Tools for emotional digestion and healing your deepest wounding
Or, how to develop a robust energy body
My feet are restored to me.
My legs are restored to me.
My body is restored to me.
My mind is restored to me.
The dust of my feet is restored to me.
My spittle is restored to me.
The hairs of my head are restored to me.
My voice is restored in beauty.
All things around me are restored in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.
— a Navajo prayer for change
I've dedicated the past several years of my life to healing trauma through the body and on developing emotional acuity and awareness, using a range of modalities including plant medicines and energy body practices learned through meditation and classical tantra. The latter has comprised most of my process in the past few years after plant medicines opened the door.
In that time, I’ve also trained in craniosacral and polarity therapy and in Aletheia parts work coaching. Here I’m synthesizing the combination of all of the most effective methods I’ve personally found transformative throughout the years to heal many of my most significant traumas and patterns and as I’ve navigated the oftentimes confusing and upending journey of psychospiritual development and expansion. (Important note: I couldn’t have done the healing work alone — I’ve received so much help over the years from dear teachers and friends in these spaces*.)
I’ve become much, much more embodied in this body, in this lifetime, where I was once a series of floaty, vigilant mental reactivities permeated by vague existential terror. I’ll share more of my personal story in another post, but I was wracked by shame, self-hatred, anxiety, a nonexistent sense of self, relational codependency — at its worst, it was a terrifying, confusing, and dissociative hellscape, with scary demons who possessed me and seemingly bottomless black holes, but the cumulation of suffering, agonizing loneliness, a nagging sense of inauthenticity, and the hunger for truth were too great, though, not to initiate a healing journey. I now live from a much more compassionate, tender, soft, and fierce heart. The goal and the result of healing, if there is one, is wholeness, integration, clarity, love, and true presence. Otherwise we are only automatons playing out our outdated patterning, not really living out our present-moment lives with the sense of possibility, immediacy, intimacy, and trust in life that's available to us.
Although therapy is so much more normalized today, we’re still a relatively emotions-illiterate society, especially in terms of healing emotions through the body. So many of us are unconsciously holding a great deal of psychic tension in our physical and energetic bodies. But I believe anyone can develop the capacity for digesting big emotions using the energy body, including feelings that come up in everyday life AND soul-level wounding, or samskaras — deep, frozen, traumatic impressions from earlier in our lives (or even those that are inherited from our bloodlines or from the collective). So many major mental illnesses like depression and anxiety originate in unconsciously repressing the psychic wounds that live in our bodies, but they really can be healed and liberated.
Your unconscious belief systems and wounding are holding you back and keeping you stuck and you don’t have to be. In some ways, the extent to which you process these emotions is optional — you don’t have to keep going if you’re not called to it. And maybe there are a few psychic patterns you want to address, but you want to stop there. Either way, here are some tools for holding and processing big emotions along your path to greater freedom, ease, and JOY in life.
The intention of this post is to give you some confidence in your capacity to be with the difficult churnings of life, to empower you, and to point you in the right direction.
What is an energy body and why does it matter?
The energy body (aka “subtle body” or “emotional body”) consists of an energetic system within and sometimes expanding beyond the physical body that includes the chakras and the central channel along the spine. A robust energy body allows you to be with life as it comes — it means you have the capacity to handle all the waves, from bobs to devastating, turbulent storms. Life is marked by changes, many of which we don’t necessarily want or ask for, but weathering them well means we become more resilient, courageous, alive, and easefully welcoming of whatever may come.
All of the beliefs that live in your psyche (ones like “I’m not good enough”, or “I’m not lovable” which are very, very common) are reflected in your energy body, and they leave remnants in the body in the form of aches, tensions, pains, and the like, that actually have an energetic and psychologically-originated source. If you follow the feeling or sensation in the body, you can link it to a wound, or part of yourself, that’s stored in that area of the body. Working with that part of the body somatically and through visualization/imaginal practice helps the part be attended to, soften, and eventually release back into healthy, flowing integration with the whole psyche. Alternatively, these aspects stay shut off, but drive your patterns and behaviors behind the scenes, keeping you reenacting the same moves that aren’t working for you anymore.
