, were likely spoken by someone you love, trust, or highly regard. They could be your partner, a family member, a child, a neighbor, someone you work with or for. Because you are more connected to these people than others in your life, their words cut the deepest, can crush you, and leave your heart bleeding in pain and sorrow.

Those you care about the most hurt you the most

The concept, “those you care about the most hurt you the most” rings true.

Interestingly enough, this concept was programmed into your psyche since the day you were born. Based on your life experience, you learned to love and depend on others. Early on, you realized that if you disappointed the people you loved and trusted to take care of you, they would turn on you, leaving you in a state of fear and suffering.

That’s where it starts, and it grows as you trust and are betrayed by those who you love and care for along the way, when all you really wanted was to be accepted, respected, and loved for no other reason than you love others. Family, friends, lovers, fellow students, teachers, and others in your circle of influence. Why can’t they just love you back?

We have been programmed to value the opinion of others so highly that the slightest threat of potentially not being highly regarded by someone we care about can threaten our very sense of existence. Our feelings are hurt. We can either strike back and start an all-out war of words (or worse), and if we’re unable to strike back (for fear of being hurt even worse), we find someone else who we are stronger than to strike out at to release the angst inside. Or we can find ourselves sinking to the depths of depression, even contemplating suicide as a way out of the pain.

You were socially programmed to want what others want, to desire to do the things that others do with them as a part of the crowd. Giving you a sense of belonging, in the belief there is safety and security by being accepted by others, for to be alone would be potentially dangerous, or too much to bear.

This social programming has been a disservice to your highest and best because you were meant for so much more than just being just another sheep in the herd.

Blessed are those who were raised in an empowered sense of individuality and personal awareness. They possess the power of seeing themselves as separate, and in the best-case scenarios, also see themselves as part of the greater whole of community and humanity, though these days this represents a very small percentage of us.

To expect someone to know and appreciate you for all that you are sets you up for disappointment and failure, and your feelings will always be hurt because no one can ever know and appreciate you as much as you do.

Likewise, no matter how hard you try, you can’t fully “get” anyone else. So much goes on inside the heart and mind of everyone that you will never know. Just like when you are silent, your mind keeps working and think thoughts you might never convert to spoken word.

What’s the answer?

There is great personal power in realizing that what anyone thinks or says about you has nothing to do with you at all. It’s about them.

You know that you are always intentionally authentic, open, honest, and want the best for everyone in your life. You know you are always worthy of the best things in this life, and you would never do anything intentionally to hurt anyone you cared about. You don’t need anyone else’s validation of these things because you know them to be true. Your knowledge of and confidence in you is unshakeable.

From this vantage point, if someone barks something that might have hurt your feelings in the past, you can feel compassion for the person who felt like he or she had to react in such a say. And instead of being threatened or hurt by what they said or did, you can just look at them lost in their own life-struggle and think (or say, if appropriate), “That’s interesting.”

You know you can respond with love and compassion because you know that you were like that too.

You are emotionally resilient and bulletproof.

You are no longer a victim of anyone else’s disrespect or abuse.

You don’t have to defend yourself or strike back because they didn’t actually do or say anything that could hurt you. You can bless them because you know they are just doing the best they can with what they have.

Shield of Fear

When you take a look at the things which are holding you back from all the best things in life, you are likely to discover they are things associated with your past. Your shadow-self clings to the negative things which you have endured in your past and uses them as a shield of fear to protect you from falling victim to a similar scenario again.

Your body and your mind think the shield of fear is an effective method of protecting you from suffering, and on the surface, it seems perfectly reasonable, and so it is. Then, there is your highest self, who intuitively knows what is best for you.

Your highest self sees what’s really going on. Clinging to all this negativity is actually blocking you from the strength that comes from freedom from all the things that might be holding you back and enjoying all the best things this life has to offer.

The things from your past which you use as a protective shield from potential harm also shield you from other possibilities which are presenting themselves for you to grow and expand.

