Releasing trapped trauma or stuck energy from your body

Venting your atomic battery to release trauma and stuck energy

My name is John Glanvill, author of The Calmness in Mind – Anxiety and OCD Recovery Course based on my overcoming both of these conditions.

I did say in video 8 that this video would be about the symptoms of anxiety, however, upon reflection, there is an intermediate step, which I feel will be very prudent to teach you – which will make the Exposure Therapy far more effective.

Sorry for the change of plan, however, if you haven’t grasped it by now, I am asking you to be more open to just accepting and dealing with what does happen in life – because that is the only real truth – what is happening right now, is what’s happening right now!

And anything else is just a “story” in your mind, an expectation, or a desire or a goal, a judgement – but these are all just virtual reality stories in your mind – and a big topic we will be discussing in the next video (probably.)

Now, I learned very quickly, in my work as a therapist, that most people had trouble letting go of anxiety – until they learned new ways of understanding what anxiety actually was – and then, embracing new ways of thinking and behaving – that allowed them to accept anxiety in new ways – rather than trying to control or avoid situations that made them feel anxious.

And bear with me here, because, as Einstein said, “we can’t solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”

Therefore, I want to introduce you to some new ways of thinking, that, if I can explain it well enough, will interrupt your old anxious ways, or at very least – let you see that the stories your anxious mind is offering you – are so very flawed.

In this video I am going to explain, what I know to be one of the biggest secrets about anxiety, that for some reason, only recently people have been waking up to.

Don’t worry if you don’t fully understand what I am saying at this stage of the course – or what you actually need to do – because what’s important is that you are seeing things differently.

In my future videos everything will come together and you will be taught exactly what to do to get the change your want.

For now, we are installing new foundations – for us to build upon – new perspectives on what anxiety and depression really are.

And remember, if you are experiencing OCD (and many people who do have OCD are often in denial about it – they say “well I’m just orderly or organised”) – know this, your OCD sits on top of anxiety.
And if you are only focussing on your OCD – you are working on the symptom, not the problem – thats like continually mopping up a flooded floor rather than fixing the leaking pipe.

As upside down as it sounds, you need to start making yourself anxious – to be able to let go of OCD.

It’s comparative to; in becoming an artist, you will need to let go of fear and doubt of what others think about your work – and just put it out there – and although that may make you feel anxious doing it, you know it needs to be done.

Once again I’m using a metaphor to explain it, so please don’t focus on the terminologies I use, or any contradictions – focus on the underlying picture that this metaphor paints.

Remember, we are learning to let go, to trust and to accept, rather than clinging to every last pedantic detail. Consider the wisdom of Socrates who famously said, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

And in knowing what I am about to teach you (in any way you can comprehend it) will be a game changer when it comes to shifting anxiety, OCD and depression.

OK, so, we humans are made of atoms – apparently seven billion, billion, billion of them, that’s a 7 with 27 zero’s on the end!

These are mainly hydrogen, oxygen and carbon – they combine to form molecules.

Somehow, molecules form cells, from cells we create organs and bones – then all the gooey stuff.

Then, somehow we end up as a living, breathing, thinking – human being.

To represent this better, I would like to separate what we are made of – into two hypothetical models.

Firstly, we could represent ourselves as atomic matter creatures – just a mass of unintelligent atoms – all stuck together, with no intelligence, just following the laws of physics.

In addition, we could also see ourselves as cellular creatures that are alive, intelligent, adaptive, self-repairing, self-reproducing, conscious and able to think – quite amazing really!

And I would like to start by looking at this cellular model, and to explore what happens when anxiety arises within us.

Currently Wikipedia tells me that there is no scientific consensus on what an emotion seems to be, however, it goes on to say…

“An emotion is a mental state associated with the nervous system brought on by chemical changes variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioural responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure.“

I think that is quite a good description – it talked about the nervous system, our chemistry, our thoughts and our behavioural responses.

Can you see now why I am teaching you about all these things?

Because if you want more emotional calmness, you need to go to the source of what’s happening to you and within you.

So, when emotions occur – they seem to come up, then explode, they then, slowly fade away – (assuming we don’t keep feeding that feeling with stories and behavioural reactions.)

We start to get agitated, it grows into anger, we explode, shout, slam doors – and then the moment passes and we calm down again.

It’s the same with anxiety, it comes on, it increases, we freak out (or not,) it passes and we calm down again.