(A note: This guide could’ve gone very spiritual, or very secular, and in the end hopes to land somewhere in the middle — it’s intended to be a bridge between the two and to be as practical and accessible to as wide an audience as possible. Even so, some aspects may veer too much on one side or the other for you.)
Some organizing pointers for success
Orient toward your emotions with curiosity and by turning towards them, rather than avoiding or subtly rejecting or resisting them. No emotion is wrong. Being able to relate to your inner emotional and energetic phenomena from a centered place of loving Presence (called the “Self” in Internal Family Systems, or you can feel it as your “Inner Mother”) will greatly help you in the emotional digestion process, though having a guide when you start out, or through a more complex or turbulent process, will help anchor and regulate you if you aren't able to do it for yourself. A powerful foundational practice for abiding in Presence is Christopher Wallis’s meditation Reposing in the Silent Ground.
One of my most beloved teachers,
, taught me about the essential need to be in right relationship with the root chakra and sacral chakra, the lowest two chakras. (You may also have heard of the lower dantian, or the energetic center at the belly, between the navel and the pubis — this is referring to the same region.) Even though we all can temporarily fall out of center in times of activation, we can come back to equilibrium more quickly and reliably with healthy root and sacral chakras and a resilient energy body.The root, related to the earth element, represents our sense of trust and safety and belonging to this body, this earth, this life; the sacral chakra, the water element, is how we feel and relate to others and is the source of our life force energy. Having healthy root and sacral chakras makes us grounded and empowered in our bodies, rather than fixated on thoughts and stories in our minds, which can be easily hijacked and is the source of so much suffering for humans. Instead, these centers are the location of unassailable inner security. Many of us don’t know that we are afraid of what lives in this area of the body – it is dark and mysterious to us, not easily intelligible, an underworld even…yet this is the source of our embodied KNOWING.
An unhealthy root chakra looks like being fearful and relying primarily on reasoning through the mind rather than the intuitive, knowing senses of the body to detect safety. An unhealthy sacral chakra often points to insecure attachment in relationships.
Being stuck in the mind, being chronically anxious, and racing thoughts can often indicate issues with these centers. Part of having a healthy energy body means being able to anchor and resource yourself from these centers energetically to stabilize your emotional experience.
Feelings are SAFE TO FEEL as long as you don't get stuck and wallow in them — this would mean that you're stuck in the belief associated with the feeling (something like “I'll never be loved”), and that belief is then getting reinforced, rather than released. The natural course of feelings is that they arise and pass through, as all phenomena do. The resistance to feeling them is what makes them get stuck, or frozen (often, some decades ago), and that's what we're here to digest.
You'll find as you digest big remnants of wounds that feelings that come up day-to-day will be felt and pass through with much more ease, almost automatically. For example, it took a long time to digest big pieces of grief that I'd held in my body throughout my life, but I feel quite current with my grief now, and am able to cry easily when I need to process any sadness that arises now in the natural flow of my life. My emotional processing is staying current and I'm living so much more in the present, rather than being seized by wounding from the past. Because so much of that old wounding has been processed through my energy body already, new emotions are able to just pass through without triggering and getting stuck on old wounds as well.
Tools for digesting big feelings and samskaras (deeply held, frozen trauma)
Parts work
Parts work has you disidentify from a part of yourself that you may be blended with, or overwhelmed by, and relate to it from Presence. This part likely got frozen in time because it didn’t receive the care and attention it needed at the time, so it’s been waiting for you to relate to it consciously. Parts naturally release over time when they feel heard and understood and as you meet its deep needs for love and relationship. When you’re first starting out, it’s really helpful to be guided in parts work as the parts can get activated, but you can learn to do this yourself (and should!) to be able to work with parts yourself anytime you’re activated.
Somatic parts work (through following sensation or imaginal practice with the part) — there are different parts, including protector parts and hurt parts, all of whom have a story and a voice. Usually, protector parts are more accessible because they’re protecting hurt parts, but as they’re heard and understood, they give “permission” to relate to your hurt parts. For example, one of my hurt parts showed up as an image of a young me cowering in a corner. Building trust with the part slowly allows them to share their experience with you, and for them to receive the love that they needed at the time from you now.