Thankfully, God will keep presenting opportunities which trigger the connection to these early hidden wounds, as opportunities to dig down, find the elemental anchor, and deal with the issue, enabling you to be free from the previous incident (anchor) so you can grow, expand, and be open to all the new possibilities which are longing to be enjoyed by you.

When you feel a negative emotional upheaval, this may be your shadow-self hard at work trying to protect you from suffering pain, as you may have previously experienced some traumatic incident from your past. Once you identify the root cause of the emotional surge, you have the opportunity to address the issue just as if you were on fire, you can stop, drop and roll.

Just realizing the anchoring issue can give you some initial relief. If you are able to bring up the anchoring incident and find the learning, wisdom, and/or gift embedded in the incident (for there always is, if you can allow yourself to seek and find the hidden message) you can,

Stop, Drop and Roll

Stop allowing this incident from the past to block you from all the positive potentialities which are ready to reveal themselves to you.

Drop this issue (these issues), not allowing people, demons, wounds, or memories from the past which haunt and control you like a hot rock. You are no longer the victim of your past, so you can,

Roll out the red carpet and start living the life you’ve always wanted, and which has been waiting for you all this time. You are really on a roll, now, and into your most amazing future where your best life is waiting for you.

You are able to grow and expand unencumbered by the shadows of your past.

Is it a one-time, one-size-fits-all cure-all? No. It is an ongoing process because once you’ve uncovered your first anchor(s), you have now become aware of them, and they will present more opportunities for you to eliminate other elements of your shadow-self as they are brought to your attention.

This is challenging and exciting work to embark upon as you consider tackling the deep inner work which is the key to your enlightened expansion, allowing you to be truly free indeed from the shackles which band many of our brothers and sisters who share the human condition.

Celebrate your freedom from the shadows of your past, as you live a better life, your best life and make the world a better place.

Emotional Release Method

Whether you’re suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), struggling with emotional pain from a recent/past relationship, or carrying some other type of heavy burden from another time in your past, this Emotional Release Method (ERM) can help alleviate or eliminate the pain from past trauma or drama in just a few minutes.

I’m all about delivering the best and quickest results for my clients and I use my Emotional Release Method for clients, others I love and care about, and myself, when I need to address negative emotional anchors related to trauma or drama.

The method is a meditative tap dance which releases the emotive connection to any event from your past that is causing you emotional pain and/or physiological discomfort. The pain associated with past trauma and drama can be debilitating and my Emotional Release Method can give you the relief you need to get back on your game.

While my ERM is effective for disconnecting the emotional ties to deep-rooted negative feelings, and sorrow associated with distressful heartbreak, stress, drama, or trauma, it does not treat any underlying issues which may need to be dealt with and may be a part of your personal deep work, but you will experience the emotional pain relief now.

Emotional Release Method

To learn my Emotional Release Method, I suggest that you get to a quiet, secluded space, where you can have a bit of privacy to practice my ERM. Get a place where you can sit comfortably without interruption for a few minutes. Once you know how to perform the Emotional Release Method you can do it anywhere, anytime you need emotional relief.

Before you start, reduce the definition of the source of your emotional pain to a single sentence and be as brutally honest and open with yourself about how you feel. For instance, “I hate it when my boss yells at me when I didn’t do anything wrong!” If your emotional discomfort were on a scale of 1 to 10, make sure that when you repeat your defining sentence that it evokes the highest level of emotional discomfort.

In this example, we will assume your sentence (I hate it when my boss yells at me when I didn’t do anything wrong!) rates a 10 on your emotional scale of upset. Now, we can begin applying the Emotional Release Method.

Sit quietly and calmly, place your hand’s open palm in the center of your chest. Take a deep cleansing breath and relax as much as you can. Pause. Take another deep cleansing breath and relax a little more. One more deep cleansing breath will get you to a place where you can initiate the Emotional Release Method.

Using the tips of three fingers, move them in a circle in the middle of your chest gently, round and round, visualizing your regular breaths are going in and out of your heart, as you tell yourself these words, repeat them after me:

“I love you.”
“I would never knowingly do anything to hurt you.”
“I am here for you.”
“I will never leave or forsake you.”
“I love you.”

