Excerpted from my upcoming book, The Vitality Code.
Chapter 10. Releasing Trapped Emotions and Trauma
“The organs weep the tears the eyes refuse to shed”
— Sir William Osler, known to many as the Father of Modern Medicine
Release the Issues in the Tissues
When I used to hear that all illness is rooted in trauma, I considered it “woo-woo” and didn’t give it a great deal of attention. It wasn’t until I discovered the physics of emotions, as described in the book, The Body Electric, that I truly understood the role of emotions, and trapped emotions more precisely, in the creation of disease. Here, we will cover:
- a healing story involving yoga
- shaking emotions out of the body
- my first mind-opening energy release experience
- ways to release trapped emotions & trauma
When I was living in L.A., and several years into my newfound love of yoga, I came to the end of a particular sweaty yoga class called Hot Yoga Sculpt. (It’s more high-intensity interval training with some yoga stretches, all done in a hot room, than actual yoga, “Los Angeles-d” but I like it). Lying on my back in a Savasana pose and a puddle of sweat in Savasana, I heard the instructor tell us that she was leaving the yoga studio to help children heal from trauma.
I was so intrigued that, despite my bright red human puddle of sweat that I had become, I approached her afterwards to ask her about it. She said that during her yoga-teacher training (unlike the class she had just instructed), she had healed a life-long battle with eating disorders. Her name is Alizah Silver; our interview is on my podcast.
Alizah informed me that we store trauma as pockets of energy throughout the body, psoas muscles, other muscles (particularly lower back), muscle fascia, organs — everywhere. Specific yoga poses can release this stored energy, which allows the body to function optimally. We will look at some of these techniques here.
It is becoming widely accepted that stress and trauma are the ultimate cause of illness and also addictions — of any type. A lot of people with cancer know intuitively what caused the cancer, as demonstrated in the book, Radical Remission, written by Dr. Kelly Turner, in which she interviewed 100 people who radically reversed advanced stages of cancer — without any medical intervention. She asked every survivor what they believed the cause of their cancer to be. They always had a response, which was normally a traumatic event or stress (which is a result of trauma.)
This was the same for my own mother, who is a cancer survivor. She has an intuitive awareness of what caused the cancer. Since genes play a very small role in the development of chronic illness, and that the environment within the body plays a pivotal role in gene expression, it makes sense to figure out how to create a harmonious environment in the body so your body can heal itself and you thrive. The science of epigenetics puts us into the driving seat to investigate or “reverse engineer” what might be a cause of any chronic symptom you might be experiencing, and so you can ultimately live a life rich in Vitality.
A toxin we rarely think about is emotions. It does sound a little ”woo woo.” I´ll never forget when I attended the Truth About Cancer Live Symposium, that there was a presentation by a doctor discussing how different types of cancer form in different parts of the body, depending on the type of emotion that was experienced regularly by that person. For example, a person carrying around a lot of anger or guilt, will tend to store that energy in their liver or gallbladder. A person who might have suppressed grief or rejection, tends to store that emotion in their lung or colon. At that time, I almost dismissed it, and I left the room to mingle. It wasn’t until a few years later that I really started to understand how trapped emotions and trauma create illness and disease. It was on my becoming familiar with the body electric, and the physics of emotions.
Consider again that everything is energy. As Tesla famously said, “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” It’s more than just a cool saying. Everything is energy — including emotions. Consider that an emotion is energy in motion, e-motion. In fact, it is electromagnetic energy. In the last chapter, you discovered that emotions can be measured in terms of their frequency. As we go through life, we experience events that cause us to store the energy associated with the event, which you might want to call, a trauma. These traumas can be large or small. It might be as small as an argument with a sibling or parent, when you were 7 years old. Or it might be more severe, like some kind of attack, or losing someone close to you. The energy associated with the event then gets stored in the body, anywhere. It might be in the muscle fascia or psoas muscles, as described by Alizah, or it might be in a joint, like a hip or a shoulder, or it might be in an organ or several organs. This reminds me of one of my favorite sayings:
“The organs weep the tears the eyes refuse to shed.”
In other words, unless we process the emotion and release it, the energy associated with a painful event will be stored as trauma or a “trapped emotion,” in the words of Dr. Bradley Nelson (bestselling author of The Emotion Code). From a body-electric standpoint, the emotions get trapped as electromagnetic bundles of energy. Imagine water flowing freely from a garden hose, and then stepping on it. It causes the water flow to slow. This is how I compare trapped emotions with electron flow around the body. Trapped emotions cause a blockage, resulting in decreased voltage to an organ.
To bring this to life, have you had a massage, and been told that you have knots in your back or on your shoulders? They’re known to be caused by stress and tension. Lower back pain is known to be associated with stress and emotions, too.
