The journey of the heart  Post in draft mode.  The wounded heart  The heart that feels pain and hurt and or anger. The heart that feels betrayal or loss  In this state the heart is trapped  When your emotions are in a knot, you are experiencing emotional entanglement which I described before in the previous draft posts. In this state you feel stressed. The stress keeps accumulating, you feel confused, unusual, you feel uncertain, your emotions are messed up. You don't feel good at all. This can happen during  An argument  Childhood trauma  Work stress Bad toxic relationships  Inability to achieve goals  Bullying  Getting trolled Ostracization  Dehumanization  Getting discriminated Having a bad day  Financial issues General anxiety  Feeling upset  Feeling triggered  Feeling provoked  Feeling harassed  Feeling tormented  These are just a few examples where the heart is experiencing emotional entanglement which can feel like a knot as though you're tied up or your emotions are in a knot.   image here.    Once you realize that you are in a knot, its important to unravel this knot as fast as you can so you feel free. Being free is your original state.  It takes some amount of time to unravel and untangle and undo the knot and come to the original state of freedom. This is what I call emotional liberation.  There is a distinct difference between the words freedom and liberation. Liberation is the feeling of being set free of something. Freedom is an opportunity you have that you can use to do something. Without freedom you cannot get anything done. Without liberation you are trapped. Liberation is an essential component of freedom. Only when you are liberated you can actually have the freedom to do something.  Let me explain this with an example..  Let's say you're kidnapped and trapped in a house. You do not have the freedom to leave the house for the first 4 days. Maybe after that you are allowed to go out for a period of 2 hours. But you have to be back home within the time. Or there will be problems.  It's your 5th day and now you are free to go out for limited periods of time. This can be considered freedom. You have the freedom to do a certain thing under certain conditions. However you are not completely or unconditionally free.  You have certain freedoms only. This is not liberation because you are still trapped in the same house where you don't want to be. You are still in captivity.  The only way to feel liberated is to be taken out of captivity.  So having freedom  does not always mean being liberated.  In order to have total freedom it's necessary to be liberated from the chains..  A simple definition of an emotional hostage is someone who is stuck feeling like they don't know what to do next in a particular situation or relationship. Both liberation and freedom are important.  So now let's see a situation where you feel liberated but not free  An example could be...  Imagine you're a rich kid living in your dad's house. You have all the autonomy and everything at your disposal. But there are certain rules around the house. One of those rules is that you are not allowed to bring friends home. Or you are not allowed to drive at a certain hour. You are allowed a stipulated amount of money only when you specify your requirements in such a way they meet the criteria.  This is an example where you feel liberated or you're liberated but not free. You aren't technically being confined or severely restricted but you are to follow rules and conditions to get what you want. Now these rules can be very trivial and easily dealt with or they can become a headache. When there are too many rules you essentially lose your freedoms. It's a covert way of taking away your freedom. You can free to do things but you are handicapped when something needs to be done.  This is like you're free to walk but your legs are injured. You are free to fly but your wings are cut. This is not freedom nor it is imprisonment. It is basically "Control" not necessarily hostage or imprisonment but control. Your motions are controlled. Conditions are being put where none are needed.  One way of putting this is... The previous situation can be described as "you're not allowed"  And this situation can be described as  "you're allowed but you will get this only if you fulfill the conditions"  Both look same but they are not.  The situation where you're not allowed you cannot do anything at all. Let me explain this further.  Let's say you're in a third world country under a totalitarianism or dictatorial regime and you are not allowed to leave the country. You are not even allowed to leave your city. You are only supposed to  do what the regime tells you. Basically you are denied your humanity. You are not allowed freedom of speech. So if you speak up, you will be imprisoned or face harsh punishment.  This is a case where you need liberation (as well as freedom which will be needed subsequently)  Now let's take the case of a person in a first world country.  