Emotional healing is a process of bringing awareness and acceptance to all aspects of our Self, including our innermost feelings, truth, unmet needs and desires. We then need to have the right tools to help us release and integrate the effects of the past conditioning or traumatic events which get stored in the body on a cellular level. By accessing these cellular memories consciously, we can release the effects of past experiences, which if not integrated, can manifest as physical symptoms or illness in the body. Also, the unresolved energy of past experiences, suppressed emotions and feelings can support current habits, patterns, overreactions, and ways of thinking that are counterproductive.

Emotion as Energy

Our emotions are really fluid energy waves, that should be moving through our system as energy-in-motion. As you can see, when you take the first letter of the word energy and put it together with the word motion, you have the word "emotion". Even though our bodies appear solid, as humans we are made up of energy. The reason we know that, as Einstein pointed out, is that atoms make up the building blocks of all matter, and atoms are made up of positive and negatively charged electrons.

When we don't allow our emotions to flow freely, that energy starts to slow down, eventually turning into a more condensed form of matter which contributes to aging, illness and disease in the body. This condensed form of emotional energy has a "charge" to it, so the more you suppress a feeling or emotion, the greater the charge it carries in your body and in your subconscious mind. Suppressing a feeling is like compressing a spring. Each time the spring is compressed without releasing it, it builds up more tension, or what could be called latent energy. The same principle applies to our feelings and emotions. Take anger for example; the more I suppress my anger or deny it, the tighter that "spring" of anger becomes inside of me, which only gives the anger more power. This latent energy that builds up in our system can eventually get to a point where it causes our body to break down, leading to illness and physical symptoms. Alternatively, this energy of anger may leak out in crooked ways like being critical, defensive, exploding or overreacting, fits of rage, even violence. As a seasoned therapist and bodyworker, I have seen over and over again how repressed emotional pain, fear and anger were directly linked to the person's physical health problems.

For example, I recently worked with a woman, whom I will call Deborah, who had IBS and Fibromyalgia. She had spent several years battling these health conditions, but with very little success. She was in pain and would often throw up at work because she felt so sick. During the course of our session, Deborah got in touch with a tremendous amount of guilt and shame that had to do with her upbringing as well as her previous marriage. She was brought up in the strict Catholic tradition, and was rife with programming that she wasn't deserving of having what she wanted and that it was shameful to have feelings of desire with someone out of wedlock. Using the energy work and body-centered healing processes that I do with clients, she was able to unload a lot guilt, shame and grief, and come to a place of acceptance of herself and the child within that felt so unworthy. By the end of our 90 minute session, she noticed the chronic pain she normally felt in her neck and shoulders was gone. Also, her breathing became much freer and more natural. It was clear to me that the latent energy of those feelings she had been harboring was screaming to her as pain in her neck and shoulders.

Know this, it takes a lot of energy to keep those past and present feelings/emotions stuffed inside. This creates a drain on our immune system and inhibits our body’s own natural self-healing abilities.

Breath and our Emotions

As I mentioned in the above example, the client's breathing shifted to an easier, more natural rhythm. I would like to explain to you how our breath and our emotions are so intricately woven together.

The natural way for us to breathe is to use our diaphragm, so that when we breathe in, our abdomen should swell a little, not the upper chest. Most people I have found, learn to breathe more in their chest than their abdomen, and consider this normal. This type of breathing is referred to as shallow or fight-or-fight breathing. Over time, there are a myriad of problems that can arise from breathing shallowly. Physically, it puts more pressure on the heart, tenses our neck and shoulder muscles, and limits the efficient intake of oxygen which is needed to carry the proper nutrients to the cells of our body. Emotionally, restricting the movement of the diaphragm, cuts us off from our feelings, both positive and negative. In fact, how we physically suppress an emotion is by holding our breath or breathing shallowly which contracts the stomach muscles, thereby restricting the movement of the diaphragm. Our bodies do this automatically when we're frightened or scared. For example, during or after a traumatic event, the body may freeze, or go into what's called the immobility response in order to survive. This creates a holding of the breath or very short shallow breathing. This holding pattern in a person’s breathing can stay with them until the effects of that trauma are dealt with on both the mental and physical/emotional level.

