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CHAPTER 1
TRAPPED EMOTIONS: The Invisible Epidemic
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth is not.
— Mark Twain
Where would you be without your emotions? If the sum total of all your experiences makes up the tapestry of your life, it is the emotions you have experienced that give that tapestry its color.
Try to imagine for a moment a world where no emotions could occur. No joy would be possible. No feelings of happiness, bliss, charity, or kindness. No love would be felt, no positive emotions of any kind.
On this imaginary emotionless planet, there would be no negative emotions either. No sorrow, no anger, no feelings of depression, and no grief. To live on such a planet would be to merely exist. With no ability to feel emotions, life would be reduced to a gray, mechanical ritual from cradle to grave. Be grateful that you can feel emotions!
But are there emotions you have experienced that you would rather not have felt? If you are like most people, your life has had its darker times. You have probably experienced moments of anxiety, as well as times of grief, anger, frustration, and fear. You may have experienced periods of sorrow, as well as depression, low self-esteem, hopelessness, or any of a wide variety of negative emotions.
What you may not realize is that some of the negative emotions you've experienced, even though you may have felt them long ago, may be creating problems for you now. Yes, some of your old experiences are still affecting you in subtle yet very damaging ways. The Emotion Code is about finding those old emotions and releasing them forever.
Much of our suffering is due to negative emotional energies that have become "trapped" within us. The Emotion Code is a simple and powerful method of finding and releasing these trapped energies.
Many people have found that when they free themselves of their trapped emotions, they are able to live healthier and happier lives. A single trapped emotion can create both physical and emotional problems.
The following real-life examples illustrate how releasing trapped emotional energy using the Emotion Code can result in astonishing and sudden improvements in physical and emotional wellness:
Allison's debilitating hip pain left her instantly, and she was able to dance in her performance that night.
Linda's constant feelings of suicidal depression went away.
Jennifer's chronic anxiety was gone, and she felt the total confidence she'd been longing for.
Laurie could feel God's love for her for the first time in her life.
Sheryl was finally able to shed her anger toward her ex-husband, and create a wonderful, loving relationship with a new man.
Julia aced her test, after having failed it several times.
Larry's foot pain disappeared, along with his limp.
Connie's allergies disappeared.
Neil's two-year-long feeling of resentment toward his boss vanished.
Yolaunda finally lost the weight she'd been struggling to lose for years.
Joan's bulimia was gone within a week.
Tom's vision improved.
Jim's shoulder pain disappeared.
Mindy's carpal tunnel syndrome went away.
Sandy's knee pain, which she had seen three other doctors for, was gone in moments.
Carol's night terrors, which had plagued her for over thirty years, were gone within a week, and did not return.
I was present at each of these events and many others like them. In many years of practice and teaching, I have seen countless seemingly miraculous healings such as these, all as a result of simply releasing trapped emotions using the Emotion Code.
My purpose in writing this book is to teach you how to find and remove trapped emotions from yourself and from others.
Whether you are a doctor or a fisherman, a housewife or a teenager, you can learn the Emotion Code. It's simple.
Anyone can learn how to be free from the very real and damaging effects of trapped emotions.
What Are Emotions?
As you live through the days and years of your life, you are continually experiencing emotions of one sort or another. These feelings you have all serve a purpose — they provide motivation, direction, and communication from your body, your higher self, and the divine. Negative emotions also can be useful, even if they are at times uncomfortable or painful. All of us experience negative emotional extremes at times, it seems to be part of what it means to be human.
Our emotions don't come out of nowhere — they are generated by our bodies based on two criteria: what we are experiencing in the moment, and information stored in our bodies and minds from past experiences. So whether we are feeling happiness or shame, that emotion comes from deep within, and for a reason.
What are emotions made of? We will discuss this in more depth later in the book, but simply put, emotions are vibrations of pure energy. Every emotion has its own unique vibrational frequency. Everything in the universe is made of energy, and emotions are no exception. Quantum physics has proven that energies affect other energies. So it follows that we are affected by the energy of our emotions simply because our bodies are also made of energy. This simple fact is the reason our emotions can affect us so profoundly on a mental, emotional, and physical level.
