Processing experience

Every day we experience many moments that give shape and meaning to our lives. Many of those moments are recurring events and have a very subtle reaction to our emotional life. It is the unexpected events that evoke a reaction from you and thus feelings.

New experiences can evoke intense feelings, when the feelings are very intense, dissociation of the feeling and thus the experience can follow. In this way, the illusion is created that the experience and therefore the emotional feelings are not experienced. It is an illusion because the event is experienced naturally and the emotions and feelings are experienced despite the dissociation. It is a safety mechanism that seems to create a kind of distance between the intense emotional feelings and consciousness. The intense feelings disappear into the unconscious.

Many new experiences are gained in youth and especially in early childhood. It is during this time that dissociation regularly follows feelings that are too intense. This is why therapy is often about childhood, in order to resolve and process dissociation that has arisen so early.

The unprocessed experience is caused by the dissociation of the emotional feelings and consciousness. It seems as if the event does not involve any emotion and therefore the consciousness can deal with the experience more easily. To detach from the emotion, a disconnection from the body takes place. The feelings are fixed in the body and this is noticeable as physical tension. The tissue that holds the tension is of course the muscles; blood vessels, organs, the skin and even bone tissue can also hold tension.

To relax the tissue, it is necessary to discharge the frozen tension, the so-called catharsis. The frozen emotional feelings are relived, this time without pushing them away to the unconscious. Often an intense process, because for a long time it was thought that it would be impossible to allow and survive these feelings.

By reliving the emotions, they can get a place as belonging to the old experience and the realization that they do not belong to the experience in the current reality. The body can discharge deeply, which can be accompanied by shocks, tremors and spasms. The more intense the physical discharge, the deeper the relaxation.

Attempts to avoid the catharsis will be of little use, the physical discharge will then fail and the physical tension will remain.

The human body can handle physical tension very well, it can discharge itself emotionally in a natural way. Intense experiences are accompanied by intense emotional release, so no physical tension has to build up. When this process is interrupted by avoidance, repression or dissociation, it limits the way we deal with emotional events.

Avoiding, repressing or dissociating painful experiences can offer protection in the short term, in the long term it causes you to get stuck in emotions. In the moment it may be necessary to disconnect from the emotional feelings, but at some point you will have to evolve the situation for yourself and decide what you actually wanted to do with those emotions. That way, you can decide in a calmer moment what is a better way to react for the next time you are confronted with such feelings.