Consider what happens when you are shocked by something that jolts you. What happens to your body when you hear a noise in your home? Does your body freeze? Can you think of a time when you were startled by an animal, maybe a dog barked loudly — can you relate to the impact it had on your body? What about when your gut “churned” on hearing some information that upset you? Has your heart ever skipped a beat with fear you’re experiencing? These are a few examples of energy in motion. This energy can get trapped inside the body, unless we consciously release it.
Traditional talk therapy can actually end up being counterproductive. The reason for this is a phrase in neuroscience, “Neurons that fire together, wire together,” originally stated by Donald O. Hebb. That is, This implies that the more we think about something, or talk about something, let’s call it a traumatic event, the stronger that memory becomes in the mind and body, which can lead to additional pain and suffering. On an energetic level, there is a saying: “”Energy flows where focus goes.”.“ And “wherever you place your attention is where you place your energy.” So if you give a painful memory or event in your life a lot of your attention, and keep talking about it, and thus more energy, the more the energy will flow to that memory. This can end up in more suffering, not less.
In other words, if you sit in traditional talk therapy, and visit a traumatic event over and over again, it creates new links between nerve cells, so the event (or memory) becomes more crystallized in your body, rather than releasing it from your body. The way to flip this on its head is to release the energy associated with the memory, so eventually there is no emotional charge. In the words of Dr. Joe Dispenza, “A memory without an emotional charge becomes wisdom.”
Using somatic release methods, we can release trauma from the body without revisiting the memory. Have you ever witnessed an animal shake after being chased? This is a form of emotional release. The chased animal got scared, the energy of the emotion was lodged, and then the animal intuitively shook it off. Animals know how to do this. Humans do not, at least not in the Western world. I dated a girl about six years ago who would shake her legs and body when she got stressed, or even after an argument between us. I thought she was nuts — until I discovered this information!
I first experienced shaking in my own body when I saw an energy healer in California five years ago. She was described to me to be like Yoda from Star Wars. I was told this Peruvian woman would just “know stuff” about me. On recommendation, I drove for seven hours with a good friend of mine to meet her, and our lives were changed after just one weekend. I´ll never forget our debrief driving back to Los Angeles together. Neither my Irish friend nor I had ever experienced anything like what we experienced that weekend. We engaged in some powerful plant medicine (a legal type) and the healer was able to see into my body, my life, and my past.
Among many profound experiences I had with her, she performed some energy work on me that quite literally induced my legs into shaking all by themselves. As I lay on my back, knees bent, she did what she called “energy extraction.” She would spit into a cup every now and again, and burp, and make jokes about how ladylike she was. In just a few minutes, my legs were shaking all by themselves as the energy was shifting, passing through my body, and being released.
Another time, she picked up through me the energy of a friend of mine in England. She kept asking about him, using his name. What transpired changed my view of the human body, and connection to one another, and really, life – entirely. I will never look at the human body the same way again, as I truly began to understand us as energy beings, interconnected to one another (proven now with quantum physics), and not separated and limited “meat robots.” We will dive deeper into this in the Quantum section.
At the time of writing this, I have just returned from Guatemala where I took part in a five-week intensive book writing retreat, to get this book done! In Guatemala I met a number of very gifted healers. Among them was a woman who did a very similar energy extraction process on me during a time when my glands in my neck were swollen for no particular reason. She burped and shook as she carried out this extraction on me. Occasionally, she’d ask me specific questions about my current challenges.
If you do not resonate with this yet, remember that I thought my ex-girlfriend was nuts — until I experienced this for myself. I have, hopefully, at least, planted the seed for you, for something which will undoubtedly show up in your life at some time in the future.
Meeting similar healers might seem to you to be a challenge, but once you set the intention, you might be amazed as to whom you meet. We must also find ways to do this ourselves. I have a toolbox of methods with which anyone can release this energy. They include, but are not limited to:
- The Emotion Code (book and process) — using applied kinesiology, you can determine the names of emotions, where they are stored, when they were stored, and more, and release them very quickly. This is my personal favorite.
- Yoga — as described by Alizah Silver. Listen to our podcast and also another podcast on healing trauma and ADHD with yoga, with Janelle on “The Vitality Secret” Podcast.
- Acupuncture, Qi Gong, tai chi, any form of energy treatment
- Trauma Release Exercises (TRE), which are exercises to induce a form of shaking in the legs as I described above, while lying down.
- Laughter therapy/yoga – why not make it fun!
- Frequency therapy such as sound healing and tuning fork therapy (yes, really — we are energy beings!)
- Breathwork — I’m dedicating a whole section to this, in Section 4 of this chapter.
- Healing Back Pain — The Mind-Body Connection (book)
Trapped emotions are not only the root cause of most chronic illnesses, they are also the underlying cause of most addictions, depression, being reactive, highly strung, and stressed. It is therefore recommended to explore ways to release them. Find a method that suits you and enjoy the process. Need support with this? Please go to https://VitalitySecret.com/coaching.