Every emotion has a purpose.  We are supposed to be happy.  We are supposed to feel sad.  We are supposed to get mad, stressed, aroused, and afraid.  This is life.  If you look at each of these emotions objectively, you can find its true purpose.  The problem comes with fixation.  When we fixate on an emotion (or prevent ourselves from going through the regular emotional cycle of experience and release), the emotion lingers longer than it needs to in order to complete it’s natural purpose.  These emotions begin to fester and become corrupt versions of themselves.  It is then that these emotions begin to cause problems for us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  

Here are several examples: 

Anger: Anger gets people’s attention.  It is a warning.  It signals that something is wrong and it needs to change, or else!  When anger gets corrupted it becomes hate, disgust, or contempt.  This corrupted anger motivates grudges (which only hurts ourselves) and make us irrational.  

Arousal (or Sexual Desire): Arousal ushers in the next generation, motivates marital intimacy, and strengthens romantic relationships.  Corrupted arousal becomes lust.  Lust is selfish and ugly.  It perverts love into a self-gratifying “need”, and pushes an individual deeper and deeper down a dark rabbit hole of pornography and self-service, leading to more hardcore and dangerous thoughts and behaviors.  

Fear: Fear (better described as “respect”) keeps us safe.  It helps us recognize danger and causes us to proceed with caution.  Corrupted fear paralyzes us, makes us irrational, and causes us to panic and make situations more dangerous or difficult as a result.  (See Understanding & Dispelling Fear for more on this topic)

Guilt: Guilt is meant to make us know when we’ve done something wrong and need to change.  It motivates that change in ourselves.  Corrupted guilt becomes shame or self-anger.  Shame causes fear of judgment and dishonest behavior (in seeking to avoid judgment) or prevents us from forgiving ourselves (even if everyone else has already forgiven us).  Self-anger causes us to berate and demean ourselves, subconsciously reinforcing negative behaviors, and may even lead to self harm.  

Joy: Joy is the reward for living a good life, accomplishing goals, and building healthy family or friendship relationships.  Corrupted joy becomes pleasure.  Pleasure is hollow.  It mimics the feelings of joy while being unfulfilling and empty in the end.  In seeking pleasure, people get caught up in vices of all sorts and end up prioritizing the feelings of pleasure over relationships, goals, or anything that would lead to a good life.  Pleasure comes from seeking the symptom of joy without doing any of the work involved in creating actual joy.  

Sadness/Grief: Sadness is a reflection of love lost.  It helps us to process the loss of loved ones, opportunities, familiar places or things, etc.  Corrupted sadness becomes depression.  Depression leads to despair and the complete loss of hope.  This, if allowed to fester unchecked, can lead to self harm, neglect, or even death.  

Stress:  Stress motivates urgency and actions.  Without stress, almost nothing would get done.  Corrupted stress becomes anxiety.  Anxiety confuses, paralyzes, and de-motivates.  It can also cause a whole slew of health problems.  

There are many more that I won’t list here.  If you find that you are struggling with an emotion, ask yourself, “What is the purpose of this emotion?”  No emotions are ‘meant’ to hurt us (though they can be uncomfortable or painful in the moment), at least not in the long term.  They only do that if they’ve become corrupted.  They only do that if they’ve become corrupted.  If you find that you’ve been fixated on a corrupted emotion, you’ve already done the first step in recognizing the problem.  

Next, deconstructing the corrupted emotion is necessary.  This can be done individually by logically pulling apart all of the motivating thoughts behind the emotion.  This is easier said than done.  It can be intense emotional work.  

Finally, you need to choose to let go of the emotion.  Figure out what is supposed to come at the end of the emotion.  This may be different for each emotion.  For instance, after grief comes acceptance, after anger comes love or respect, after stress comes peace.  Once you have let the emotion run it’s natural course, allow yourself to feel what comes after.  Then, choose to move forward.  We can choose to experience any emotion at any time.  Refrain from revisiting and resurrecting these old emotions needlessly.  Be free of them.  

If you find that you need help with any of these steps:

1. Figure out what emotion you have been fixated on

2. Deconstruct the fixation

3. Release the emotion  

Feel free to contact our office and ask about hypnotherapy.  The hypnotherapy process can allow you to find these emotional causes for problems with ease and can help walk you through the process of breaking down and releasing these fixations.  Once you have done that, behaviors change, pain is relieved, and issues that may have gone on for years, can be put to rest.