Other ways we develop a shallow breathing pattern come from day to day conditioning where we're taught to suppress our feelings; or if we grew up in an unsafe environment and we never felt comfortable or free enough to just be ourselves. This kind of conditioning is often harder to unwind than the effects of a single traumatic experience. Also, our society encourages us to keep our stomachs flat, holding them in which thus forces our breath to become shallow and unnatural.

The shallow breathing pattern, whether it's from conditioned responses over time or from a physical/emotional trauma, serves to buffer us from the raw pain of our emotions. The problem is, because most of us just take our breathing for granted without giving it much thought throughout the day, what we don't realize is that the shallow breathing is reinforcing the build-up of latent energy inside that I described earlier. Hence we are eventually headed for disaster if we don't find a proper way to integrate the effects of our past and present emotional wounds.

The good news is, even though our breath is the very way in which we suppressed our feelings originally, when used consciously, it is also the key to accessing and releasing the latent energy that needs to move through our system freely in order to create balance.

Accepting our Emotions

We need to accept all of our emotions, because each serves a purpose to our body. For example, if we experience a loss, or have our feelings hurt, our body produces the emotion of sadness or grief to help resolve the hurt or loss. The body actually needs to cry or have a release in order to maintain equilibrium. Therefore it is important that we learn to accept the sadness, allow it to be there and allow ourselves to express it appropriately. Releasing the sadness, letting go to it, brings a feeling of peace, calm or relief. However, if you remember the spring analogy, suppressing the sadness creates more tension and then the body suffers the consequences. Our mental capacity will be affected as well, because the mind will try to process what the body hasn't been allowed to let go of, by worrying, ruminating, obsessing and so on. What is ironic is, it is our rational mind that stops us from letting go. Letting go is natural, whereas suppression is not (except in traumatic situations). Suppression is something we learn to do. We learn to hide our feelings, needs, and desires because some authority figure(s) may have told us they weren't acceptable.

Resistance

When we repeatedly deny a feeling that was not acceptable we create resistance. We each have what I call, an internal resistance thermostat, which is set at a level that is within our comfort zone. We only allow so much of a particular feeling/emotion to come through at a time to our awareness; or we allow ourselves to express only so much of whatever emotion we're aware of before we shut it off. This is called controlling our feelings. The need to be in control of our feelings at all cost has to do with the fear of letting go. The best example of letting go and just allowing emotions to course freely through the body is an infant. For them, expressing their feelings is natural. They can feel a myriad of emotions in the course of a few minutes. They can go from sadness to frustration to fear to hunger, to joy, very quickly and easily. They're not worried about what they're expressing, they're just being, balancing their experience of life with a true expression of that experience. For an infant, feeling and expressing what they're feeling is completely natural. Containing our feelings and the energy of our emotions is a learned response.

The child's who authentic expression was deemed unacceptable or threatening to her "authority figures" may learn to shut down her authentic self and begin to fear or create resistance to those feelings and the expression of those feelings.

I equate resistance with fear. There is a Buddhist equation that says:
Pain x Resistance = Suffering
And conversely:
Pain x Acceptance = Purification or Freedom

What this is saying is, that if we resist our feelings, especially our emotional pain, we create suffering, struggle and stay stuck in our patterns. By opening up to our pain, fear and anger and accepting it in the physical body, we can purify and heal at a very core level.

Another way of equating this is:
Open to your feelings – energy flows
Close to your feelings – energy stops
And as well:
Express a truth – body relaxes, mind lets go
Withhold a truth – body contracts, mind projects

The Courage to Feel

It takes great courage and strength to feel our deepest feelings. In our society, accepting and embracing our vulnerable side is typically not encouraged. Being seen as vulnerable or showing emotion is often considered a sign of weakness. But in reality, opening up to our feelings, our vulnerability, is what takes real courage. It's much easier to put a lid on sadness, fear or anguish, and then think that we're being strong, because that's what we learned. However, I think we've got it all backwards. We're much more afraid to show emotion than to hide it. It is fear that stops us from feeling that raw edge, the edge that pushes back our personal boundaries to a greater experience of life.