The Emotional Experience in a Nutshell
Three things happen when we experience an emotion. First, our body generates the emotional vibration. Second, we begin to feel the emotion and any thoughts or physical sensations that come along with it. Third, we choose to let the emotion go and we move on, after a few seconds to several minutes. This last step is called processing, and once it is completed, we have successfully moved on from the emotional experience and it shouldn't cause us any problems.
However, if either the second or third step is interrupted, the emotional experience is incomplete, and the energy of the emotion is likely to become trapped in the body.
We do not yet completely understand all the reasons emotions are not processed completely. It appears that the more overwhelming or extreme an emotion is, the more likely it will become trapped. There could be other reasons, such as weakness in the body or many old trapped emotions of a similar vibration, but we will discuss those in more depth later on.
What Is a Trapped Emotion?
As much as we would like to forget some of the emotionally difficult times we've been through, the influence of these events may stay with us in the form of trapped emotions. Sometimes we can consciously recall these challenging events, and sometimes we cannot. Whether you remember a painful event or not doesn't actually matter, because your subconscious mind does remember, and we can access that information by using the Emotion Code. Many people who have been through extreme trauma have blocked out years of their lives and remember almost nothing, but the Emotion Code allows us to bypass the conscious mind completely. Instead, we access vital information about trapped emotions from the subconscious mind.
Each time you trap an emotion, you get stuck in the middle of whatever traumatic event you were experiencing. So instead of moving beyond your angry moment, or a temporary bout with grief or depression, you retain this negative emotional energy within your body, potentially causing significant physical and emotional stress. Most people are amazed to find that their emotional baggage is more literal than they had imagined. Trapped emotions actually consist of well-defined energies that have a shape and form. Although they are not visible, they are very real.
NEIL'S RESENTMENT
In this story, a Canadian teacher shares how a difficult situation resulted in a trapped emotion that stayed with him, impacting his life in a negative way.
A number of years ago when I was teaching school, the principal and I just did not get along well at all. We fought almost from day one over one topic or another. She was extremely vicious, vindictive, and emasculating in every way, shape, and form. Finally, about January of the school year, I bailed out. I saw my doctor, and went on stress leave. He said, "Take some time off and regroup and recuperate." So I did that for about three months, and at the end of three months, I went back to the school board with a clean bill of health but with a proviso from the doctor that I was not to be put back into the same situation with this rather nasty principal.
Anyway, the feelings surrounding her and that whole situation would never leave. They would well up often, and I would ruminate on the situation, thinking about it, and I would feel my blood pressure rising, and I would feel the anger and resentment building up within me about the way I had been treated, and the fact that she never had any disciplinary measures even though she had a history of being rather sinister, if you will, to teachers who disagreed with her approach to principalship.
Anyway, this went on for two years. I couldn't sleep at night because I'd be so bent out of shape from all the negative feelings I was carrying. We were visiting Southern California and went and saw Dr. Brad Nelson and went to his clinic, and ... he released this feeling of resentment, and when he did so, I felt, I actually felt, something leave me. And from that point forward, even though I still don't like the woman, I don't have the negative feelings and the rising blood pressure, the anger, the resentment, which had possessed me for several years. So, that's the story of an emotional blockage gone, with these principles and the Emotion Code that Dr. Brad teaches. — Neil B.
Your Future Held Hostage
Do you ever feel that you are struggling under the weight of something that you can't quite put your finger on? Perhaps your life is not turning out how you had hoped. Perhaps your attempts to form lasting relationships never seem to work out. You may wish that certain events in your past had never occurred but feel powerless to move beyond them. You may even have an uneasy feeling that your present is being held hostage by your past in some vague and indefinable way.
JENNIFER'S SELF-SABOTAGE
Jennifer's experience is a good example of how trapped emotions can get in your way. She was my daughter's close friend, a fun-loving college student with a bright future. On her way home for the summer, she stopped by to visit our family. Her college life was going well, but she expressed concern that events from her past still troubled her, and she wondered if she was suffering from trapped emotions.
