Fear is a common emotional injury that most people suffer. Some people like to refer emotional injuries as negative imprints that are imposed by our environment when we are very young and have not developed the consciuous mind to reject limiting and harmful beliefs.

Some emotions are causal emotions and some emotions are capping/blocking emotions. Shame and grief are common causal emotions. Fear, frustration, anger and rage are capping emotions that block people to get in touch with the painful feelings that they suppress. Most people get frustrated or angry because they want to run away from the painful emotions that they refuse to experience and release. But from a person getting sad to angry, it can happen within a fraction of a second and majority of people do not have the habit of observing their own behaviours and emotions swings.

Whenever a person gets angry or afraid, it is a sign that they are runing away the painful emotions that are stored in them instead of owning their emotions and really experiencing them without judgements. For example, a person who is afraid of admiting his/her true feelings may have been ridiculed when he/she shared his/her emotions openly but never allowed him/herself to feel the sorrow inside. A person who is afraid of falling in love may have been rejected or betrayed by the people he/she intensely attracted to or deelply trusted but never embraced and let go of the painful experiences.

Imgine when a child discovers something new and is eager to share it with his/her parents who he/she believes are supposed to love and support him/her. However instead of being encouraged, he/she gets yelled at, dismissed anad ridiculed. As a result the child feels not valued, not supported, not loved, resulting in a lot of grief and sorrow. In a lot of culture, children are not really encouraged to experience their painful emotions and are taught that crying signifies weakness while in reality they are just experiencing and releasing their emotions. It is when people run away from their emotions and suppress them with fear and anger that they become defensive, fragile and less powerful. So as the child grows up, he/she can be very afraid of discovering new things and inventing new ways of doing things on his/her own. He/she may even become jealous and resentful towards others who think out of the box and receive inspirations.

So to truly process in our life, accepting, embracing and releasing the painful emotions is essential. We are not responsible for what happened to us when we were children because they result from others people’s ignorance of how their negative words and actions can cause pain in another. But we are the only people who can release those painful emotions stored in ourselves and can set us free from emotional prisons.

Love and peace

Jane Huang