Feeding Your Demons meditation, as created by Lama Tsultrim Allione, a Tibetan Buddhist, helps you disidentify from a part of you that you might feel aversive to, such as a shadow part, and find out what it wants and needs. Try this guided meditation and follow it the whole way through. I’ve done this many times and each time it’s incredibly helpful and fruitful. The demon transforms into an ally. I have made art from some of these meditations.
Emotional digestion through the energy body
I learned both of these from Christopher “Hareesh” Wallis, through the nondual Shaiva Tantra tradition. This approach has helped me move through some really dark, destructive energies like shame and its accompanying thoughts because it's about letting the energy just move through the vessel of the body, rather than dialoguing with it or being in any sort of story with it.
It’s also helpful for someone to hold space for you as you do this, especially if it’s an intense energy, though with gentler processes and over time, you’ll be able to do this alone.
Letting the emotions be there, and even build
Allow thoughts to be there without believing a story about them, with a stance of emptiness around the meaning of them. An example is a feeling of anger, which may feel hot, or like you want to punch something or scream, and could come with thoughts like “I could kill them!” Let the thoughts pass through as energy without latching onto or identifying with any of them. Identifying with them solidifies them, rather than keeping them flowing, which is what helps the energy move through. As few labels as possible helps the process – even mentally naming it as “anger”, for example, limits the scope of the energy that passes through. Not labeling gives space for the full complexity of the energy to be there, to expand and shift, and to move.
Let the energy build and feel it in the body to their fullest pitch, letting them move and metamorphise and shift.
When you feel complete, either when the feeling feels like it’s completed what it wants to do in your body, or when you’ve reached your capacity, slowly draw the energy into your central channel and down through your root chakra into the earth.
Some of the energy gets released out of your body, into the earth, and some gets to come back into the body as vital and free new energy.
Antidoting the emotions by balancing it with its opposite (aka “the cauldron practice”)
A gentler approach than the first, start by feeling things like the tone, shape, and color of the emotion in your body — is it hot? Jagged? Ruby red? Take some time feeling into these textures in the body.
Antidote the energy of what you’re feeling with its opposites – for example, coldness, smoothness, something white or transparent. Take more time feeling into these opposites.
Mix all of the energies in your belly area (the “cauldron”), and let them swirl and balance themselves out, neutralizing the intensity of the initial emotions.
Bring the energetic mix into your central channel and release them down the central channel and into the earth.
Somatic touch and Earth-based practices
Sometimes, nonverbal, physical touch is more soothing, resourcing, and effective than working directly with a difficult emotion. Here you can rest into just being and lean back into a sense of being safe and held, in a non-rational way that heals the body from the ground up.
Get attuned craniosacral therapy, energy work, or bodywork — this will regulate your nervous system, return it to a state of ease, and release chronic tension patterns.
More about craniosacral therapy, since it’s a little less known — it brings the nervous system back to equilibrium, gets you grounded and mentally clear, and subtly unsticks you from energetic blockages in your system. (I do craniosacral therapy and would love to support you in this way.)
Hug yourself! Wrap your arms in front of your body and hold yourself at your shoulders, maybe closing your eyes and rocking yourself to and fro — this is remarkably effective and you can feel really held by yourself.
Lay on the ground outside and feel yourself being held by the earth. Put your bare feet in the earth. Feel your belonging to the whole of life.
Connect with nature, whether with trees, plants, and flowers, or by talking a walk or hike.
Creative and physical expression
Movement practices like ecstatic dance, 5Rhythms, freeform dancing in your bedroom, or taking a walk.
Making art, like drawing or coloring your emotions.
Embodying parts of you that need expression, e.g. dance (from/as, or with) your anger, your fear, your shame, your pain…
Entheogenic assistance
Psilocybin mushrooms — When I’ve needed some insight and help with an emotional situation, I’ll take a medium dose of mushrooms, more than a microdose and less than a full journey, somewhere between (0.5g-1g).
Holotropic breathwork — I first learned this in 2020 through guided workshops online and in-person and have used it periodically to help release stuck emotions. This style of breathwork releases DMT into the system as well, with the benefit that you have more control over the experience than with psychedelics – you can stop the breathing pattern if it's too intense or you need a break.