She told me that she'd been involved in a tumultuous relationship with a young man the year before and that since the failure of that stormy relationship, she'd felt the sting of insecurity every time she met someone new. She had an unfounded fear of commitment that she couldn't overcome, and she seemed to unintentionally sabotage every potential relationship she began. I tested her and discovered that there was, indeed, at least one trapped emotion that was contributing to her problem.
I decided to help her learn to treat herself so she could continue to release her own trapped emotions and not need to rely on me. She quickly and easily learned the Emotion Code and proceeded to find several trapped emotions in her body, most notably the emotion ofcreative insecurity. This particular emotion arises from a lack of confidence about creating things: painting a picture, starting a new job, or entering into a new relationship, for example. Jennifer had experienced this emotion in her prior relationship, and it had become trapped within her. She was able to release the creative insecurity — along with a few other trapped emotions — from her body within a few minutes, and then continue her drive home.
A few days later, she called to tell me that she felt an amazing difference, a noticeable improvement in her ability to articulate her thoughts and express herself in the company of a particular young man whom she was dating. Previously, she had felt intimidated and shy around him; but after releasing her trapped emotions, she felt confident and very much at ease. Months later, she continued to watch the relationship grow. She felt certain that she would have sabotaged it if she had not released her trapped emotions.
Getting rid of your trapped emotions can help you in this same way. You, too, can overcome the obstacles of your past and bring new life to your marriage and other familial and personal relationships.
When you are free of your trapped emotions, you will likely find yourself feeling more secure and motivated, and liberated to create the relationships, career, and life you always wanted.
People frequently sense that they are somehow burdened by their past emotions, but they don't seem to know how to get over them. The traditional approach in Western society is generally to talk about the past and discuss coping mechanisms with a therapist. While this is often helpful and can save lives, it does not address the trapped emotions directly, which means that the true root of the problem remains.
Trapped emotions often drive people to self-medicate in various ways. You may find yourself working long hours, using drugs or drinking, thrill seeking, or trying to solve everyone else's problems.
Many people fail to perform up to their ability and have difficulty making their life work as they should. Oftentimes, the underlying cause of their frustration is a trapped emotion from a past event that they may not realize is sabotaging their efforts. The next story is a perfect example of how this can happen.
JULIA THE COURT REPORTER
Julia was going to school to become a court reporter, and she was excited about her job prospects. Court reporters learn to type on a specialized phonetic machine, and they have to type very rapidly and accurately to record everything said in the courtroom. Julia did fine in class, but whenever she had to take an examination, she would fail. She was very worried, as she had failed the test three times and was afraid that her next examination would be her last chance to pass.
I tested her to see if there was a trapped emotion that might be influencing her behavior in the testing situation, and the answer her body gave was yes. In her case, the trapped emotion was discouragement. When she was fifteen years old, she had gone through a difficult time when her parents were divorcing. She had experienced overwhelming discouragement, which had become trapped in her body. In the testing situation, with the pressure on, the trapped emotion of discouragement would sabotage her performance. We released the trapped discouragement, and she sailed through her next test feeling relaxed and confident — and received a nearly perfect score.
Julia had had no idea that her parents' divorce and her old feelings about it could be affecting her negatively in the present.
In the same way that the effects of the wind are felt rather than seen, trapped emotions are invisible yet can exert a powerful influence upon you.
It is my experience that a significant percentage of self-sabotage, physical illness, and emotional difficulties are actually caused by these unseen energies. The next story is a powerful illustration of this.
MARC THE SINGER
Marc was a professional singer, and he was having difficulties recording in the last months. He kept saying his voice was not the same. He was obsessed with having a lump in his throat, for which he constantly received antibiotics from his medical doctor. I told him that we could try a different approach, and he agreed. The first emotion that came out was disgust from six months ago related to his fiancée, and it was lodged in the larynx. When I asked him what happened six months ago, he burst into tears, saying that was the time when he discovered she was cheating on him. At that time, he remembered that in the same period, he started having voice problems. After we released about four emotions related to that event, he was feeling way better, and the same day, he went into his studio and recorded flawlessly. — Lustin L.
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Excerpted from "The Emotion Code"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Bradley Nelson.
Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
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