Letting Go: Can Trapped Emotions Stop Someone From Letting Go?

Life is constantly changing and never stays the same. But while this is the truth about reality, it doesn’t mean that letting go and going with the flow of life is necessarily easy or straightforward. The outer world is constantly changing and transforming, and yet the inner world and what is going on within someone can create resistance to this.

And when this happens and there is a resistance to what is taking place, life can become a real challenge. One is then out of alignment and no longer present and responding to life in real time.

It has been said that the present moment is all there is and that the past and the future are nothing more than an illusion. But when one doesn’t let go, they are stuck in the past or thinking about a future that would be better.

So the present moment can then end up being lost and wasted as a result. What happened a few weeks ago or even a few years ago is consuming ones present moment; which is the only moment where one has a sense of power.

There is no way for one to change what happened in the past, unless they had a time machine. But at this time of writing they don’t exist and even if they did exist, going back into the past may lead to further challenges.

Just Let Go

It is not uncommon to hear someone say ‘just let go’ and while this can sound completely appropriate, it is not always this easy. And just because someone knows that they need to let go intellectual, it doesn’t mean that letting go emotionally is easy.

The intellect is one thing and this responds in a certain way. When it comes to ones emotions or what is often called their emotional body, a completely different approach is often required.

The Body And The Mind

Whereas the mind is more of a doer and does things through force and action, the emotional body is more or less the opposite to this. To change ones thinking, one must think differently and see differently. That’s how the mind is changed and so just ‘letting go’ is the language of the intellect.

When it comes to the emotional body, action and force is not how it works. In order to let go and change how one feels, one needs to embrace and be with their emotions. Through this process they will gradually disappear. There is no force or action required, it is a being and not a doing. So the words ‘just let go’ is often seen as a foreign language to the body.

Consequences

One could hear this saying and be at a point in their life where it is possible for them to ‘just let go’ and all could be well. However, the opposite could also be true and one could end up feeling far worse.

This could cause one to feel weak and that they lack something that others have. They might even end up feeling guilty for holding onto the past and not moving on with their life. The reactions one gets can all depend on how emotionally aware the people are who they surround themselves with.

And as emotions are typically overlooked and denied in today’s world, avoiding them at all costs is the norm. It is then not so much that ‘just letting go’ works for people, as it is that it allows them to escape from how they truly feel.

The Battle

One could end up in a battle between their head and their body. With the knowledge that they should let go and that this is what they need to do on one side. And on the other side will be a body that is full of emotions and therefore desperately wants to be listened to.

This resistance is going to be natural based on a least to two possible reasons. If one has been taught that they should just let go, then they won’t want to get in touch with how they feel. To do this is going to be seen as a distraction and what will sabotage them from letting go.

And the other is if they have not developed a healthy relationship to their emotions. If one feels uncomfortable with them, it will be natural to have very little if any connection to them.

Emotional Beings

Each situation that one has in their life causes emotions and some create more than others. And when these emotions are allowed to flow, one will remain in the present. If this doesn’t happen, their attention will end up getting caught in the past.

The mind can end up creating thoughts and beliefs based on these feelings, but at the root of it all, it’s about the emotional experience that one had. So one could let go of their thoughts or beliefs about what took place, but if the feelings that were caused by what took place have not released as well, it won’t make much difference.

Trapped Emotions

A clear example of this is when one experiences some kind of traumatic event or an accumulation of minor events that are just as traumatic. When trauma is experienced, one can end up not going through the complete emotional experience. So they end up staying stuck in a feeling cycle that was unable to be completed.

One can then end up losing touch with these feelings to protect themselves and even end up living in their head as a result. This is done for protection and not something that one should feel ashamed of for doing.

And all the time these emotions and feelings are trapped in one’s body, their attention is going to be brought back to the past in some way. It is the emotional charge that is causing one to do this.

Awareness

So once these trapped feelings and emotions have been released, the emotional charge of the event will go and letting go will be a natural consequence. This can be done with the assistance of a therapist or a healer who will allow one to face them and gradually release them.

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Oliver J R Cooper 
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk/