Unbottling Bottled Emotions. How?

[Philippa]

Does anyone know how to go about starting to unbottle and let out feelings that you have bottled for ages?

I journal and that helps of course, but basically I have a lot of things that I have reverted to bottling up, as was my programmed tendency as a child and teenager. When I started painting I was able to start getting more in touch with my feeling realm and my inner world, and I still do that, but I seem to have some anxiety around not knowing how to unbottle things once I discover I am bottling stuff again, and it leaves me with this build up that I am a bit scared to unbottle, and don't know how to...or convince myself that I don't?

Not sure if anyone knows what I mean here, but I thought I would ask in case.

I'm open to any suggestions on how to safely unbottle stuff...or maybe I just need a reminder here? It is causing a great deal of discomfort in my solar plexus area.

Symbolically I took the cork out of a dessert wine bottle and left it on my mantle to remind me that this is something I intend to work on, but I still don't seem to be able to touch on it other than recognizing that I'm doing it!

 

[Artfulone]

Dear Phillipa,

Bottling up is something that tends to be very common with PTSD. I have had great problems with this and am gradually overcoming this. I have had a lot of discomfort within my solar plexus area historically. It is possible to change, it just takes time to adapt the scripted psychological and emotional schemas. Schema therapy and theory can help, whether as a therapy or by integrating some of the principles into your therapy and daily practice. Reading up on schemas and some of the techniques used to adapt these scripted patterns can really make a difference.

I have used talking therapy, EMDR and meditation to focus upon opening up and owning the things that I have bottled up. However having a history of severe dissociation, it has been a very gradual path and these things can take a long time, especially when the scripted and schematised patterns stretch back many years. At first I tended to be highly abreactive and dissociate a lot to most attempts to opening up. Gradually I have been able to open up and process my bottled up emotions, other energies and attachments. As this has occurred my symptoms have lessened, whilst my awareness of my scripted and schematised patterns has increased, therefore allowing me to gradually take more ownership and consciously manage and react better to triggering situations.

One of my worst bottled up areas and one of the hardest to reach has been dealing with school bullying from a few decades ago. I had been dissociating as a reaction during therapy whenever we tried to reach these emotions in therapy. I eventually attended a school re-union and told an old friend the story of how I got PTSD initially (initially secondary traumatisation from my father and then from being psychologically bullied in school. During this discussion I was finally able to begin to bring out and portray many of the complex emotions such as anger and betrayal that I had felt at school. I actually managed to embrace and own many of these emotions from that couple of hours, although I dissociated it after describing them, then brought them out in therapy over the next few years. I told my friend that I was both joking and serious, subsequently describing how I would like to beat the Sh!t out of many of the people I was in school with. As I began to own, accept and process these emotions during therapy, my flash-forwards and non-psychotic hallucinations of attacking people have very greatly decreased and become less obtrusive.

There are many techniques that different therapists and clients use to bring out bottled up emotions. My therapist once described giving a blow up hammer to a client who had been medically traumatised by a doctor, the client was then able to act out beating the shit out of the doctor involved and embrace some of the emotions that they had been avoiding.

I hope that this makes sense and assists you in embracing the emotional blockages that are caused by the dissociative numbing that is PTSD. Best wishes upon your journey.

 

[saffy]

Hi Philippa

I read this the other day I though I would share it with you.

http://

I found it helped me.

Best wishes
Saffy :)

 

[Philippa]

Thankyou both for replying.

I had a shiatsu massage today and that seems to have unblocked some energy, as anger is one emotion that has been surfacing lately for me. Resentment is another. I feel really great today...full of energy, and I've been getting some interesting feedback from strangers as well. I just got home after an ordeal with the taxi service, where they didn't show up at all after 50 minutes of waiting, and I had to trample through this huge mall with kilos and kilos of cat food and litter. It was not fun and it totally ruined the relaxing start to the day with the massage...and I was grumpy with strangers getting in my way and being too slow when I was feeling crushed under the weight of this stuff thanks to the stupid taxi service not showing up...twice!

I had a guy at my bus stop help me on the bus by taking some of the load, and then he couldn't help but tell me how beautiful I am and what a beautiful person I seem to be...which was quite a surprise, and a pleasant one. Melbourne really is full of very civilized, decent nice men and people.

I love Oshos teachings, thankyou Saffy. I will read through both posts a few times when I get a bit more settled, as I just got home and need to rest after my ordeal.

 

[Hashi]

Do you do yoga, tai chi or anything like that? That kind of gentle physical movement can help emotions release and flow as well, especially if you're feeling things somatically.

 

[Philippa]

I did yoga in my twenties, and was pretty disciplined with it for a while...but then I got lazy, and lost it.

I want to start it up again on a more regular basis, and there is a really awesome yoga space near where I live, so it's just a matter of going and keeping going. I also intend to take up pilates, to develop core strength in my body...but that is a different thing to yoga.

Thankyou Hashi.