Your Powerful Emotions
Have you ever been touched by someone and that person’s touch brought back a wonderful memory? How about the time when someone else touched you and it made you flinch? What is the difference between the two?
It is said that your body remembers everything, even when your conscious mind forgets. Your body especially remembers things that have a high emotional content for you. Your body stores your happiness, your sadness, your traumas, your triumphs, your anger and elation, your joy, your sorrow, your guilt and grief, your fears, your hopes, your past, your present and your potential.
It doesn’t matter how your body remembers everything, it could be a joyful experience or a traumatic one. What matters is how you hold onto the memory and how you perceived that experience. The memory or trauma could be as horrifying as a car accident or as simple as being told you were stupid because you fell off your bike and scraped your knee. How the situation was perceived by you and what feelings and emotions you attached to it are important.
In a car accident, you are fully aware of the physical trauma that you received…a broken leg, bruised ribs and stitches. You are taken to the doctor to help you heal these external wounds and you can also be sent to physical therapy to help you regain the proper strength in your leg. What is very often neglected, and is never asked about, is the ‘emotional trauma’ of the car accident. How did you feel about it? Not physically, but emotionally. The horror you felt as you saw the car crashing into you; the fear of being hurt or the anger you felt toward the other driver. These emotions can be just as powerful and painful as the physical trauma, but in order to survive the ordeal, you tuck them neatly into a corner of your mind to deal with later or forget about them altogether. So what happens to those powerful emotions? They simply go away, don’t they? Emotions are designed to move through your body, not be ignored or suppressed. Resistance or denying that the emotions exist can cause those emotions to lock themselves into your body, eventually leading to physical pain.
How Emotional Waves Look
In the book Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living, author Craig Williamson does a wonderful job of describing emotions:
“Emotional feelings occur in waves, just as movement in the ocean occurs in waves. An ocean wave is a movement that passes through the water; an emotion is a movement that passes through a person. The surface of the ocean can be calm until a wave passes through and disrupts that calm. After the wave has passed, the surface will be calm again. Similarly, emotions can emerge, rise, fall, and then fade away.”
So your emotions are meant to ebb and flow through your body just like an ocean wave. Emotions have a powerful effect on your psyche, as well as your body. Your ability to respond emotionally is an integral part of who you are. You can allow the emotions to flow through your body until they fade away or try to control them, suppress them or deny them completely.
The Surf of Your Emotions
Positive emotions such as happiness, joy, hope, highest ambitions, and triumphs are easy to express. You enjoy them, you encourage their presence and allow them to ebb and flow through your body until the wave is complete. You welcome these emotions with open arms and share them with everyone around you. The positive emotions are easy to surf on because the wave is smooth and very exciting because they are comfortable and welcome to everyone.
Negative emotions such as anger, fear, sorrow, disappointment, sadness, and resentment aren’t as welcome as their positive counterpart. When you experience a negative emotion, you feel the effect of that emotion very deeply. The wave of a negative emotion is entirely different. The surf is choppy, windy, violent, and rough to ride on because you usually don’t allow the wave to go through its natural course. Most of us try to stop the wave soon after it begins or try to deny that the wave even exists at all.
When an emotion arises, it exists. Now that the emotion exists, it cannot be wiped out or turned off. Just like an ocean wave, the wave of your emotion has its own momentum and its own energy that is on a mission to complete itself. Just because you stop this emotion at the beginning of the wave, does not mean that the emotion goes away. The wave is still waiting for you to allow it to run its course. In the meantime, until you finish riding the surf of that particular negative emotion, it remains stuck in your body which could eventually cause pain.
How Can Massage Help
Your body, your psyche, and your mind work together as a team, with information constantly passing back and forth between them. Together they attempt to maintain health and well-being. I mentioned earlier that your body remembers everything that has a high emotional component for you. If the negative emotional wave was stopped or denied then those emotions will become stuck in your body. When your body is touched in a healthy and safe environment, it has a chance to relax and unwind from everyday stress. In the process, some old feelings and emotions that have been stored have a chance to resurface. The emotional trauma from the car accident now has a safe place to be released. Honor your body’s innate wisdom to restore itself to balance and harmony. Allow the emotions that resurface to flow through your body so that the wave can rise, fall, and fade away in a comfortable, healing environment.
My goal is to provide that same healing environment for you and also to provide a safe and healthy touch in order for the stored emotions to travel unimpeded through your body. As your body relaxes and begins to release stored tensions and emotions, the surf becomes a little less choppy because the wave from that particular emotion was allowed to run its course.
MY CHALLENGE TO YOU: I know what you are thinking…well, this doesn’t really apply to me because (insert excuse here). However, this newsletter is intended to help you recognize all of your emotions..anger, sadness, happiness, defeat…all of them. They all have an effect on your body especially if you don’t honor them and recognize them.
That sadness you felt about someone’s death? If you didn’t fully ride the surf of your grief, then those emotions are stuck in your body. How about that anger toward whomever? If you didn’t fully express your anger then, it too, is stuck in your body. (However, this doesn’t mean that you can go all Rambo on someone). This is just serves as a reminder that all emotions deserve your honor and your respect and if you don’t ride out the surf of your emotions, then it can have a lasting effect on your body. Please, find safe and healthy ways to express your sadness, anger, all of your emotions. Your body will thank you for it!
DISCLAIMER~~This article is not meant to replace the advice of your physician, psychiatrist or counselor. If you hold a lot of trauma, it might be helpful to pair your massage sessions with traditional talk therapy to help process the emotions that resurface while you are on the massage table.