You're allowed to go wherever you want. You can leave the country if you want. You have been given your basic liberties. (statue of liberty comes to mind) but let's say you needed an important medicine and you don't have your prescription then you won't get it. There can be a lot of bureaucratic tape that must break through in order to just get daily necessities.  But you do have the liberty to leave the country anytime and you can do whatever you want with your life because you are liberated, not exactly free but liberated.  Your freedoms are still bound to conditions. Ill also include some portion on emotional freedom.    To have emotional liberation, you need to cut through the knot that your heart is entangled in.  Breaking the knot.  Breaking the knot and setting the heart free is not an easy job. The first step in this direction is realization and awareness. You need to be aware that you are being held hostage to your emotions. You need to be aware that it's okay if you are being held hostage to your emotions as long as your emotions are happy and wonderful and supportive. But when you have negative emotions, things don't look great. Being aware that you are gradually falling into the trap of the emotional knot is the key. This knot is slowly getting stronger and firmer and even more convoluted and intricate. It can reach levels of complexity that are impossible to unravel. Before this happens, you need to break and undo the knot as fast as you can. Once you see yourself trapping into the knot, you have to back off from the situation and the emotions arising out of  that situation. So let's say your classmate is bullying you and you feel angered and provoked. You need to be able to be calm and watch how your emotions are slowly enveloping to form that destructive knot. Before this happens, take action, back off from the situation, take time to gather yourself together and keep your emotional constitution intact and healthy. Don't let it form knots or get disrupted.  One way is to break the knot early on during its formative stages. You can do this quickly and instantly.  However, not all knots are this easy. They don't just go away with simply a thought or action.  Some knots are formed over years and years of emotional abuse and psychological abuse as in an adult who has experienced child abuse during their formative years.  This will need a lot of unpacking to be done.  Also if you have not exactly suffered emotional abuse, you could have suffered years and years of tremendous emotional stress.  Examples of emotional stress can be  Bad relationships  Too many fights in a relationship  Too many fights in a family  Financial problems  Overbearing boss  Bullying at college, school or workplace  Stalking  Narcissistic abuse from parents or authority  Abuse at a church or cult  An incident of racism, discrimination or humiliation which is public  Living with a bipolar or mentally ill person  Working as a nurse, doctor, psychiatrist, counselor or social worker  Working in law enforcement dealing with crimes, criminals and crime victims families.  Working as an actor in heavy duty emotional roles  Suffering from a mental illness for years  Listening to emotional music as a bad habit  Constant crying or having severe loss of emotional control  Having suffered parental neglect  Drug addiction  Raised in a violent neighborhood  Exposed to some form of violence in formative years  Abuse by a schoolteacher like physical beating or sexual or pressure or bullying  Cyberbullying  Having encountered suicide in the family or friends circle  Having encountered single or multiple deaths of persons or pets in the family or friends circle  Unable to cope with the loss of a person or pet  Failed marriages and divorce  Unable to cope with the divorce of parents  Suffered loss of home or resources in an earthquake or disaster  Suffered homelessness at some point in life  Suffered PTSD due to one or a specific set of incidents  Being wrongfully arrested, evicted, sent to prison or jail.  Suffered sexual assault in the street or by family, neighbor, boyfriend or friend.  Being sent to military at young age  Military associated PTSD because of bad memories  The list goes on and on.  Over years these triggers and stressor   build up and cause extensive damage to the heart and body.  They accumulate.  Remember, there'll always be some factor behind your emotional stress. It may or may not be on the list but it'll be something that is causing you stress.    It's important to isolate these triggers and factors one by one and deal with them individually.  One important word to consider here is the word avoid    Some of the stressors are avoidable, not easily but still avoidable. Like for example you could give up a drug habit, you could counteract bullying either by a formal complaint or by switching to a different school.  Whenever it's avoidable, Avoid..  