When I work with someone for the first time, they often tell me they feel a little anxious about what might come up in the session. They don't know what to expect, so the anticipatory anxiety is one of the first things we deal with. It is normal to feel this way, because if we've hidden away feelings for so long, we may be afraid they will overwhelm us, consume us, or we'll become even more stuck and feel worse. Or, we may fear being rejected, criticized, or shamed for our feelings. My experience is that as long as a person does their best to drop the resistance to being present with the emotion or physical experience as it is happening, and accept the feeling just as it is, they won’t stay stuck in it or become overwhelmed. Being present with and surrendering to our deepest feelings is rarely as bad as we think it’s going to be and is almost always liberating. Also, I am there to guide them through the experience and help them release the energy of the emotions through the breathing and conscious awareness/energy work we do in the session.

Who we are is not our emotions, and if we can remember that, we can think of sadness or any feeling as something temporary. Like the clouds in the sky, our emotions can be forever changing and shifting if we allow them to. It is this allowing, acceptance, that keeps us balanced and free from physical and emotional distress.

As I mentioned earlier, letting go of an emotion is natural, whereas holding in our feelings is a learned response. Since we are so programmed to rsist our feelings, letting go can be often difficult. However, with the right intention, anything is possible.

EFT or Emotional Freedom Techniques

One of the most effective methods I use for helping people let go and release the root cause of emotional distress and physical symptoms is called EFT. EFT is an acronym for Emotional Freedom Techniques, which is a simple energy technique utilizing the subtle energies of the body and subconscious to unlock deep emotional patterns quickly and permanently. By tapping on specific stress-relief (acupressure) points while you are tuned into the presenting problem, we stimulate the body's energy system to flow correctly. This serves to release the energetic charge or "vapor lock" that keeps the troublesome feeling, traumatic memory or limiting belief in place, as well as the physical symptom that mirrors the underlying emotional wound.

The beauty of EFT is that it can work quickly and is easily taught to clients so they can apply it to themselves after the session at home. Also, it allows for effective work to be accomplished over the telephone. The client simply taps on the energy points on themselves while I direct them when and where to tap and what to say as they're doing it.

If you want more information on EFT, click on www.emofree.com. This is a very diverse site with many interesting and compelling case histories. EFT is one of the primary components in my emotional healing practice whether I’m working with clients in person or by phone. I have found EFT to be very successful in bringing freedom and relief from a myriad of physical and emotional problems.

Below is a description of my Emotional Healing Therapy service, my fees and contact information.

EMOTIONAL HEALING THERAPY
With Donald Nichols

Emotional Healing Therapy is a powerful alternative to conventional therapy that combines energy work and conscious breathing with an interactive healing process. My work can help you quickly access and clear the emotional root cause of unresolved personal issues and patterns of self-sabotage which affect your health, your happiness and your personal relationships.

I gently guide you through a body-oriented self-discovery process where you can become conscious of any hidden feelings, unmet needs, unspoken truth, and false beliefs which influence present day patterns, reactive habits and physical symptoms.

Using a variety of client-centered techniques, I will assist you in letting go of the mental/emotional blocks and help you gain important insights as to the origin of the limiting pattern or problem. You can then experience the “freedom” of feeling lighter in the moment, less burdened by the past, and less prone to being stress or “triggered” by future circumstances.

Many people have found my work helpful for: · Reclaiming their power and freedom to be themselves

· Releasing suppressed sadness, pain and depression
· Overcoming anxiety, fears, and phobias
· Letting go of guilt, shame and anger
· Clearing issues of rejection, betrayal and abandonment
· Healing physical and emotional trauma
· Building self-esteem and self-acceptance
· Clarifying their life purpose and spiritual path

People who benefit from working with me the most are those who have a desire to grow spiritually and emotionally, and are willing to take full responsibility for changing their life. I am a certified wellness consultant and integrative therapist who has been successful in helping change the lives of thousands of people. I provide a very safe, supportive atmosphere to experience deep emotional healing at a pace that is right for you.

To for more information or to book an appointment with me, call: 520-877-2637 or email me by clicking here.

Phone sessions available.

Fee: $85/hr

Visa, MasterCard, Discover,& AmericanExpress Accepted.