Stored Emotions - physically or literally ?

hi all !

as we pulsate through our healing journeys, both for ourselves and on the clinical side, we come across thoughts/sayings/phrases that reiki 'unblocks' 'soothes away' or 'releases' emotions that sorta 'get' tapped in our tissues/body and produce disease...

it is often said that the mind/soul heals earlier than the body, and similarly, body shows up the ailing symptoms quite later after the mind/soul has already suffered a lot, although not apparently!


while certainly i don't disagree with this, but i like to educate myself more about this aspect... to help inviting insights, lets start with some question/answers...


question :
how does an emotion get stuck somewhere in body ? if we say so, do we assume that emotions also 'travel' inside the body like blood or like oxygen carrying heamoglobin ?

question :
do emotions have a generic identity similar to our chi... bad emotions = bad chi ?

question :
when we treat body parts we certainly observe releasing of long stuck emotions.... is this to be taken as evidence that emotions were stuck in those body parts ?

question :
emotions are generally taken as relative in their genome... i become flare up when traffic jams, this is my reaction to a situation, hence relative... a buddy sitting in next car, does not get flare up so ferociously, hence no emotion is produced... when our mind reacts to sometihng, are we giving 'birth' and hence 'energy' to something that we later call emotion ?

question :
is that another possiblity that emotions dont get released since a body part is healing, rather emotions are being released as this is another 'biological trigger' reiki brings about ?





Take care


salman

excellant topic! typical in-depth of you Salman, hehe. It'll be interesting to see others views on this, .

warmest wishes
Wayne

Thoughts and ideas are energy,
walk on hot coals, if you don't
think about hot coals your OK
once your thoughts turn to fear
then you can get burned.

What does it mean to think outside
the box?

David William Sohn wrote about body
memory and finding hidden controls
in our life that can alter the course
of our self-made plans.

a typical saying is get the monkey
of my shoulder. We store a lot of
day to day emotions in our shoulders.
After a massage the tension is gone.

When some one very close dies.The heart
area feels heavy/empty like a piece of
you is missing. I'm sure Everyone reacts
to their emotions differently.

Stuck in traffic @#@# is using energy
with no positive affect, staying calm
cause there's nothing you can do except
meditate is changing the outcome of your
hidden controls.

Lambs-Wool wrote:hi all !

as we pulsate through our healing journeys, both for ourselves and on the clinical side, we come across thoughts/sayings/phrases that reiki 'unblocks' 'soothes away' or 'releases' emotions that sorta 'get' tapped in our tissues/body and produce disease...

it is often said that the mind/soul heals earlier than the body, and similarly, body shows up the ailing symptoms quite later after the mind/soul has already suffered a lot, although not apparently!


while certainly i don't disagree with this, but i like to educate myself more about this aspect... to help inviting insights, lets start with some question/answers...

I agree with Wayne - an excellent and very deep topic, Salman!
Thank you for making me think about this!

Lambs-Wool wrote:
question :
how does an emotion get stuck somewhere in body ? if we say so, do we assume that emotions also 'travel' inside the body like blood or like oxygen carrying heamoglobin ?

I think, like most things, there is more to emotions than meets the eye (and/or intuition!). There is certainly a biochemical element and the various glands and tissue that produce chemicals associated with emotions are well documented in scientific literature. So, in this way, emotions (or at least the products of emotions) can be said to travel inside the body in the blood and other bodily fluids.

Excessive emotion can lead to excess chemical production and, like the products of a stimulated immune system there can be a build up of toxins when the body is swamped by too much active production and cannot get rid of it (or is not allowed to get rid of it - e.g. bottling things up inside or inhibition by drugs etc.).

This build up can have serious effects on the balance of the various body systems, producing various symptoms both physical and emotional.

Lambs-Wool wrote:
question :
do emotions have a generic identity similar to our chi... bad emotions = bad chi ?

As mentioned above, I also believe there is an energetic component to emotion, as well as the physical and this can affect our ki - its flow and its quality - as well as the chakras and bioenergetic field (aura) generally.

