By Dr. Kate Wilson
Take back your birthright to feel, express and let go.
Emotions, which can be more simply explained as energy patterns, are expressed or repressed for various reasons. These reasons can be either internal or external, real or perceived. They are natural and normal responses that have an effect on the nervous system and subsequently on all of the other systems in the body. Emotions arise as responses to stimuli from the words we say or hear, to our thoughts or what we think others are thinking, and as a result of our physical actions. Emotions can feed off each other and grow uncontrollably. Some emotions lead to negative behaviors and others result in positive behaviors.
For example, empathy is a pattern that moves one to practice patience, kindness and understanding. Contempt, on the other hand, moves one to practice disregard, arrogance and inconsideration. When we become entangled in and held prisoner to our emotions, they send us on a rollercoaster ride of feeling “on top of the world” one moment and then down on ourselves because “nobody cares or likes us” the next .
Emotional freedom begins when one can let go of trapped emotions and allow the many emotions that come and go throughout the day to do just that: to come, serve their purpose of moving us into action—conscious action—and then be released. When trapped emotions are released, we can better manage the normal daily flow of energy by identifying and dealing with new emotions as they emerge. We can then acknowledge and use emerging emotions to respond in an appropriate manner, being fully conscious of what we are feeling and expressing in the moment.
When trapped emotions are freed from the tissues, the nervous system is able to let go of the continuous stimulus response cycle and rest. This, in turn, enables a state of homeostasis in which the nervous system can manage the entire body, generate a healing response where needed, and restore vital balances of hormones and neurotransmitters. This gives the entire organism the opportunity to restore and regenerate.
“Your mind, emotions and body are instruments and the way you align and tune them determines how well you play life.”—Harbhajan Singh Yogi
Practicing presence in each moment enables emotional freedom, and emotional freedom enables practicing presence in each moment. These two states of being work together and enhance each other. Trapped emotions can lead to repetitive cycles of painful circumstances, hurt feelings, health concerns, and/or life dramas that reinforce the same nonbeneficial or even unhealthy patterns. As we free up the energy patterns holding anger, fear, dread, shame, blame, guilt, grief, denial, suppression and anxiety, we create space for understanding, compassion, love, acceptance, patience and joy. If this is something you have been longing for or working on, or and it sounds appealing to you now, please read on.
Break Up the Patterns
More and more options exist today to help us break free from the energy patterns that lead to confusion and pain. As we realize more deeply the integral connection of our body, mind and spirit, we are able to recognize opportunities to heal. Becoming the observer of our thoughts, deeds and words helps to start breaking up the patterns that fail to benefit us or anyone else. Prayer, faith and meditation are extremely beneficial to this process as well. Sometimes we also need help from another person to break up patterns. This is where therapeutic techniques and modalities may be needed to move beyond what we can reach alone. As an example, I will discuss the one I am most familiar with myself: Neuro Emotional Technique or NET.
Neuro Emotional Technique (NET) is a great tool to help break the cycles of chronic suffering experienced by the physical, emotional and spiritual bodies. NET is a mind-body therapeutic technique developed by Dr. Scott Walker in the 1980s.
Originally developed to treat chronic and recurrent spinal subluxations, NET was developed through the studies of chiropractic care, applied kinesiology, and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to correlate aberrant body structure or function with meridians, emotions and muscle tone. A trained practitioner will guide one quickly and easily through a series of muscle tests and arrive at a time in life that the patient may or may not recall immediately or easily. It does not matter if the exact event emerges as a conscious memory because the body has recorded it and can release it with or without conscious recognition of it occurring. Through the nervous system’s identification and release of Neuro Emotional Complexes (NECs), one can experience not only freedom from chronic pain and or limitation in the body, but also experience expanded freedom from the same old story, avoid getting caught up in the daily dramas and see their own potential more clearly. Over time, one often finds that identifying their needs and making game changing shifts with intention becomes more fluid or natural.
We have learned through neuroscientific research that the expression of emotions and stress is a complex series of reactions that form a pattern of expression in response to a stimulus. How each individual carries out that expression is unique. If one is trapped in a holding pattern of recycling a harmful expression or series of expressions, “dis-ease” will manifest. It may be experienced in the form of illness, allergies, poor sleep, eating, behavioral patterns, recurrent injury, anxiety or depression. NET works with the individual’s nervous system to free up the neuropeptides that are causing the pattern to repeat and entangle with each repetitive turn, which ultimately caused stress and negative emotions to lodge in the tissues.
Of course, not every problem we experience is emotional, but every thought has an emotional component, each experience has many emotions. Pain takes place not only where we feel it, but also in nine centers of the brain including the emotional center or limbic system. NET and other modalities can aid the body and mind to release trapped traumas and limiting patterns—freeing up the space for new realities, new patterns, and a whole new life experience to be achieved!
Dr. Kate Wilson is a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) and Osteopathic Clinical Sciences (Ph.D. OCS) who helps people heal their body, mind and spirit. She works with people on any number of healing paths from minor accidents to major trauma, acute injuries to chronic conditions, and from infants to 108 years of age. Combining scientific knowledge and practice with heart-connected guidance, Dr. Kate is known for helping those who have “tried everything.” She shines her light to help others shine their own. She just relocated and opened a practice in Sarasota, FL. For more information, contact Dr. Kate at Integral Healing & Wellness, tel.: 941.402.5827 or email sacredselfdiscovery@gmail.com.
