Conceive, Believe, Achieve

Six signs of emotional blockage

Are you guilty of falling short of a true spring clean? The tendency this time of year is to focus on physical clutter, but the kind you can’t see – emotional clutter – is just as important to tackle.

By emotional clutter we mean all those repressed, suppressed and unexpressed emotions and old beliefs that are keeping you stuck, rooted in a spot that probably no longer represents who you are or what you are capable of.

Emotional clutter acts like an invisible set of horse blinders that keep you from seeing beyond what is right in front of you. They blind you to potential paths forward and from the resources and options you have at your disposal. But because those emotional blinders aren’t physical, they are easy enough to suppress or ignore.

Here are six signs you have emotional clutter to deal with, and ideas for clearing it out.

Your Expectations of How Others Should Behave Is Distancing You From Them. Do you have rules for how the people in your life need to show you they love you? For example, do you “need” your husband to start taking out recycling without being nagged to feel more appreciated? The problem with this is twofold: (a) it is extremely rare that these expectations are ever verbalized so the other person has no idea he is fouling up, and (b) your focus on what they aren’t doing right often causes you to miss other, real expressions of love.
What You Should Do Is Making You Miserable or Rebellious. Just as “should” isn’t a good motivator for others (see point No. 1), it’s not a good motivator for you, either. Rather than bowing to “should dos,” the next time you start to do something because you have to, stop. Take five minutes to consider what you really want to do and why. Then decide to make and follow your own rules in that area going forward.
You Cringe Every Time You Scroll Through Your Contacts and See That Name. Old relationships that ended on an unfortunate note, whether personal or professional, are part of life. If you had one, do yourself a favor and get some closure. Distance is the only thing that will lessen the emotional sting. Delete the contact information from your phone. UnFriend, UnLink, and UnFollow. You don’t need to know what they are up to if all it does is make you re-experience a past hurt.
You Feel Guilty Because You Let Someone Down. Human beings are born to please. From the time we can walk, we are socialized to share, pitch in and contribute. The principle of reciprocity serves as a crucial glue for our community-based societies. But it can also lead you to over-commit. If you’re chronically over-extending yourself, and letting people down in the process, you need to swap your “Sure, no problem” for “That sounds really interesting; let me think about it and get back to you with an answer.” Then use the time to determine whether you want to accept the request.
You Get a Nagging Feeling When You Think About (Or See Contact Information For) Someone. Sometimes so much time has passed since you last connected with someone that you feel guilty just thinking about them or seeing their information in your phone. Rather than suppressing the negative emotion, call them. Ideally, right when you realize you’re feeling guilty. If you can’t do it right then, make an appointment to connect with them before the week is out.
You Have Uncompleted Projects. When you fail to complete a project, you not only have physical reminders of it, but nagging emotional ones as well. The nagging may not be urgent, but it’s there, somewhere in the back of your mind, constantly reminding you that you have something left to do. If you’ve got one (or more) of these, take some time before the day is out to make a list of the projects you want to complete. Then break them down into smaller work steps and schedule them in. If you have a half-started project that you no longer really want to finish, it’s OK. Better to let it go and be at peace with your decision than to continue to carry it around.

Emotional Blockage Release Techniques

Emotional blockages are obstacles that are preventing you from doing what you want in life. They manifest through low self-esteem, depression, anger and fear. These blockages are a result of the past, and will put a limit on your development no matter how talented or skilled you are. There are many special techniques that you can use to remove these emotional blockages so that you can move forward in life.

Affirmations

A good way to remove blockage is having some positive affirmations that you say to yourself on a daily basis. Repeating these affirmations to yourself will tell your subconscious to believe them. Affirmations should read something like “I feel content with myself” or “I am confident and proud of myself.” Do not include what you will not do. For example “I will not be afraid anymore,” this will only remind you of your obstacle.

Keeping a Journal

Writing in a journal or diary daily allows you to express yourself without being inhibited, which helps release emotions. You can let off some steam at someone or something that made you angry or upset during the day or you can talk about your fears. In your journal, you can also talk about your goals and plans for the future to encourage yourself to meet those goals.

Breathing Techniques

You can use breathing techniques to take your mind off of your negative emotions. These techniques involve inhaling slowly and deeply and holding your breath for a few seconds. You will continue doing this four times. This will make you feel relaxed and refreshed. Breathing techniques help reduce anxiety.

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

An alternative technique used to release emotional blockage is called EFT, or Emotional Freedom Technique. This involves tapping on your acupressure points at the top of your head, eyebrows, the side of the eye and chin. You can also tap your wrists, collarbone and under arm. You will do this about 5 to 7 times as you acknowledge an emotional positive statement about yourself. For example, you might state, “I deeply and completely accept myself.” This practice helps diminish negative emotions associated with the memory and helps remove the emotional block, according to Joseph Mercola, M.D. There are plenty of EFT practitioners who will walk you through this process.

All of us, at one time or another have dealt with some form of emotional blockage. Most emotional blocks are the result of some type of crisis in our life whether self inflicted, environmental or cultural.

When we feel unable to deal with a crisis, we are besieged by feelings of fear, anger, confusion, anxiety, guilt, or inadequacy. We lose our ability to think rationally about our problem and find a logical solution.

One way to begin working on blockages is to do some deep breathing. We don’t breathe the way we should; we generally take very shallow breaths. Breathe deeply, filling your lungs to the very bottom, and then release.

If you spend a few minutes doing this, it will calm you down, make you feel better (perhaps a little dizzy the first time you do this action step, this is normal), help stop your mental chatter and begin bringing emotional blocks to the surface for you to deal with.

Our external environment is a reflection of our internal environment. Look at your home, is it neat? Sloppy? Chances are you have a lot of clutter. Our homes are filled with so many things that we really don’t need or even want. In the same way, our minds are filled with emotional clutter. There are so many bad and depressing thoughts that, for whatever reason, we have not let go of.

Understand, I don’t mean that you should dwell on past crises or traumas! Quite the opposite, you should acknowledge them, forgive the situations and/or people involved, and release the block. This will free up your energy, giving you more of your power for your daily life and your Laws of Attraction that God has abundantly blessed you with will bring positive seeds to bear living fruit.

If you dwell on the bad things in your past, guess what? You’re just attracting them again into your future. This is why clearing out blockages is so important. Get rid of anything negative and depressing. Fill your mind with new, refreshing, interesting and happy thoughts.

Those who have had happy pasts are far more likely to have happy futures. If you are not happy, you are likely clinging to events in the past that made you unhappy. This may not even be a conscious process. In fact, it’s almost surely not conscious or in any way intentional. However, in order to bring happiness into your present and keep happiness in your future, it is important to let go of the past.

It’s up to you to remove your emotional blockages. When you remove these blocks, you create a vacuum in your life that has the ability to suck in quickly whatever you are currently attracting. If you combine blockage release with Law of Attraction exercises, you will release a lot of negative feelings from your life while sucking your desires into manifestation.

If a stone in the road is blocking your path, you will both carry it and put it aside or you will roll it aside. If neither of these options is feasible, you will find a way around the stone. Likewise, some emotional blockages can be removed directly, while others need to be removed by finding away around them.

Deep breathing exercises are an excellent way to rid yourself of unwanted emotional blocks without having to be terribly active in the memory.

However you go about it, do work to free yourself of emotional garbage. Any drudgework in the short run will pay incredible dividends in the long run.