Heavy Emotions
I have personally experienced depression and know from my own experience that it often has roots in emotions that have risen into the surface energy.
In my experience, these were emotions that I had buried, but were gradually ready to be seen and released. They were connected to difficult memories, and when they surfaced, they became almost physical. The heaviness that accompanied these emotions was immense, as if the energy itself were heavy in the truest sense of the word. They take over and drain all strength and willpower.
Often I have managed to release these emotions through deep energy work, either by sitting down and sensing where they reside in the body and what memory images are connected to them. It can be very difficult to do this alone when the energy has become overwhelming. Then it can be helpful to receive assistance from others, for example through healing or other treatments such as massage, acupuncture, or even chiropractic. It is important to do something to release the energy, as it can accumulate in various parts of the body. Muscles and bones are not excluded, and often a great release occurs, for example through massage.
Emotions can become so physical that they cause all kinds of pain and symptoms. They can pull us so far down that we become unable to perform even the simplest tasks, such as going to the store or putting on a load of laundry.
I have gone through periods where I was so unwell that I needed medication to get through the hardest part. Medication can help in the worst cases, but my experience was that it made the emotions flat. In the deepest depression, however, there is little to no joy present, because the darkness of the emotions dominates completely.
The mind becomes narrow, and it is as if the future no longer exists. Each hour becomes an eternity where everything slowly drags forward.
When we become aware that depression is connected to emotions, we can begin to work with them and try to understand where they come from. I often think of this like the weather, sometimes it is overcast and the sun is nowhere to be seen, and everything feels heavier. But when the sun breaks through again, everything becomes lighter.
If we look at depression as a result of old emotions, we can see that during difficult times in life we often had to suppress them in order to survive. There was simply no other option and no one there to help us process them at the time.
The pain accumulates and becomes like a thick layer of clouds that makes it difficult for us to feel joy and to love both ourselves and others.
When these old emotions later rise to the surface, we sometimes respond in the same way we did as children when they were first formed. We may also “leave the house,” meaning the body energetically, and lose our grounding, which makes this even more difficult. Some people live almost entirely in their heads because of trauma and lack connection to the body. That is why it can be very helpful to go out into nature and walk in beautiful places to regain grounding and reconnect with the body below the neck.
Emotions are complex and can make us feel in many different ways. Physical pain can even have roots in old emotions. One of the methods that has helped me is writing down memories. My mind is very active and had a tendency to repeat the same stories over and over. I therefore decided to write them down so the mind could “see” that I was listening.
When I allowed it to flow onto paper, I noticed that I began to write the same sentences again. It was as if the mind was trying to predict the future. But of course, it does not know what will happen or how. This became a good way to disarm it, because when I later read the text, I could see that what it had “predicted” did not happen.
The mind and emotions work together in a powerful interplay, especially after trauma. The mind tries to protect us, like a vigilant guardian, and prevent us from being hurt again. That is why it is important to examine where recurring thoughts come from. Often there is an emotion behind them, even an old emotion from childhood.
Sometimes the release of one deep trauma can unleash ten others that have been lying beneath it. Showing ourselves the respect of listening to what the body and energy are saying can be the key to freeing ourselves from distress. It requires patience, perseverance, and mindful awareness to notice and respond to what is happening in the body.
This does not happen overnight, but in stages, step by step. Gradually, the understanding grows that healing begins when we allow ourselves to feel without fleeing. What is so precious in this is that the body is like a storybook that holds everything that has happened throughout our life.
