How To Let Go Of Emotions You’ve Been Holding On To For WAY Too Long

7 min readFeb 11, 2021

We’ve all experienced trauma of some kind in our lives. Whether it stems from abuse (physical, verbal, emotional), losing a loved one, or a life-changing accident, traumatic events are inevitable. Unavoidable. You might even say they’re a part of life’s ebbs and flows. Sometimes we suppress negative emotions that result from these experiences. We shove them down deep because fully immersing ourselves in them is too painful. Here’s where The Emotion Code comes into play.

The Emotion Code is a book written by Dr. Bradley Nelson. It delves into the hows and whys regarding emotional suppression and the best method of releasing negative feelings. Here’s the synopsis:

“In The Emotion Code, renowned holistic physician and lecturer Dr. Bradley Nelson skillfully lays bare the inner workings of the subconscious mind. He reveals how emotionally-charged events from your past can still be haunting you in the form of ‘trapped emotions’; emotional energies that literally inhabit your body.”

So, how does The Emotion Code apply to you? As humans, we’re all exposed to potentially emotional situations. How do you free up your own emotional pathways so you can feel good about your life? I’ve got a list of ways in which The Emotion Code could benefit you.

The Emotion Code Will Tear Down Your “Heart-Wall”

The “Heart-Wall” is fairly self-explanatory — it’s a wall that you’ve built around your heart. Figuratively, of course. Stram Center for Integrative Medicine has a handy explanation that may be of help:

“Dr. Nelson discovered humans can only sustain a few heartaches before a protective wall is built around the person’s heart. The beauty of removing the heart-wall is an endless potential to experience love and happiness. A freed heart experiences the joys of life to greater depths than when trapped within the heart-wall.”

Chances are you’ve endured a particularly emotional break-up or you’ve lost someone special in your life. Whether or not you’re aware of it, you probably constructed a wall around your heart to prevent yourself from feeling the pain from that event. Thankfully, Nelson’s book offers easy steps you can take to extract those negative emotions in a healthy manner. Stram Center also mentions that Emotion Code work is meant to release emotions and not target the source.

“The Emotion Code work is a gentle, non-invasive, and safe approach. Only the energy of trapped emotions are identified, not the circumstance provoking the emotions.”

Of course, I would suggest seeking out a mental health professional to help you sort through any and all life-altering circumstances. Regardless, the Emotion Code will help you deconstruct your Heart-wall. You may feel that, as a person living today, you’re undeserving of happiness. Perhaps your job is your life and nothing more. However, by opening your heart, you’ll realize that everyone, including you, deserves to be happy.

It Will Free Up Your Body

Everything in your body is connected, including your mental and physical health. Obviously, suppressed emotions can hamper your health. Just as there are ways to alleviate stress, The Emotion Code can help you free up your body, as it were. Additionally, it can eradicate physical discomfort. So, if you’re experiencing neck pain or feeling immense tension from your stressful relationship or job, you could just possess trapped emotions in need of release.

Just remember that ignoring your emotions can negatively affect your overall health. Science Daily reveals a study from the University of Texas in Austin on this very subject. Here’s a brief summary regarding their findings:

“Bottling up emotions can make people more aggressive, according to new research. The psychologists used a pair of classic movie scenes in their research. They found that subjects who were asked to suppress their emotions and show no reaction to a notoriously disgusting scene in the 1983 film ‘The Meaning of Life’ and another in the 1996 film ‘Trainspotting’ were more aggressive afterward than subjects who were allowed to show their revulsion. “

Suppressed emotions can actually gain strength by not being acknowledged. The Emotion Code helps you successfully identify those impediments to your health and remove them. By employing this method, you don’t have to necessarily dig deeper into the source of your feelings. Think of it like playing the game of Operation. All you’re doing is removing the problem without affecting anything else.

This will free up your body and perhaps relieve any stress you feel. Having free channels across the board will help you think more clearly and stay present.

How It Works

According to Stram Center, The Emotion Code works like this:

“Our subconscious mind is an all-knowing computer equipped for ultimate health and happiness. Using muscle testing and specific questioning, a certified practitioner can follow the guidance of a client’s subconscious and identify a trapped emotion. Once identified, a therapeutic magnet is used to de-magnetize the energy of the trapped emotion via the Governing Meridian. Not unlike swiping a magnet across the black information strip on the back of a credit card. The trapped emotion is permanently erased and the effects immediate and long-lasting.”

So, it’s best to do the following: read Dr. Bradley Nelson’s book. Then, visit a certified practitioner who can help you let go of any trapped emotions. Anything that’s holding you back from being the best you that you can be. Most folks feel “lighter” after these feelings are released. Extricating suppressed emotions from our bodies can help us heal in the long run. Our innate ability to heal is free. You may find it easier to respond to stress in a healthy way. By utilizing The Emotion Code, you’ll be more capable of tackling it.

Five Things to Help You Use The Emotion Code Correctly

Dr. Bradley Nelson’s blog dives into five things you should know prior to putting The Emotion Code into use. Let’s take a look at those now:

“1. Trapped Emotions are identified individually and released one at a time, not in groups or bundles. 2. To release the pain, each trapped emotion had to be identified as a single and separate energy. 3. The Emotion Code is a very precise method. 4. It is important to let the body tell you how much Emotion Code work to do in a session. 5. The body needs a few days to process trapped emotions after they are released.”

Now, it’s important to note that this work isn’t done all in one go. Meaning, you can’t release a bunch of trapped emotions all at once. That would be very taxing on the body. Nelson writes that each emotion is individually identified and then released one at a time. Secondly, each feeling is a separate, singular entity. Additionally, Nelson notes that The Emotion Code is very precise. Here’s a snippet from his own blog:

“…we muscle test to identify the trapped emotion using the Chart of Emotions. Next, we ask if anything else needs to be discovered before releasing the emotion. If the answer is yes, we get more details about what happened when the emotion was trapped, like the age of the person at the time, if the emotion was absorbed, inherited, or their own, what the event was, etc. If nothing else needs to be discovered we release the emotion by swiping a magnet along with the Governing Meridian 3 times unless it is an inherited emotion.

In that case, we swipe the magnet 10 times. We always check to confirm that the energy is gone afterward. It works very well when the protocol is followed correctly. We do not recommend mixing modalities or adding your own style when you are doing the Emotion Code. It works so well just the way it is! We don’t believe that there are any short cuts that will improve this or make it any faster. It only takes a minute or two to identify a trapped emotion so you can usually get out of pain or solve an issue in pretty short order, even when there are several emotions that need to be released in a session.”

And, as stated in the fourth bullet point, always allow your body to tell you how much work can be done in a session. Listening to its needs is of the utmost importance. Lastly, Nelson recommends giving your body some time to heal and process what you just endured.

Try It Out for Yourself

The Emotion Code is a great tool for anyone who could use a release. You’ve only got one life, so why not live it to the fullest? Rid yourself of painful emotions. Those obstacles are inhibiting your vessel from serving you. You’ll find you can forge ahead free and clear of needless baggage. True happiness is possible, and it’s yours for the taking.