Module Three Part Two - Processing Emotions

Session 4 - Childhood Experience

Childhood Experience Creates Chronic Pain – Years Later.

Here's a scenario that I've created when someone is having a difficult or stressful time at work that may even impact on their health.

However, they have chronic pain but there seems to be no reason or doctors cannot find a reason for their ongoing pain.

As a child Carrie often felt left out as she was growing up. It seemed to her that her siblings got all the attention from their parents. Regardless of whatever she did trying to please her parents it made no difference.

Decades later and Carrie works in a job that she loves and enjoys. But, lately, something is just not right. The work environment is making her unhappy, stressed and recently she has developed painful irritable bowel symptoms.

Recently at her workplace Carrie has begun to feel left out and isolated. The manager seems to be giving praise and kudos to her work colleagues, never seeming to recognize or acknowledge her hard work.

Within this fictional story you can see a pattern. Although decades later, a long-forgotten childhood experience can affect your work. You have no idea why but, in some way, the predictive coding of your brain is putting two and two together and getting 972!

Can We Physically Feel Emotions?

YES!

We generally think of emotions being in our minds.

However, think of: -

Times when we are nervous.
When we are fearful
When we become impatient
Becoming angry

Let’s Look at Anger

The two examples that I give in the video below of emotional reactions.

A short-term sudden anger when you perhaps drop your keys or drop your plate and smash it.
Alternatively, I give an example of a long-term anger of decades ago that incidentally only came to mind when I was dictating the video.

As I thought of my own anger experiences noticed the physical reaction in my body, where it is and how it feels.

There is often a difference between the shorter term, more insignificant as opposed to a longer-term anger stowed for some time.

One of the things that was important for me to do when I made this video was to make sure that I let go and breathed out the anger that I brought up by making the video itself!

Emotional Release for Wellbeing

I've spent 20 years working with people using various techniques for emotional release.

Although, often forgotten feelings or emotions are considered inconsequential, it is now recognised that emotions can cause long lasting physical illness.

This is the New Medicine that is spreading around the world with an increasing number of practitioners of various modalities being trained. Often they are professionals who are convinced that asking all patients with persistent or recurring pain to accept that pain is with them for their whole life and to live with ongoing pain.

Now brain scans are showing that long term pain, whether constant, intermittent, recurrent the emotional part of the brain is involved.

Time to check out your emotions

Get a notebook:

Check your emotions a few times each day
Name and write down each feeling
At the end of the week review

What have you learnt?

Session 5 - Emotional Processing in Action

Doing Something with your Emotion.

It may seem very strange to actually ask you to do something with your emotions. Generally, we just feel an emotion it arises on its own, has its effect on us, physically or mentally or on our relationships and then poof it’s gone.

Wouldn't it be nice if it was really that simple.

Check the Direction of Your Anger

We could experience anger because of: -

o Something someone did to us - we were angry at someone else.

o Something that I actually did to myself - I am angry at myself.

o Something that I watched that caused me to be angry.

o Something that I experienced and felt because it was in the group that I was with - other people's anger all felt by us.

Now the interesting thing that you may notice that I have created a direction for the emotion going to and from other people or just within ourselves.

Often thinking about the direction of this emotion can be very helpful. For instance, if you are angry at yourself then you have some control over that emotion.

If that emotion is coming from you to other people because perhaps what you have seen or what you have heard, is causing anger towards those people, again you do have some control.

The Impact of the Anger of Other People

Now let's consider the anger that's more observational that you are subjected to, what others are doing either to you personally, or to other people that you witness and feel.

These latter two cases are not within your control so in a way there is nothing you can do about what is coming in your direction except perhaps get out of the way by removing yourself from the situation.

You can also decide how you want to react to emotions whose influence you cannot control. You will have choices:

What you do - that's how your react.
What you say - or perhaps what you should or shouldn't say.
Perhaps take time and take care of yourself.

Suggestions to Help Process Negative Emotions

The reason why the title says to do something because if you just allow emotions to flow, mostly they will flow inwards and you will store them, file them away where they are likely to be remembered either consciously or subconsciously.

There too easily available for recall or to do in the same way as we add autumn leaves to the compost heap.

Add to the emotions already stored.

Emotions like adding leaves to the compost heap.jpg

In module one I explained predictive coding, how your brain learns and remembers by the events that happen, what we are taught and the results of our actions or the action of others. It is this predictive coding that can effectively govern our behaviour. At times predictive coding can make change difficult a reason for practice, practice, and more practice to alter brain neural networks.

