Hi all,

Hope you’re well and having a good week!

I wanted to share with you today why in emotional processing it is so important to integrate emotions, and not simply to ‘release’.

As you can see from the chart above and this video here, as we repress emotions more and more, we do not allow ourselves to return to a safe, ventral baseline.

An inability to fully feel and complete such emotions leads to a holding off this survival energy, pushing us further and further into the sympathetic state.

Many of us (like myself) will linger here.

And whilst through regulation techniques, brain training, good diet etc. we may improve symptoms dramatically.

We still continue to feel off.

Lingering brain fog, excessive fatigue and PEM, intrusive thoughts, that inability to ever fully relax.

It feels as though your body is slightly clinging on to something, always slightly on edge.

When we think of processing emotions, it can (like we hope for in other therapies) be tempting to seek one ‘big release’.

A final push to expel this trapped emotion, to finally free us from these horrid symptoms.

Sadly, when you have been existing in such a dysregulated state for so long, this can be very dangerous.

I speak on this because I experienced it first hand.

I went on a silent meditation retreat nearly a year ago because I (stupidly, I know) thought it might be the thing to tip me into recovery.

It was a bizarre experience, and one where I actually experienced moments of total clarity following huge emotional releases.

But they were just that, moments.

After days of silence, intense emotions surfacing, giant episodes of crying - I was experiencing hallucinations, palpitations, chest pains and head pressure unlike anything I’ve encountered before.

My body had entered a state of dorsal shutdown.

Looking back, it seems quite obvious.

Healing requires a gentle and supportive container, not an isolating space with zero interaction.

Emotional processing happens gently, gradually, through integration, movement, in a supportive environment.

It’s why EMDR alone hasn’t been enough, without integrative movement.

And why this wasn’t enough without being coupled with bilateral stimulation exercises.

Processing is not some big purge of what’s stuck.

It’s a gradual integration into your body. It’s gradually feeling what needs to be felt and teaching your body to be safe again.

PS. This is exactly what I have created with On the Mend+, a healing container that enraptures all of these aspects, and what I so desperately wish I had 8/9 months ago. If you’d like more info - just DM me ‘join’ on instagram and I’ll send you a doc to look through :)