Healing the Emotional Body - Part II: How to Integrate and Release Emotions Within the Body

Ariel Emmanuel, MHC

Healing the emotional body requires us to be more aware of our emotional messengers and find compassion and understanding of our experiences. Often we tend to shame or judge the feelings that come up and label them as negative or heavy. It's essential to allow ourselves to witness emotions without judging them or shaming ourselves for experiencing them. All feelings are valid! They serve as messengers to tell us something about our internal experience. By understanding where they are coming from and how they affect your body, we can learn to attend to and release them.

  • Step 1 - The first step is to be aware of our emotions and the strategies we utilize when we're experiencing difficult emotions. 

  • Step 2 - The second is to acknowledge the emotions that come up. Name them and witness them without judgment. Determine what part of the body the feelings may be stuck in.

  • Step 3 - Third is to find techniques that allow the emotion to be released from or integrated into your body. Emotions can often get stuck in different energy centers of the body when they are not processed. Determine strategies to adjust the nervous system and create emotional regulation.

How do you Know if Your Emotions are Stuck? 

Shame, guilt, apathy, and grief are essential human emotional experiences. All of us have felt these emotions at one time or another throughout our lives. The issues begin when we get stuck or locked in these emotional states after traumatic experiences. We could also become stuck in transitional emotions and have difficulty allowing peace, joy, compassion, and love.

  • Take a moment to track your emotions. Which emotions do you experience most often?

    • Are those the only emotions you feel comfortable expressing? What feelings do you avoid or push down?

  •  Learn about the 7 Chakras and what each chakra governs. 

    • Are you feeling blocked in one of your body's energy centers?

    • Is there an emotion or feeling that you tend to experience repeatedly? 

Integrating and Releasing Emotions in the Body

There are a few holistic and somatic techniques that allow us to integrate emotions into the body. These techniques help align our energy systems to move emotions through the body and prevent them from becoming stuck.

Somatic Healing Techniques:

  • Breath Work 

  • Kundalini Yoga and Chi Gong 

  • EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique

  • Acupuncture and Acupressure

  • Energy Work and Reiki

  • Cranial Sacral and Network Spinal Analysis

  • Meditation and Mindfulness Body Scans