It’s the same for an orgasm, a sad moment, a happy moment, a loving moment, if we are startled.

Therefore, it makes sense to see an emotion as a burst of energy, which comes up – does something to you – and then passes out and fades away – and is primarily an unconscious process.

These days’ people are calling it an E-motion, energy in motion, something that just happens to us.

However, we might not like showing our emotions, for example; I remember becoming fascinated watching a man in a cinema desperately trying to not cry at a sad film, really trying to keep his E-motions “held down.”

Or, we might be fine with our emotions – his wife was crying her eyes out, letting all that emotion come up and just flow through her, and she said to him “What a wonderful film.”

The point I am making is…. It’s natural for emotions to come up within us, based upon external events, or internal thoughts, or our behaviours or the behaviours of others.

Remember from video number 2, “we are emotional creatures, who have learned to think, not thinking creatures who try to control emotions.”

So a person without anxiety is generally OK with their emotions, if they get angry, they get angry – if they cry, they cry – if they feel scared, they feel scared – they give it no meaning – no “story” in their mind.

The emotion comes up, they let it happen, and then as the emotion fades away, they don’t add a story about what just happened – they are OK being emotional people.

Plus what many anxious people fail to grasp, is that, very often, seemingly calm people are having big emotional responses, but just ignore them.

A great example of this, are these very videos you are watching – I don’t like standing in-front of the video camera – I don’t like watching my own videos – I don’t like listening to my own voice as I edit the videos – I don’t like reading some peoples feedback.

So, I just let that discomfort flow through me – and I immediately stop any negative stories that my mind proposes – and I just get on with what I need to do, which is inline with my goals.

Even if my goals are a little scary – and even if I don’t know exactly where my goals will take me – because, how could I know what will happen until I start doing them?

Animals, too, seem to be OK with emotions, like, fear and anger, they just respond to what is happening, then when its over, they shake off any excess energy, flap their wings, they quickly calm down, and get back to a normal state very quickly.

It seems that energy rises, it agitates us, we then, label this as an emotion – it then evaporates away – out of us – and we return to a calm state.

In contrast, anxious people typically don’t like being out of control of their emotions, so they try to hold them down, or avoid situations where they may become overwhelmed or feel vulnerable, judged or anxious,

Which often stops them doing lots of activities that could be good for their own growth and happiness.

So, a big question arises,
“What happens to any energy that is held down, and not allowed to flow through

us?”

If you remember your physics lessons from school, we know that energy can’t be created or destroyed.

But it can be stored which we call potential energy, or converted, which is called kinetic energy (or energy converted through work.)

So essentially, every time we hold down, resist or avoid our emotions, we are storing that energy as potential energy somewhere within ourselves.

As a charge, within our atoms – perhaps, in our elbow, knee, neck or our back – it could be anywhere.

And overtime we develop clusters of stored energies within our atoms all around our atomic body.

However, if a person allows their emotions to come up, that energy is released as kinetic energy and transferred out, through temperature change, chemical reactions and movement.   

Now, back in video number 4 we explored emotional energy, and how when we get tired, in the 6 month run up to anxiety, our emotional fuel battery gets run down.

Well, in that model I am talking about our cellular fuel – and in that model we need to think less, so we trouble our body less.

Which allows the fuel stored in our cells to slowly recharge – then, this charge can be used as “feelings” – good things feel good and bad things feel bad – so we can start making sensible decisions again – because humans make decisions unconsciously with our emotions.

Perhaps we can think of this as how much fuel our cells have available to them, biologically, to power us through each day.

However, in this expanded model I am going to introduce a second battery into our body – and I am going to call this second battery our “Atomic Matter Battery.”

And I would like you to see it as representing how much “Potential Energy” we have stored, deep down (beneath the cellular model) way down, within our 7 billion, billion, billion individual atoms.

With our first cellular emotional fuel battery – we want to recharge it, so we have a nice buffer of power available to us to fuel our biology.

We do this by thinking less, worrying less, not stressing our body, placebo-ing ourselves – all things the previous videos have been explaining.

However, with the second Atomic Matter Energy Battery we want to discharge any energy stored within our atoms – over and above their natural charge and state.

This atomic matter energy battery – might better be explained as the trapped energy from past traumatic, experiences or times where we went through pain, grief, injury, hospitalisation, loneliness, rejection, loss, being bullied, felt self conscious or were afraid.

