EMOTIONS AND THEIR ROLE IN OUR PSYCHOLOGY

Emotions, as Leonard Orr often emphasized, are literally energy in motion—vibrations that flow through the body and mind. When this energy is allowed to move freely, it expresses itself as positive states such as joy, love, peace, and gratitude. However, when the flow of energy becomes blocked, suppressed, or distorted—often through early conditioning or traumatic experiences—it manifests as negative emotions like anger, grief, fear, or shame. These emotions are not inherently bad; rather, they are signals that life energy has become trapped in certain meridians or areas of the body, asking to be acknowledged, expressed, and released. In this sense, emotions are both a feedback system and a vital source of healing, pointing us back to the places where unresolved energy remains.

Orr believed that emotional repression is one of the most damaging habits humans acquire, because it causes this living energy to turn inward, creating tension, illness, and self-limiting patterns. He taught that by learning to breathe consciously and to welcome emotions without resistance, we can restore the natural flow of energy through the body. This transforms pain into vitality and reconnects us with our essential aliveness. From his perspective, healing does not come from avoiding or controlling emotions, but from fully allowing them to move. When we treat emotions as waves of energy, rather than fixed states or problems, they become allies in our growth—guides that carry us back to wholeness and freedom.

REPRESSED EMOTIONS 

The real mental health crisis facing the western world is not Depression or Anxiety  or even Social inadequacy created by addicton to social media. No it is Repressed emotionl energy stored in the body/mind complex of the indivdual that is forgotten but not invisible. It is nothing short of incredible to this author that modern man believes that past traumatic events can be left behind with little or no action taken to resolve the disabling Emotions they evoked.  The old adage “ out of sight out of mind “is proclaimed by every layman who would rather just get on with enjoying their life, BUT the Hidden Truth that mainstream medicine still to this day chooses to ignore is this; 

 ALL present day issues that concern the individual, whether Mental or Emotional Or indeed Phyisical have there nexus in Trapped Emotional Energy that could not be processed at the moment of a Past Emotional Trauma. Instead the Emotional Energy was so overwhelming that the psyche that is to say your psyche employed the much Older reptilian survival brain to automatically Repress that energy in an effort to keep you the organism alive. 

Although Repression is a key concept of psychoanalysis, it is only half understood as a defense mechanism that ensures; what is unacceptable to the conscious mind, and would if recalled arouse anxiety, is prevented from entering into it. According to psychoanalytic theory, repression plays a major role in many mental illnesses, and in the psyche of the average person, but mainsteam doctors and psychiatrists  are Clueless to the Fact that Old stagnent emotions are the root cause of all mentla and physical dis-ease. Nor have they as a Profession discovered the mechanisms of mind that are responsible for the Repression of damaging emotional experiences and worse still they have not the slightest useful intervention to help release this energy from the individulal and thus remove the Cause which is the Root of the individuals problems. 

It is true that Repression is a psychic defence mechanism that prevents the uprising of anxiety and other feelings but what is not understood by Mainstream Phyciatry is that  it was designed by the Psyche to deal with the Incredible amounts of emotional energy experienced in Traumatic events that are too much for the conscious individual to process- And therefore not a mere defense against unpleasant feeling but instead a construct to help the individual survive until a time presented itself for healing. 

Emotional energy that could not be dealt with by the individual does not just disappear – Let me repeat Unprocessed Emotions do not disappear ever.  Rather they are immediately stored in the cellular memory of the body along with the decision the individual came too in those moments of trauma that caused it. This is all achieved by an automatic mechanism that the pysche uses to protect itself in the short-term  that was termed Repression but can be added too by the individual if in future moments of stress and upset the person chooses to Suppress his emotions in the moment –this becomes a deliberate conscious action that we have all chosen a one time or another because, it is either more socially unacceptable or the person does not have the Emotional intelligence to fully feel what they are experiencing. Later however this trapped energy will have great ramifications in the persons life if that repressed emotional energy and belief content is not dealt with.  

CONSEQUENCES FOR THE  for the Soul

Arthur Janov from the Seminal work Primal Scream informed this authors views significantly . He explains automatic repression as a built-in survival mechanism of the nervous system. When a child experiences overwhelming pain (physical or emotional) that it cannot handle, the brain protects itself by shutting down awareness of the feeling. This happens without choice or conscious effort. The result is: 

• The raw feeling (fear, grief, rage, need) is pushed out of awareness and stored in the body and lower brain structures. 

• The child develops defences (numbness, dissociation, hypervigilance) to keep the pain buried. 

• Over time, the person may forget the event, but the unfelt pain still drives behaviour through anxiety, depression, or distorted relationships. 

Janov often said repression is “automatic because without it the child could not survive.” In other words, the psyche walls off unbearable experiences to preserve life, but at the cost of carrying unresolved pain into adulthood. 

In conclusion our old reptilian brain protects us as child from intense emotional overload, but if as an adult we do not pursue healing pathways to resolve our past trauma then we will continue to suffer ever more disabilitating personal dramas as the old stagnent energies seep out into our present lives.