Power of Emotional Healing
Emotions are the erratic companions that walk with us through life, influencing our decisions, shaping our relationships, and guiding our reactions to the world around us. They’re our raw responses to the delightful and painful moments. For example, our hearts swell with joy and glee when we play with our grandchildren. We are filled with satisfaction and pride when we achieve a career milestone. And, when we witness our parents age or go through the process of dying, our feelings flood with sadness, grief, and sometimes even helplessness.
Emotions are as natural as breathing. They’re meant to be felt and expressed as a direct reflection of the moment we are experiencing. Like a mirror, they reflect and connect us to life events. When we respond with joy, sadness, anger, or fear, these emotions give us insight into how we interact with life. However, many of us face that emotions can get stuck. Instead of reflecting only on the experience, we hold onto them, allowing them to bleed into other aspects of our lives long after the original trigger has passed.
The Cycle of Negative Emotions
Have you ever felt stuck in a loop of negative emotions? Maybe you find yourself defaulting to feelings of anger or guilt even when the situation doesn’t necessarily call for it. Perhaps sadness or frustration has become a frequent visitor, and you can’t seem to shake it off.
These emotional cycles happen when we allow ourselves to hold onto feelings longer than necessary. Instead of processing and releasing emotions after they’ve served their purpose, we generalize them. For instance, a momentary experience of anger can expand into a chronic state of irritation. That brief flash of guilt can become an overwhelming shame that permeates your interactions with others. Over time, the emotions that were meant to be fleeting, healthy responses become habitual ways of being, shaping our reality, creating bias, and triggering undo reactions.
This is not the natural function of emotions. They are designed to be temporary—a transient and critical part of our human experience. But when we latch onto a feeling, allowing it to stick around longer than intended, it becomes a filter through which we view life. Instead of allowing us to flow with the natural ups and downs of existence, we become stuck in patterns of reactivity, making it harder to experience the full range of emotions available to us.
Breaking the Cycle: A Powerful Technique for Emotional Healing
Fortunately, there is a way to interrupt these negative emotional cycles. It begins with awareness—recognizing that you are caught in a pattern—followed by deliberate action to heal and release those emotions. One simple yet highly effective hypnotherapy technique can be used during meditation or journaling to create a shift in how you relate to triggered feelings.
Here’s how you can use this method to process and transform emotions that feel stuck in your life:
1. Identify the Negative Emotion
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” — Paraphrased from Carl Jung
Start by choosing a negative emotion you frequently feel— anger, sadness, frustration, stress, or guilt. It’s essential to work on one feeling at a time, as this will allow you to focus and dive deeply into the roots of that emotion. Sit quietly with yourself and tune into how that emotion feels in your body. Where do you sense it the most? Is it a tightness in your chest, a clenching in your jaw, or a stabbing pain in your lower back? Allow yourself to fully experience the sensation of that emotion without trying to push it away.
2. Dig Deeper: What’s Behind the Emotion?
“I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.” — C.S. Lewis
Now, ask yourself what’s going on behind that emotion. Negative feelings often overshadow deeper, more vulnerable emotions. For instance, if you are working with anger, there may be an underlying feeling of disrespect, abandonment, or unworthiness. If you are working with guilt, the underlying feeling may be fear of failure or not being enough.
Digging deeper is a crucial step in the process because it allows you to get to the heart of what’s truly bothering you. Ask yourself: “If I took away the feeling of ________, what would be left? What is this emotion protecting me from feeling?” Take your time and allow the concealed emotion to rise to the surface.
3. Go Back to the Initial Sensitizing Event
“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” — Sigmund Freud
Once you have identified the underlying emotion, trace it back to the first time you remember feeling that way. When did it begin? What were the circumstances you were living through at that time? Were you a child, a teenager, or an adult? How did that experience shape your beliefs and emotional patterns moving forward?
Understanding the origin of the emotion allows you to see why it became so embedded in your psyche. Often, these deeper feelings began early in life when we didn’t have the tools to cope effectively. Our younger selves did the best they could with the resources they had, but those emotional patterns may no longer serve us in our current lives.
4. Connect with Your Younger Self
“In every adult there lurks a child—an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and calls for unceasing care, attention, and education. That is the part of the personality which wants to develop and become whole.” — Carl Jung
Now that you’ve identified the origin of the emotion, imagine connecting with the younger version of yourself who first felt this way. Visualize yourself sitting with that younger you, whether they were five years old, twelve, or twenty. Ask them what they needed at that moment—was it love, validation, or to feel heard or supported? Perhaps they needed reassurance that everything would be okay or simply wanted to be held.
As you connect with this younger version of yourself, offer them what they need at that time. Visualize yourself hugging them, providing words of comfort, or explaining the situation from a wiser, more mature perspective. Provide the nurturing and support missing in that moment.
5. Recognize the Gift in the Struggle
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” — Kahlil Gibrran, The Prophet
Here’s where the true transformation happens. Once you’ve connected with your younger self, take a moment to reflect on how that challenging experience may have given you something valuable. What resources did it help you develop? Did it strengthen your resilience, compassion, intuition, or self-sufficiency?
Even our most painful experiences carry gifts within them—skills, traits, and strengths that we may not have developed otherwise. By acknowledging these resources, you begin to shift the narrative around the experience from one of victimhood to one of empowerment.
6. Express Gratitude
“Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity… it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” — Melody Beattie
Thank your younger self for the wisdom and strength they carried forward into your life. Show appreciation for the resilience, compassion, or other qualities that grew out of that challenging situation. Let your younger self know that their experience wasn’t in vain—that it helped shape the strong, capable person you are today.
This act of gratitude shifts the energy around the emotion, helping you release any lingering negativity. Instead of being stuck in the pain of the past, you can see the bigger picture and appreciate the growth that came from it.
7. Notice the Shift
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them… Do your best until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” — Maya Angelou
After going through this process, take a moment to check in with yourself. How do you feel now? Has the emotional charge around the situation lessened? Do you feel a greater sense of serenity, empowerment, or understanding?
Often, clients share with me how this practice leads to a profound shift in their emotions. What once felt like an overwhelming burden becomes a source of strength and wisdom. They report feeling lighter, freer, and more connected to their true selves.
The Power of Choice
There is a choice point each of us comes to in life. We can either continue to perpetuate old patterns of emotional reactivity, or we can choose to respond in a new, more empowered way.
Life continually presents us with opportunities to grow and evolve. The choice is yours—will you stay stuck in past emotions, or will you take the brave step of transforming them into a source of strength?
This technique is just one way to begin that journey. With practice, you’ll find that you can break free from emotional cycles and step into a life filled with greater peace, clarity, and resilience. All it takes is a little self-awareness, a willingness to explore the deeper layers of your emotions, and the courage to let go of what no longer serves you.