What does Processing Emotions Mean?

We process past emotions by clearing out, letting go, releasing and most of all not putting any more emotions into long term storage, particularly negative emotions.

Good positive emotions I'll leave you to file away and keep them for another day.

Jean talks about negative emotions

Here are some suggestions for emotional processing to add to the Neuron Moments scattered throughout this program.

Writing emotions, for example let's use anger: -

1. Write down emotions on a piece of paper then cut it up and flush the pieces down the toilet.

2. Write anger on a piece of paper then burn it, safely, I hope. (once got a bit scary in the clinic room with this method of emotional processing)

3. How about writing the emotion on a whiteboard because then we can just erase it, wipe it away.

Now here's an interesting method particularly if you're having a day out at the beach or you live near the sea: -

Write the emotion in the sand making sure it's near the water's edge.

Then relax and let the sea wash it away. I think this one is particularly healing because you can watch nature process that emotion of yours.

Session 6 - Awareness of Emotions

Negative emotions can have a negative effect on our health and wellness, as well as happiness. Experiencing negative emotions are part of everyday life so they cannot be avoided and should not be ignored.

Regards of the direction of the emotions, those you can control and those you cannot they can be expressed, thereby not put into bodily storage.

Who really wants to collect negative emotions?

Neuroplasticity is a good tool to engage, it can change the way that you react towards events, relationships and people in your life. At the same time I've found that clients can build resilience and self-confidence hence providing self-protection about negative events or influences.

The events or experiences that can trigger the alarm system (remember the star diagram) certainly do not have to be large traumatic events.

I'll illustrate this by four stories of people who took part in my clinical research.

The first – a game of golf.

Two team captains were playing in a pennants match when my clients opponent moved the ball and did not take responsibility for it. My client was so surprised to see this - she didn't say anything.

This had been 30 years ago. A golf match happening that was against her ethics.

The second – caring about the environment.

This client had been walking along the beach. She was passionate about the environment. But when she saw a beautiful shell, she told herself she shouldn't take it home, it is supposed to stay in its environment.

But she did take the shell home.

The third – a car accident.

She had chronic pain for over 20 years from injuries caused by a car accident. She was driving the car in which her sister was killed.

The fourth – a long kept secret.

A woman in her 60s, when a teenager she got pregnant. She travelled to the other side of the country alone and supported herself through the pregnancy and gave the baby up for adoption.

I was the first person that she had told.

Revisit your pain story - Is stress part of your pain

One final thing to bring into your pain story and I think we mentioned it when you were working on it is we have to consider the place of stress. Stresses not just in our lives but the effect it has on our pain. I was certainly had the Sabre-toothed tiger on my shoulders as I walked around the light show.

We might have to accept stress is part of life but at times we need to be able to say: -

OK I'm safe.
I'm home.
I want to chill out.
I want to go into my cave and let those chemicals that are there purposely to break down the adrenaline the cortisol so our bodies can come back to homeostasis.

Here's a very easy relax. Join me by the river in Hagley park in Christchurch.

Sit for a few minutes watching the ducks puddling around in the water.

Significant Life Events and Chronic Illness

Earlier in this module we looked at timelines that suggested significant life events can actually lead to physical illness. I found this research because I have a book written by doctor Hislop “The Feeling Being” writing about the importance of talking to patients about what is happening in their lives.

I’m not sure of other research carried out in such a specific manner. To me this is an argument for addressing any emotions connected with various life occurrences for chronic pain patients and other chronic diseases.

Although knowing emotional release is a powerful and natural therapy for chronic pain, I have to leave you with these questions: -

Why emotional release isn’t a standard inclusion in chronic pain treatment?
Could addressing their previous life crises improve patients pain levels.?

Conclusion – Emotions

In my clinical practice I found allowing clients to recognize past emotions, and being able to use emotional release techniques, resulted in an improvement in their chronic pain.

Therefore, I was surprised to learn emotional treatment was not included in the psychological component of chronic pain management. Then I confirmed this when I found a basic explanation of acceptance and commitment therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy.

When I searched for reassurance that my ideas of acknowledging a client’s ‘life story’ are relevant, I noted considerable variety in patients’ life crises. Hislop’s Research (done in 1074) showed 94% of patients had a personal crisis within twelve months before the onset of ulcerative colitis.

Do we really have to wait another 50 years before emotions and past life events are taken into consideration when treating chronic pain and other conditions that fail to respond to standard medical treatments?