Examples, I often use when teaching Reiki are when someone makes a "cutting remark",or "cuts you to the quick" this can actually have the effect of slashing your energetic field, causing it to leak or let in undesirable energetic vibrations from the environment.

Strong emotions built up within an individual can also have serious effects as when someone build up anger so much that they "snap" and often lose conscious control of their behaviour.

Also, I think most of us have felt the unpleasant feeling (usually somewhere around our solar plexus or "pit of the stomach") when someone really shouts at us. This effect can often be dramatically demonstrated by martial artists when they shout a "Kiai" which, when performed by an experienced practitioner can cause various effects in the recipient ranging from making them off-balance, temporarily immobilised to causing collapse.

Lambs-Wool wrote:
question :
when we treat body parts we certainly observe releasing of long stuck emotions.... is this to be taken as evidence that emotions were stuck in those body parts ?

There is also what is known as "tissue or muscle memory" and I think that events that have involved strong emotion can be stored in muscles and tissue (and organs). When someone really relaxes during a Reiki session, this can cause the memories to be released and often "replay" the emotions.

Lambs-Wool wrote:
question :
emotions are generally taken as relative in their genome... i become flare up when traffic jams, this is my reaction to a situation, hence relative... a buddy sitting in next car, does not get flare up so ferociously, hence no emotion is produced... when our mind reacts to sometihng, are we giving 'birth' and hence 'energy' to something that we later call emotion ?

In our everyday lives, most of us are constantly under stress, which, again. involves the production of chemicals, e.g. adrenalin. Originally, this was a reaction to occasional events which required the "fight or flight" reaction and once the event was over (i.e. we either fought or ran away to somewhere safe) the adrenalin would be excreted or converted into something less active.

Nowadays, almost constant stress causes chemicals such as adrenaline to be in our systems for much longer so we are much more ready to fight or flare up, even in non-life threatening situations. Those of us who are able to lead a more relaxed lifestyle or have ways to naturally reduce stress (e.g. self-Reiki, meditation, yoga, Tai Chi etc.) may not flare up as quickly as someone who feels constantly stressed.

Lambs-Wool wrote:
question :
is that another possiblity that emotions dont get released since a body part is healing, rather emotions are being released as this is another 'biological trigger' reiki brings about ?

I'm not quite sure what you mean here, Salman, but I think that Reiki can work on both the physical and energetic components of emotions. So, emotional memories can be released as muscles relax, Reiki can help bring chemical balance back to the body and also energetic balance to the flow and quality of ki.

Lambs-Wool wrote:



Take care


salman

Colin, that was an interesting
detailed response

emotions (or at least the products of emotions) can be said to travel inside the body in the blood and other bodily fluids.

That brings to my mind the saying
when angry " that makes my blood boil."
and you can see the physical change
as the face reddens and the neck
veins can be seen to almost burst.A
build up of acidy in the body causes
much imbalance on the physical/emotions

I love your cutting remark example,I have
never quite visualized hurting remarks slashing
through the aura.Complementary remarks would
have the opposite, a desirable energitic
vibration.

War zones,poverty,jealously etc; create anger
where people are more likely to snap.I've heard
it said that anger can harm the liver/gall bladder

you mention,"tissue or muscle memory". most of us
do not remember our toddler years. The most impressive
years of our life. Tissue and muscle memory start as
we grow in the womb. Picking up the environment out
side the womb. By the time we are two we hear the
negative words, "the terrible twos" Our immune system
is impacted by the adult worries/fears.

hi buddies

the topic is indeed very interesting, and i have just dropped a reply in Wildcare's thread "Sexual Abuse and Reiki"...