Relational support
A conversation with a friend, therapist, or mentor who can really be with you, without trying to fix anything. We need our feelings to be felt and validated, not tried to be changed, in the presence of another.
Asking for help — from guides, your ancestors, mentors, friends you trust — helps you feel into being supported, and not alone in this. If you like Buddhist, Tantric, or Christian figures, you can build relationships with archetypal energies and deities within the pantheon who you resonate with and feel supported by. A basic one within Buddhism, for example, is Quan Yin, or Avalokitesvera, god/goddess of compassion. A fiercer goddess is Kali, a takes-no-prisoner deity, who destroys everything that is false (sometimes much more than you asked for!). This can be a regular, daily practice, and it can also be used in times of acute distress when there’s no other humans around. I’ve called upon guides and teachers in some moments during psychedelic journeys, for example, when I was fearful or in pain, and while I didn’t necessarily “feel” their presence, I felt reassurance.
Reading poetry and comforting words that resonate with your emotions (e.g. David Whyte’s Consolations has been a companion many times over).
Airing out your psyche
Writing and journaling your feelings, or making art from them — creating beauty and ownership of your experience and externalizing the emotions into something tangible.
Mind-mapping — draw your “issue” in the center of the page and draw lines radiating out from it listing everything that comes up in relation to the issue. Connect lines between different aspects, as relevant. This helps you see everything laid out in one place and how everything relates to each other in your mind. This process often reveals aspects that I didn’t realize were there because others were “louder”, more repetitive, or taking up more space in my mind.
Pulling oracle or tarot cards or getting a reading — this helps air out the material so it’s less dense and internal, and becomes externalized and mirrored back to you.
Personality tools like the Enneagram, Human Design, or Astrology may also be helpful mirrors and illuminate shadows in self-perception.
Some inner attitudinal postures that will support the process
Seeing your experience as the cosmic interplay of energies, not so personal, not so embroiled in story; you are a microcosm of these universal energies: How powerful! How beautiful!
Trusting the process and that this is for your greatest good, even if you don’t get that right now. I said to a friend the other day, you will only know how much you can trust life if you let go.
Being a co-creator in your experience, rather than a victim, where something is happening to you.
Seeing challenges as rites of passage or initiations, vs. roadblocks — as something that will strengthen and grow you and ultimately empower you.
Ask, “What is this showing me? What can I learn from this?”
About my wounding
About my unconscious or core beliefs
About truth, life, and the human experience
(At this point, this is more or less an automatic way that I hold everything — as an invitation to grow into more awareness, more subtlety, more truth.)
Thanks for reading! If you’d like to chat with me about these topics or would like some support in your process, I’m offering somatic parts work and energy body coaching and craniosacral therapy both online and in-person in Los Angeles at a sliding scale. Check out my ethos and offerings at my website to see how I might be able to help you in your process. I also offer space-holding in-person for psychedelic-assisted journeys.
I love holding a clear, attuned, and deeply grounded presence for transmuting processes including deep and difficult existential and psychospiritual questions, heartache, grief, PTSD, and the full gamut of ordinary and extraordinary human emotions, connecting you to your joyful essence nature and inner knowing.
So much thanks to these friends and mentors integral to my healing:
*Schuyler Brown, Christopher “Hareesh” Wallis, Nicole Derseweh, Rebecca Grossman, David Angel Rodriguez, Katie Rikkers, Jane Miller, David Sauvage, Danny Emerson, Dara Blumenthal, Kedar Shashidhar, Ivan Chocron, Joel Friedrich
Recommended texts
Tantra Illuminated, by Christopher Wallis
Somatic Descent, by Reginald Ray
Opening the Heart of Compassion, by Martin Lowenthal and Lar Short
Such a powerful and beautifully written compilation of tools and practices that you give in very tangible and digestible pieces. So cool, Sherry! As a Therapist I am keeping this article in my pocket to share with clients for their growth journey!
Incredible, Sherry. You have compiled and communicated a vast store of treasures here! I am learning as I read and remembering...but mostly feeling HOPE. Yes, there are so many things we can DO to help ourselves and each other. Much love and godspeed on this journey!