Where those emotions were held down and stored in our atoms – rather than passing through us and being discharged out – as kinetic energy.

That trapped energy was either; consciously held down, by us ignoring the issue, through denial, avoidance or not telling anybody.

Or it was unconsciously hidden or held down by our ego, by either hiding from our conscious mind what truly happened – or by editing the story about what really happened.

Remember, our ego unconsciously tries to keep us safe, but only with the logic of an 8-year-old.   

(There will be much more about the ego and how it works in future videos.)

For now though, I need you to see the Atomic Matter energy Battery – as the place – deeply below our cells, in our atoms, where energy that should have vented out, has becomes stuck, and is stored as potential energy.

And is just waiting for any opportunity that will allow it naturally vent out and escape as kinetic energy.

It is this excess storage of potential energy, in the Atomic Matter Energy Battery, that causes problems with anxiety, depression, fatigue, inflammation and pain.

This excess charge is weighing us down, making us feel heavy, apathetic, lethargic, and it makes us feel dense and slows down the natural frequency our atoms should be vibrating at.

This is, of course, just physics applied to biology – it’s just the way it is.

This stored potential energy needs to be discharged, released, vented, be allowed to come up – to agitate you, as it converts, becomes kinetic energy – which is the natural state, that allows it to escape from you.

This stuck energy is beneath all anxiety and depression – it’s what is fatiguing, scaring and trapping you.

As this course unfolds I will be teaching you many ways find and release it – and importantly, ways to stop it returning!

For now though, let’s go back to our first Cellular Fuel Battery model – if we get excited, scared, anxious, frightened or worried energy starts to move up through us.

We see it as an emotion, E-motion – energy in motion, it agitates us.

The stored potential energy is being released as kinetic energy (which is normal and natural) and we experience the feelings of our emotions and from these emotions we make decisions.

In a healthy person, we don’t resist those emotions we just let them move through us and out.

Like that woman in the cinema, the film “moved” her, she cried, the energy flowed through her, she didn’t resist it.

It arose, it did its thing and it passed. She didn’t add any story to it or try to avoid it, it was just an emotion.

Compare that to her husband, who did everything he could to resist that flow of energy.

He was looking away from the screen, he was hiding his face from his wife’s view, he was holding his breath.

Probably running all sorts of distraction stories in his mind, to keep his body from becoming overwhelmed, trying to stop this flow of energy, because it made him feel uncomfortable.

Now, I need you to know this – any energy trapped in your second Atomic Matter Battery is always looking for any opportunity that will trigger the escape or the venting out of this energy – which is natural and a good thing!

Remember we want to discharge everything we can from this Atomic Battery to get back to a neutral charge – which we my call the natural atomic state of wellbeing.

So back to the husband; an external event (the film, which his body thought was true) triggered the release of energy from the “Atomic Energy Battery” which is a good thing – because we want to discharge this battery.

However, he felt consciously embarrassed (from his childhood conditioning or programming remember video 7?)

So, he ran a whole raft of strategies to try and stop the emotions from coming up.

Effectively, he stopped the transition of his trapped potential energy stored in the battery – from converting to kinetic energy, via the agitation of his organs (his

emotions, energy in motion) – that would have facilitated the discharge of the stuck energy out of his body.

He pushed them back down – which allowed him to feel better in the moment, but as you can see – much worse in the long run.

Afterwards he would have unconsciously installed new (logic of an 8 year old) strategies to keep himself safe.

I won’t go to any more sad movies because I don’t want to feel that way again.

A strategy that allows him to avoid the situational discomfort, but will never allow for the resolution of his real problem – which is the stuck energy that needs to be released.

I hope I am explaining this well enough for you to see what’s happening?

You may need to watch this a few times, to really let the gravity of this realisation really sink in.

Or you may suddenly comprehend – what other books or teachers you have been telling you – in a far more understandable way.

The energy came up, but because energy can’t be created or destroyed, it can only be converted or re-stored.

Rather than letting it be converted (which feels like anxiety) he is re-storing it back down back into the very atoms that it was initially released from.

Keeping him stuck in a cycle – where he fears the release of his emotions – when, the release of his emotions – are the key to his recovery from anxiety – and his path to emotional freedom.

I am using the metaphor of an atomic matter battery that needs discharging – however, other people may call it an energy field around the body.