Thnaks Colin and Bridget... i exactly had anticipated such refined thought process in this thread, and though i have nothing to add what has been said by you such beautifully, i need to express what i gather here :

Bridget wrote:
Thoughts and ideas are energy,
walk on hot coals, if you don't
think about hot coals your OK
once your thoughts turn to fear
then you can get burned.

thats is a very interesting thing, and is true!

in a certain sect of Muslims, followers dance bare feet on burning coal, and they dont' get burnt... religious enthusiasm aside, there is of course some 'law' working in this incredible event...

extreme concentration spells also happen to be of the same species, whereby mind's awareness to physical agents becomes very less-felt...

off thread that comment maybe, but i feel it is really helpful in what we will be discussing in next pages....

Bridget wrote:
David William Sohn wrote about body
memory and finding hidden controls
in our life that can alter the course
of our self-made plans.

homo sapiens are the 'survival of the fittest' species.. there are many inbuilt, yet hidden, powers that surface in even of need only... interesting that during self defence, body automatically shfits of 'reversed breathing' from 'normal breathing' just to feul up energy needed in combat or life/death situations... anger is produce of our reaction, our expectations that a certain thing needs to be in a way that we want, instead of what it is to be... anger uses a lot of energy, converts it into aggression... since we cannot exhibit aggression in normal day to day life situations, this accumulated/feuled up energy becomes a 'block', a 'stagnant marsh' maybe... i need to re-ask my question about thread from this point onwards... granted, that un-used intense emotions create nuisance value in the vibrational pattern of of energetic structure, but question is that what is the mechanism through which reiki removes/dissolves this stagnant energy ?

when we talk about reiki's mechanism and say that reiki 'brings about balance', it is a ususal connotation that reiki balances off energies, i.e, takes away excessive energies, and 'tops up' deficient energies... i.e, the 'sum total' of energetic product of a person before and after the session is not the same... either he is getting rid of energy or is acquiring energy where it was deficient... whereas this theory holds good in other energy cultivation techniques, i haven't found it precisely accurate....


my views are that reiki is a 'transformation' process instead of an energetic balancing... as Colin has put " Excessive emotion can lead to excess chemical production and, like the products of a stimulated immune system there can be a build up of toxins when the body is swamped by too much active production and cannot get rid of it (or is not allowed to get rid of it - e.g. bottling things up inside or inhibition by drugs etc.) ".... so one theory might be that reiki flushes out such toxins, another theory (quite not popular) might be that instead of flushing something from our bodies, reiki transforms toxins into less poisonous substances, that are able of being put to uses instead of being 'stagnated' in some muscle or tissue of our bodies... this, in the end, ties in with Colin's, thus : "Originally, this was a reaction to occasional events which required the "fight or flight" reaction and once the event was over (i.e. we either fought or ran away to somewhere safe) the adrenalin would be excreted or converted into something less active

alright, we can say that emotions produce chemcials and those chemcials accumulate in our bodies causing numerous problems... when blood gets contaminated with such 'stored' chemicals and such blood reaches our brain, this initiates a similar chain reaction in our mind, producing like emotions.... and finally making this another 'pesudo' characteristics of our behaviours ? how reiki changes this pattern ? does it 'transforms' or it 'excretes' such chemicals that are apparently 'stored' in our body parts...

i also wonder that if the brain within our skull is gifted the cognitive abilities to sense emotions, reactions, feelings or it is our entire body that possesses the abilities that are a hallmark of brain in conventional medical science...


if my liver gets affected by jealousy or hatred, it would be a 'flight' of imagination if i start assuming that jealously and hatred have been stored in my liver ?


to speak honestly, i m trying to figure out where myth (if any) has entered the explanation of reiki alleviating emotional problems, and by nature of such discourse i might be so very disagreeable in these lines...... but it is crucial that we challange our learning process to see if we can stand on what we have been learning

take care

salman

have you heard of the phenomenon, that some people with transplants have memories or dreams of their doners? And the theory that water also stores memory in some way.... there is another theory that could explain both phenomenons, and that is "the string theory" that beyond atoms and nuclei, that everything is made up of vibration.... these tiny vibrations are in the form of a string.... thus even a thought forms a vibration.... for example when you think about picking up a stone, the exact same process happens in your brain as if u were actually picking up the stone already...

it could explain how intent, distance healing, and the law of attraction works... all vibrations of different frequencies..