When it's not, then you need to find strategies to minimize damage, strategies to cope with the situation, strategies to escape the situation, strategies to find a resolution to the situation if escape is not possible or unwanted or unhelpful.  One example could be contacting child protection services or social services when you are stuck in a dysfunctional abusive relationship with your parents /family /neighborhood /church/cult etc.  There is always a road ahead, a twist, a turn, a rope to hold on to during a desperate period, there is always a way to cope or get out and escape further damage or a way to find ultimate freedom. So there is two way approach to the problem of emotional stress Avoidance  Resolution      Dealing with Emotional Damage Once you have successfully avoided or resolved the problem of emotional entanglement or removed the stressor and untangled the knot, you have found the way to emotional liberation.  Also explain emotional freedom blockage.  emotional liberation different from emotional freedom and emotional  and emotional entanglement, emotional distress, emotional damage, emotional abuse, emotional hostage, emotional independence, emotional healing, emotional disruption or emotional blockage.  The focus of this particular post is more on emotional entanglement and emotional liberation and healing from emotional damage  Dealing with emotional damage.  Once you have successfully achieved emotional liberation, the next focus needs to be on dealing with emotional damage.  This means healing the emotional constitution and bringing it back to its original state and then working towards the Regeneration phase.  This phase is basically the Healing Phase. The earlier phase was the struggling phase or Coping phase.  In this phase you need to start your journey towards a recovery and a full rebound.  Now obviously you have PTSD symptoms and emotional distress symptoms EDS, you have unresolved aggression, and a bunch of symptoms arising from the situations you escaped/survived.  Now it's time to get rid of these symptoms and remove the emotional agitation and replace it with happiness and a sense of peace. Also it's time to get your energy reserves back. I'll call them Emotional Energy Reserves. These have been depleted during your time of stress. It's time to fill them back. To replenish. Energy reserves are vital for motivation and stimulation to live life. These are what make you want to explore, have relationships, want a family, go to work, live your best life, create joy and pleasure and they create a natural enthusiasm to live life.  When you are in a state of depression and emotional recession and emotional stress, these emotional  energy reserves get greatly depleted. This causes agitation, nervousness, losing the will to live, suicidal ideation, and a general state of apathy. You just don't feel like doing anything. You don't think anything is useful... Healing the emotional constitution  This is the phase where you get the emotional energy reserves back. You focus on replenishment.  There are ways to heal the emotional constitution back to its original un-maladapted or unimpacted form, unadulterated form  Some of the ways.  Laughter therapy  Focusing on a sense of achievement  Achieving baby goals  Taking baby steps Lot of sleep and adequate rest.  Music  Meditation  Walking in the woods  Talk therapy and venting  Psychological therapy (professional)  Change of place. Relocating  Positive visualization  Going on a vacation to an island  Watching relaxing and comedy movies  Positive distraction  Exercise  Massage  Spa therapy Taking care of nutritional needs.  Supplements for depression and other issues Making new friends  Journaling  Avoiding toxic people  Taking care of the body and physical needs Building a robust health  Listening to ASMR Nature therapy  Listening to nature sounds  Surrounding yourself with positive uplifting caring supportive people  Laughter therapy  Yoga  Picking a hobby  Dancing  Walking meditation  Spending time with pets  Helping other people  Staying happy  Loving the self  Staying peaceful  Being happy with little things  Keeping small goals  Living in simplicity  Retail therapy (don't let this be an addiction)  Comfort food (just like retail therapy this is only okay for a short period)  Sex (sex is the most powerful drug)  Driving  Self love  Self care  Confronting and Labeling emotions  Labeling situations  Metta meditation  Playing games  Being a part of an organization or community  Psychedelics  Spending time with family and friends  Gratitude journal  Humour  Positive affirmations  Building self esteem Setting Boundaries  Rewarding self Seeking spirituality  Prayers  Finding love through God  Growing in love  Destroying and discarding negative emotions  Looking and appreciating the beauty of life  Creating the fountain of love and positive emotions in life  Energy healing methods or Energy based healing methods like Chi Gong, Reiki, Chakra, acupuncture, etc            Dealing with Emotional Damage.