If you have read books, such as, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle his metaphor is called “The Pain Body.”

Dr David R Hawkins calls it your level of consciousness – the more dense your stored energy field, the lower your level of consciousness remains, the more you discharge that energy, the lighter you become – and the higher the frequency you vibrate at.

The goal of psychotherapy is to talk and talk and talk until the unconscious suddenly releases a repressed memory, which triggers the release of the trapped trauma.

Which converts the potential stored energy out, as kinetic energy through an abreaction of crying, shaking and emotional overwhelm and other emotional discharges – which are wonderful things – which help to client move on with their life.

There are many ways to get this stuck energy out – and I will teach you all the ways I know as we proceed, and importantly, ways to stop new energy being stored back in there by thinking, behaving and reacting to life differently.

In all these models the goal is to release stuck or unnecessary energy from your atoms – so you become energetically lighter and your structure is able to vibrate at a higher, more natural frequency – which we call natural health.

Much of what we call pain, stress, tiredness, heaviness, depression, apathy, lethargy, aches, joint inflammation, chronic fatigue, IBS, headaches, and many other conditions like skin complaints are caused by (or, at very least made worse by) this trapped, unnecessary energy within the atoms that form our cells.

For the most part though, we can’t really feel or sense, this stuck energy.

And even though we have really cool senses – we can see, hear, smell, touch, taste – most people don’t have the sensitivity or acuity to sense this stuck energy (although we do feel the pain from the inflammation it causes.)

You go to the Doctor and say – “My back hurts”, the Doctor checks it out and says – there is nothing wrong.

You get an x-ray and he says, there’s nothing wrong.
So you get an MRI scan – and he says‘ s there’s nothing wrong.

So you take some pain medication and become a little less active, because it hurts to move, and perhaps you can’t work.

So you worry more, and this uses up your emotional fuel battery, and then your little 8-year-old steps in to hijack you with anxiety to keep you at home, hoping that you will recharge – you know the story.

Or, just maybe, perhaps, what you have is a whole lot of trapped trauma, stuck energy from past events – stored in your atomic energy battery – causing you to be dense and tired and we might call this depression.

What you will find though is:

As you begin to see the discharge of stored energy as the conversion to kinetic energy via your emotions.

And as you just let that “energy in motion” pass through you – with no story or judgement in your mind – or at least just watching your thoughts (rather than believing them.)

You will find, that your aches and pains may begin to lift. Your eczema may get better, your arthritis may lift a little.

And as your cellular emotional fuel battery levels begins to rise – your little 8-year- old begins to back off with the anxiety and OCD strategies because they are no longer required – to tell that your cellular fuel is low.

Can you see the patterns? Pattern, patterns, patterns.

Now, as we begin to understand all this, the next two big questions to ask yourself, should become:

Firstly, “what should I do to recharge my Emotional Cellular Fuel Battery” and the first 8 videos have been talking about that.

Then, “What can I do to discharge my atomic energy battery, to vent past traumas and stuck emotional energy stored in my atoms?”

Well, there are three initial ways we can begin to do this.

Firstly, you sit still and do nothing.

Sit down on your sofa, by yourself, no TV, no phone, no books, no music, no distractions.

Just sit there, for 30 minutes or so, just sit with yourself and enjoy the wonderful peace and silence of quiet nothingness!

Of course, for 95% of anxious people, this is really hard to do, because if they sit still and do nothing their minds begin to race, or they worry about this or that, or they feel guilty that they are not doing something else.

Or they start blaming other things for why they can’t be still – “how can I sit quietly when the neighbour is making so much noise?”

Basically, if they don’t unconsciously distract themselves, they get anxious, and because they don’t like feeling anxious, they unknowing push that anxiety back down again.

The new goal is to encourage it to come up, to understand (anxiety is just a label) it’s not anxiety – it is kinetic energy that is converting out of you – which is a positive action – because the atomic energy battery is discharging -leading to your wellness.

And, really think about this, because so many anxious people (are in denial) they believe they can sit still and do nothing (or they can meditate) but mostly they can’t (or don’t).

I often hear people say, I can meditate by listening to a recording, which is good – but it is still a distraction, from what your mind might do if left alone!

So, what I am asking you to consider is how can you reframe the old story – from “I don’t like feeling anxious or fearful”

Into;

“Excellent, stuck potential energy is being released as kinetic energy from my atomic battery!