LuvSoulJah wrote:have you heard of the phenomenon, that some people with transplants have memories or dreams of their doners? And the theory that water also stores memory in some way.... there is another theory that could explain both phenomenons, and that is "the string theory" that beyond atoms and nuclei, that everything is made up of vibration.... these tiny vibrations are in the form of a string.... thus even a thought forms a vibration.... for example when you think about picking up a stone, the exact same process happens in your brain as if u were actually picking up the stone already...

They even begin to eat the same
food as their donor.

I have heard about the fact that
the mind is so swift. Just raising
your arm as an example, when you want
to reach for something the command
is instant. I wish my computer would
be that quick.

LOL haha me too Bridget! LOOOOOL Diet plays a big role too in the levels of frequencies we can tune into also. For example meat, fatty foods and sugars.... make us very dense... When I do a vegetarian diet and especially raw fruit band veg.. i feel my energy lifting a great deal.... I think this maybe the purpose of fasting during a period of meditation ... to be able to reach that frequencie and to become enlightened.... As for emotions storing in the body, i think definitely that is so... emotions woprk on a much higher frequencie that thoughts.... and I think certain emotions are stored more in certain parts of the body.... keeping thjese emotions bottled up can cause dis-eases in these body parts too...

I avoid all foods with hormones
such as dairy. Sugar foods and
diet foods. Stores are getting
pretty good about having alternative
foods although they are pricey.
Farmers markets during the summer
bring fresher fruit and vegetables.
Many folks are learning to grow
there own tomatoes and other low
maintenance veggies/herbs.


Emotions usually settle into the
nurturing areas in the body causing
dis-eases

LuvSoulJah wrote:it could explain how intent, distance healing, and the law of attraction works... all vibrations of different frequencies..

Within reiki however, the mechanisms don't necessarily follow this general description

For example, distant healing within reiki operates differently than in QT. The necessary ingredient within reiki process is probably spiritual powers transferred from Usui sensei and those would have worked even if there was no such thing like 'law of attraction' or 'healing space'...

I remember having a cursory look on 'string theory' some two or three years back, and as far as i remember offhand, it was a revised version within quantum physics.... Every thing is made up of vibration, thats true, but vibration without an entity cannot 'create' mass imo but of course there is lot of weight in things u have said, and as shared by Bridget... I m going to get a revision of my ideas in the process.... And this was already in my 'agenda' in starting this thread



Take care

Salman

Salman Yet Another Excellent Post,

I like this one especially for it to certain extent validates my approach (or part of it of course from my point of view) to Reiki.

Let me start by saying that whether we like it or not Emotions are very important and quite frankly very useful at the times. They give some meaning to situations they motivate us to learn help with the memory and so on. However, there are times when emotions make us sick, especially the ones based on fear. Now while the scientists still argue how to define emotion for all practical purposes I believe we will not be wrong if we say that emotions operate on many levels. Furthermore we could even say that they in some way do bridge our thinking, feeling and activity (response).

When it comes to Reiki IMO we too often hear it in reference to healing and there is nothing wrong with it except that we overlook something equally important. The PREVENTION. I believe that within Reiki we have great tool to prevent disease to start with. How? The founder gave us precepts which if applied would practically ensure happy life ever after

Now that you started thread about emotions I believe this will put more light on the importance of the reiki precepts. Truth to be told one of the reasons this is so might be in the fact that in so many books that I read about reiki I didn't find much about this topic. So, I believe it is OK if we “borrow” some explanation model from some other disciplines and work with it.

