Let’s face it, if you are human you have had experiences, especially in early life, where something happened and you felt hurt, angry, sad, powerless or afraid.  The way the body/mind works is that those distressing situations are imprinted emotionally.  When you are drawn back to those events, you feel the same hurt, anger, sadness, powerlessness or fear. Over time, the emotional intensity may decrease, however, with some events, the feelings never go away.

If the experience is sufficiently traumatic, it can even shift the way you think and feel about yourself and the world. You may come to believe you are not safe, not worthy or not loveable. These “echo effects” can play out and hamper your ability to feel in charge of your success, health and happiness.

If you feel plagued with things that happened that you just can’t seem to let go, here are three steps to understanding how you can be free of them.

1. Whatever happened happened. It was your experience at the time and it was not your fault.  Everyone is doing the best they know how with what they know in the moment.
2. We bring the past to the present through the Principle of Thought. You know the situation is not happening in the moment but it feels real because we feel every thought we think, the moment we think it.   Every thought produces a chemical reaction that creates emotions and feeling responses in the body.  Thinking back to an event can have you feel heavy, depressed, sad, frustrated, etc. and you get the impression the event is having you feel that way, not your thinking about the event.
3. This step is where you have two options – release the thought or release the feelings.Option One – you realize that you are feeling your thoughts about a past event and not the event itself so you are able to “leave the thought alone” until a better-feeling thought comes along, as they always do. Mental and emotional well-being is our natural default setting and we will always return to it if we don’t dwell on destressing thoughts.  Maybe go for a walk or read or watch something inspirational.

   Option Two – you understand that you are feeling experiences from the past but are unable to ‘let them go’ because the emotions seem so real (which they are).  In this case, there is a remarkable tool to help you release emotional intensity related to any situation, person or issue – Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) – just like it says.  Tapping on acupressure points brings rapid emotional relief that lasts.  Once you change your emotional reaction to a situation, you are free of it.

When we clear these unresolved emotional events out of our system, we begin to feel lighter, calmer, have more clarity, feel more confident, even bolder.  You begin to feel ‘more like yourself’ which you are, without the “baggage” we all take on over time.