Continue to visualize and feel your normal breathing as if it were going in and out of your heart.

You are going to gently and repeatedly tap four points on your face, in a sort of sign-of-the-cross fashion, starting with the forehead, followed by the chin, the bone on the outside side of your left eye, then the right.

Tapping on the center of your forehead, repeat your defining sentence, feeling as much negative emotion as you can when you speak the words. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Next, tapping on your chin, repeat the same words, feeling as much negative emotion as you can, associated with your word sequence. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Now tapping on the left side of your left eye on the bone, repeat the sentence that represents your emotional upset. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Finally, the outside of the right eye, on the bone, tap as you repeat those words again. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Back to drawing a continuous circle around the area of your heart, breathe into your heart love and compassion, and breathe out anything that might be not good for you. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Hold your open-palmed hand over your heart and repeat these words:

“I love you.”
“I would never knowingly do anything to hurt you.”
“I am here for you.”
“I will never leave or forsake you.”
“I love you.”

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Now repeat those words, the words that previously rated a 10 on your negative emotional scale. What number does it feel like now?

If it is not down to a 2 or 3, or gone altogether, then repeat the Emotional Release Method again. You will find the negative emotions released more and more every time you perform my ERM.

Now that you know how to apply the Emotional Release Method, you can do it anytime, anywhere when you need an emotional space and a sense of peace about anything that tries to slow your roll.

You are now taking control of your own emotional wellbeing.

Congratulations.

You are loved.

You are love.

Love Balloon Therapy

If you’re having a heavy negative emotional response to any person, memory, situation or circumstance – one that causes psychological or physiological pain or discomfort – you might consider initiating the Love Balloon Method for relief.

Used in my practice, the Love Balloon Method, is a simple guided meditation technique that relieves the stress and trauma of a challenging life event while retaining the lessons learned. The Love Balloon Method can be an effective therapeutic process in your life and/or practice.

Equipment Required

A Penny
A Balloon
A Pin (optional)

The only props needed for this process is a penny (or any other small object to be used as a focal point, such as a crystal or stone, etc) and an unused balloon. I use a penny due to its conductive properties and they are readily available, but you could use anything of a similar modest size. The balloon is used for its insulation quality and also as an active part of the emotional release process and the pin (or any sharp object) to pop the balloon when appropriate.

The Love Balloon Process

Relax

Relax in a comfortable position and focus on the person, memory, situation or circumstance causing your discomfort. You may find the emotional impact from this event or thing disrupting your life or day at unexpected times causing you to feel uneasy, anything from mildly uncomfortable – to – sick to your stomach or other pain in your body.

Close Your Eyes

For this moment in time, you are simply finding a peaceful place in your mind to relax prior to starting the process as you hold the penny in your left hand, palm up, between your thumb and middle finger. When you have achieved a reasonable state of calm and peace you are ready to move onto recalling the event.

Recall

Using your imagination – with your eyes closed – recall every detail about the object of your discomfort. Ramp up all the emotional impact that you can so that if on a scale of 1 – to – 10, your emotions would be as close to a ten as possible, as if you were as hurt, angry or uncomfortable as if it were happening, right now.

Watch TV

In your mind’s eye, shrink the scene down so that you see the event in its entirety as if it were on a television screen. Now step outside of the television screen, so you can clearly see all the events taking place from outside the TV. Outside the television you remain safe from the event(s) taking place. You can view the entire scene and while it may be uncomfortable to watch it play out before you, you are separated from the scene as it plays out before you.

From this vantage point, you have the remote control, and see how you can pause the scene, fast forward, rewind, , zoom in, zoom out, play in slow motion and adjust the sound of the scene. In fact, you will be surprised and/or amused at how much control you have other the entire scene. Try it now.

White Light, Love and Joy

Imagine a beam of white light beaming down from above, right down through the top of your head, passing through your head to your heart, filling your heart with the light of love and joy. Let this light flow full force and spread its glow throughout your whole body and overflow out through your feet and into the earth below.