While many say that we are “slaves” of our emotions I do not think so. In order for me to make my point let me “step back” and state pretty much the obvious. Something happens in our life and we think about it. Than something else happens and we feel about it. Let's see in what relations is “thinking” vs. “feeling”. When we are in “thinking” mode do we feel less? When we are in “feeling” mode do we think less? I believe it has to be so. And this could explain why someone sometimes behaves “irrational”

The fact is that people perceive world through different “channels” Some are visuals, some auditive and some are kinesthetic. I am not saying that we do not use all three channels but at the times one of those is predominant and the question is:”Can we in some way influence this process?” In other words if somebody is “heavily” in his feeling world can we move him let's say into the “visual world”. I believe we can. We as humans have master the art of self sabotage. We impose limiting beliefs upon ourselves and keep reinforcing it throughout the life. When we recognize the trigger (consciously or subconsciously) we recall the behavior right away. It is like our mind plays the tape over and over again. But what if we could interrupt that tape. Scratch it so that our brain will not be able to play it again?

When I was attending NLP seminar they gave us great example:

The patient walked into the office of practitioner and after initial greeting and taking seat he assumed body position of sad person (and we all know how sad person look like, don't we?). The practitioner noticed that his patient was too deep in “feeling” mode and he slammed against the desk and yelled:” Wait a Minute!! The sessions hasn't start yet! And what happened. The patient change his body position immediately and his feeling changed. This tells us that the way we carry our body affect the way how we feel but also the way how we think affects our feeling.

Now this is great tip that we can use at home. No, No I am not saying you should yell at your spouse but let's say you come home and you notice your spouse being very sad. What you could do is while taking your shoes off you can happily say something along the lines:” Yeah...finally my feet do not stink. Yes!!

Do you thing he/she will change her feeling? Well, try it out and let us know

question :
how does an emotion get stuck somewhere in body ? if we say so, do we assume that emotions also 'travel' inside the body like blood or like oxygen carrying heamoglobin ?

I believe that emotion does travel until we suppress it. Why would we suppress our emotions? Well, sometimes we want to be “politically correct” and do not want to disagree with others (our boss etc). However, it takes a lot of energy to keep emotion suppressed and therefore the fatigue is one of the signs that we have suppressed emotions.

question :
do emotions have a generic identity similar to our chi... bad emotions = bad chi ?

In a way I think so and this is one of the reasons why we feel certain emotion in certain part of the body.

question :
emotions are generally taken as relative in their genome... i become flare up when traffic jams, this is my reaction to a situation, hence relative... a buddy sitting in next car, does not get flare up so ferociously, hence no emotion is produced... when our mind reacts to something, are we giving 'birth' and hence 'energy' to something that we later call emotion ?

You are right. The people do not respond same way to the situations. What is trigger for you might not be trigger for somebody else because he has different opinion about things than I might have. It depends on our upbringing, our social environment, culture and so on.

question :
is that another possiblity that emotions dont get released since a body part is healing, rather emotions are being released as this is another 'biological trigger' reiki brings about ?

If I understood this correctly it is rather very complex and would depend how we define healing. Since healing needs to take place on many levels (and as I mentioned that I think that emotions also work on many levels) and if taken this way than everything is somehow connected to the healing and I am not sure what other biological trigger we might be talking about which are not related to the healing.

Again Great Post!
Thank You!

Regards,

Resko

Discover How Learning Reiki Can Change Your Life

hi Resko buddy!

It is amazing that we have got such insights about emotions by people from different walks of life here... You have added another feather, thanks bro! I m very happy to see that we have seen perspectives of different minds here, speaking from different backgrounds, apparently no one using any terms of applied psychology or psychiatry, yet everybody giving us gems after gems of truth.... Maybe when we speak anything about life, we can't be grossly inaccurate

Emotions definitely have a force, since they happen to be coming to existence using our energies... Emotions show we are living... Emotions are composed of our reactions, our neurolinguistic responses, our attitudes and our egos... Emotions have an identity that corresponds to our personality.... Love and hatred are emotions... In a way hatred is duality aspect of a single emlotion called love... There may be endless ways to define emotions, since there are endless ways to define life itself, since emotions are life!