This means that stuck energy from my past traumas is finally being released from my body!

And although it feels like anxiety, it’s not, it’s just kinetic energy moving through me – I won’t resist it – I can just slump and relax my body down into my chair.

And whatever it feels like – is just OK – even if it is scary or uncomfortable – I can just surrender to it – not resist it – let it just agitate through me.

I won’t consciously run any new stories – I won’t pay attention to my old unconscious stories.

And if it helps – start a new soft internal dialogue – as you slump and let that energy flow through you – phrases like:

“Come on, you can move through me” “Everything’s fine”
“Take as long as you need”

“I surrender these emotions, I accept this is just energy in motion”

“Even though my body is shaking – I love and respect myself”

You can quickly learn that all anxiety, or fear, or unwanted emotions are just energy moving through you – and although it’s uncomfortable, it doesn’t mean its bad – and you can just ignore it and let it happen.

Now, the second way to vent energy out of the atomic battery is by exposure therapy.

You expose yourself to the very thing that triggers your anxiety – or for those of you with OCD compulsions, you don’t do your compulsion.

Because, as you know, that is what will make you feel anxious – so you don’t wash your hands, or you do keep your outdoor shoes on in your kitchen – or you do think a thought that you may harm somebody.

This exposure or avoidance of compulsion, will kick off the venting of this stuck energy from your atomic battery – and you begin to learn to just sit with it.

Let it pass through you – it’s not anxiety – it’s trapped potential energy converting to kinetic energy and venting from your atomic battery.

Despite how you feel in that moment, this is the road to emotional freedom – once and for all.

And if the discomfort becomes too much – step in with the tapping – Video 8 – which will calm quickly calm you down if, in the beginning it becomes too much.

And it works – as those of you who have actually taken the effort to learn the tapping, will know, through experience!

Then when you are ready – repeat the exposure therapy, again and again – knowing that each time a charge comes up, there is less of a charge left in the atomic battery, because you are discharging it, venting past trauma, and releasing the stuck energy that causes inflammation and pain.

You are becoming energetically less dense, your frequency is rising, your pain body evaporating.

You are learning that we are emotional creatures who have learned to think – and that emotions can be beautiful things.

Over-time, you will release all the stuck energy and the battery becomes neutral, healthy.

Then, should you subsequently be triggered in the outside world, there is nothing to come up – and it feels funny.

Something happens that used to make you feel anxious – and you’re just OK with it, no inappropriate emotional response – and this is the goal we are aiming for.

All emotions have a time and a place, love, fear, anger, grief – they are all ok – they come up, pass through us, they vent out.

The secret is not to be stuck in any of these emotions – or to fear the feeling of them rising within us – or to believe the stories that our mind associates with them.

We will be exploring how to do this in great depth in future videos.

Then, the third way – is through meditation, guided contemplations and clever psychological techniques that I will be teaching you as we proceed through the course.

Whereby you consciously trick your unconscious mind into revealing and letting go of the erroneous anxiety or OCD routines that it learned in your past.

This third process is where those of you who are experiencing depression will finally get the help you need.

So a quick summary
We need to recharge our cellular emotional fuel battery as discussed in video 4.

Then, we need to discharge the excess energy held within our atoms from past traumas, so our atoms get back to their natural levels of charge – which we call health.

The way we discharge the energy is by realising that feeling crap on the inside is not anxiety, it is just potential energy, converting to kinetic energy through movement, chemical reactions, heat and the agitation of our internal organs – and we can just let that happen within ourselves.

And your homework:

Keep exposing yourself to the very things that make you feel anxious or uncomfortable – which is called exposure therapy.

Repetition, repetition, repetition – keep watching these videos – and although consciously you are thinking “I know all this” we are slowly, drip feeding information into your unconscious mind – and you will find that slowly, interesting realisations begin to reveal themselves to you.

Let the energy come up, don’t call it anxiety, talk to yourself softly, slowly gently.

If it becomes too much, start tapping to calm yourself down.

Then, re-expose yourself to these triggers again and again – start a new internal dialogue “I surrender to this energy passing through me” – Play around with it, it is your doorway to freedom.

In the next video we will be exploring your unwanted thoughts in more detail, as well as, continuing the exposure therapy and debunking some of the myths associated with anxiety.

Until then, let’s get discharging that atomic battery!