Let the television turn and spin as it is engulfed by the heavy flow of love and joy to shrink and follow the flow to the area of your heart, where it spins in the heart’s vortex of light, love and joy.

Hand on Heart

Place your right hand on your heart, creating an overflow of light, love and joy recycled as it overflows from the heart, traveling through your right shoulder, through your arm, out your palm and in the area of your heart where the TV spins even more.

Charge the Penny

When you are ready, right hand still on your heart, send the TV and this incredible love, light, joy and energy down your left arm and see it flow into the penny. See the penny glow in white light while the TV is locked safely inside.

Open Your Eyes

Penny to Balloon

Take the balloon now with your right hand and stuff the penny with your event trapped inside into the balloon. The balloon is made of rubber which acts as an insulator. Safely tucked inside, you can feel the penny but cannot feel any of the emotion. Inside the balloon, it is just a penny.

Blow Up the Balloon

In the knowledge that the flow of light, love and joy, still flowing through the top of your head to your heart and overflowing out through your feet, breathe in and see your breath filling the area of your heart glowing with the light of love and joy. Use this love and joy infused breath to blow up the balloon.

Repeat inhaling into your heart and blowing as your exiting breath filled with light, love and joy continues to fill the love balloon.

Filled Love Balloon

Once the balloon is filled with all that light, love and joy, you can either pinch it or tie it off and sake the balloon. You can hear and feel your penny bouncing and rattling around inside. Imagine how silly and amusing your problems seem bouncing around inside the love balloon. Smile and increase your joy as it bounces around, even allow yourself to laugh at how funny this all is.

Release with Love

After you have amused yourself sufficiently and realize you are ready to finally let go of the emotional impact of the event. Honor the event by allowing your mind to be able to find the goodness, the lesson and learning from having lived through this event as you release all the emotional control this person, memory, situation or circumstance had over you in love.

If you are pinching the balloon, release it with the grand, flatulent sound of sudden deflating and laugh or even cheer as it is gone. Alternative, if you have tied the balloon, pop it and your problem explodes along with the balloon.

Celebrate Freedom

Celebrate by uttering a vocal, “Wa-hoo!” or some similar phrase that makes you feel good. Do a jig and dance around the room. You are now free from the emotional impact or abuse from this person, memory, situation or circumstance.

Wa-hoo!

I love the love balloon.

Penny for Your Thoughts

To use this process, you will need some privacy, a copper penny and the ability to reduce your discomfort to a single emotionally-charged statement.

A. The statement

An example might be something like:

“I hate it when (insert name) disrespects me and treats me like garbage. He’s (or she’s) a dirty rotten (insert expletive)!”

Make certain to include his/her name and some inappropriate name-calling (even if you might not do it in front of anyone in real life) and make sure that when you speak the statement you muster up all the bad feelings you possibly can.

Say the statement out-loud just to make sure it is an emotional match to how hurt or mad you are.

B. Place and charge the penny

There are three location of your body that you will hold the penny flat against your body with your non-dominant hand.

The Places

1. Head
Just above and between the eyebrows against your forehead
2. Heart
Over your heart
3. Stomach
Mid-way over your stomach-area.

Starting with the head location, hold the penny flat against your forehead, repeat your emotionally-charged statement (you should feel the negative emotion as much as you possibly can) and charge the penny.

The Charging

As you repeat your statement, tap the penny at a comfortably rapid pace with a finger (or multiple fingers, if that is more comfortable for you) of your dominant hand.

This charges the penny with the electrical components of the emotional charge from your body.

Repeat as many times as necessary, repeating the phrase and charging the penny at the head, heart and stomach locations.

Usually three rounds of head, heart and stomach will yield a major reduction in your level of pain and/or discomfort.

C. Discard the penny

Smile. You feel better. You’re done with that penny and statement. You will find that you can now verbalize that very statement without feeling the emotional pain connected to it. Congratulations!

It’s so effective, you might like to get another penny and try another painful emotion that you’ve kept bottled up inside.