Emotions are a natural response, and sprouting energy is also natural... If we need to weed out negative emotions, we dont need to suppress or 'control' them, we have to change attitudes that create reactions which give power to corresponding emotions, and very aptly pointed out that any discussion about emotions is incomplete without mention of precepts !

Resko wrote:
We impose limiting beliefs upon ourselves and keep reinforcing it throughout the life. When we recognize the trigger (consciously or subconsciously) we recall the behavior right away. It is like our mind plays the tape over and over again. But what if we could interrupt that tape. Scratch it so that our brain will not be able to play it again?

now this rests at the core of our thread here... the act of our brain repeating and continuing in our set modes of behaviour is what does not let emotions to neutralize their energies... these energies have no fate but to be bottled (thanks Colin) deep inside, becoming cause of disease....

however, the influence of our body on brain cannot be ignored... as mind and emotions affect our body, so as our body acts our mind, our moods, our temprament and attitudes... these are inextricably linked... and we got a brilliant word in this regard, thus :

LoveSoulJah wrote:
Diet plays a big role too in the levels of frequencies we can tune into also. For example meat, fatty foods and sugars.... make us very dense... When I do a vegetarian diet and especially raw fruit band veg.. i feel my energy lifting a great deal.... I think this maybe the purpose of fasting during a period of meditation ...

having studied all these insights, i have realized that i m on a different viewpoint as respect storing of emotions in our bodies in a sense that can be substantiated empirically... but of course, this is a beginning of a thought process for me...

whenever we treat a person for emotional problems, and use SHK on head, would it be a good thought to use SHK on a particular body area that is apprently linked with that emotional problem ? this we have to decide carefully, since we might not have been taught to use SHK in this way?


secondly, when we byosen and find that underlying hibki's have no relation to an apparent ailment symptom, can we link it to the fact that the hibki's are indicative of an 'emotional storage' in that area that has not yet shown up on physical plane ?


i m trying to change views and need a little help


take care

salman

Emotions come after thoughts.
We have the power to reject
thoughts that disturb us rather
than push them to the back of
our head.

question :
how does an emotion get stuck somewhere in body ? if we say so, do we assume that emotions also 'travel' inside the body like blood or like oxygen carrying heamoglobin ?

yes
i have had this experience myself a long while before reiki.
cells have memory, dna tells those cells what to do but i believe that there are rouge cells that mutate somehow either something has been dormant inside the cell and stress for example has reactivated this something (cortisol can have a profound effect on the human body) or the change was somehow "hard wired"? into the dna and a chemical or medication altered it

it's a complicated subject really, but i also know a person's emotional state can alter internal metabolism as well as external appearance ie obesity.

question :
do emotions have a generic identity similar to our chi... bad emotions = bad chi ?

yes and no
the predisposition for this does exist (again through personal experience.)
but the out come can be changed due to nature vs nurture

anxiety/depression/worry seems to be a family trait in my family. i'd say going back at least 2 generations.
my daughter and son seem to have inherited it fom me.
what i find interesting though, is that i'm more aware of the connection than my mother was or her mother before her and i'm doing my best to minimize the effects so hoping then that this trait stops here.
does this answer the question adequately

queen of clean wrote:
(cont.).......cells have memory, dna tells those cells what to do but i believe that there are rouge cells that mutate somehow either something has been dormant inside the cell and stress for example has reactivated this something

this is interesting i remember a famous Urdu Novelist Bano Qudsiya, who has been acclaimed as a highly spiritual personality, to have said that when ill-earned money is used to feed our children, the genes mutate and the ill effects are then carried down generations.

if we could tie up the 'mutation theory' stuff with reiki treatments, we might have to think another glaring possiblity/ question :

"does reiki treatments have the ability to bring about a mutation of cells ? ( please consider it linked with an objective of bashing 'rouge' cells)

plus, another thing which some genetic scientist can tell precisely that does disease mutate our DNA or just cause a malfunctioning of related activities ?

anyone having requisite knowledge of how genes / DNA function in a disease scenario, please come forward to straighten our understanding



take care

salman