Learn how to untie the emotional knots that cause pain

Emotional knots take away our energy, freedom, and capacity for growth.. They are blockages made up of disappointments, wounds, emptiness, remaining attached to painful relationships and cycles not yet closed. Thus, freeing ourselves from these mental skeins requires very precise psychological craftsmanship with which to allow us to move forward without pain, without fear.

Over time, you may end up realizing that some of your existential baggage has taken its toll on you. Some unresolved events from the past may have crystallized in the form of emotional knots. This reality is usually common when, for example, we have left behind a complex emotional relationship, a personal loss or even when the wound of a traumatic childhood lives within us.

The analogy of knots could not be more accurate. Somehow, these psychological states exert painful pressure on the mind, harass the heart and take away our breath, while clinging to the rearview mirror of the past. They leave us in a precarious state where we lose our ability to take advantage of the present, to continue realizing ourselves as human beings.

Emotional knots, wounds that do not resolve themselves

Emotional knots do not unravel on their own. Sometimes, just pulling on one end is not enough to free that loop or rope. Most of these knots actually create complex skeins, loose ends and double loops where our thoughts, fears and anxieties remain accumulated, exerting more pressure and greater suffering every day.

Gestalt psychology usually works with these types of situations. Within this approach it is often said that when human beings have had to face adversity and have not yet managed to overcome its effects, something remains pending. The pain that persists, the discomfort that refuses to go away is evidence that there is something we still need to figure out. It is an emotional debt with ourselves.

Likewise, and no less important, we must also remember that emotions have a great impact on the container that contains them: our body. Therefore, an emotional knot predisposes us in many ways: it paralyzes us or drives us to flee. It also grips us, impacts our muscles, digestive system, cardiovascular system… That pressure also intensifies with inaction. Doing nothing, waiting for that knot to resolve itself makes it more complex, creating double ties, more twists and turns…

Learn to untie emotional knots

It has happened to all of us at some point. Almost without knowing how, those shoe laces or even the cable of our headphones have become tangled in such a complex knot that for a moment, we even lose patience. However, If there is one thing we know, it is that to undo the most complex of knots there is nothing better than observing how it is formed.

Thus, little by little and meticulously, we end up pulling on one end until each turn is free, removing tension, loosening and returning that cord or cable to its original shape. As curious as it may seem to us, the same thing happens with emotional knots.. Of course, we will not return to our previous form. These emotional labyrinths change us. In the end, they make up a stronger artisanal architecture in us.

Let’s see below how we can untie these emotional skeins.

Pain and suffering are not the same: you have the opportunity to stop suffering

Buddha already said it at the time. Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. What does this mean? From Gestalt they tell us that people often advance through the world with two types of arrows stuck in our hearts.

The first arrow is the one that one cannot avoid. It is the original wound, it is the pain of loss, of disappointment, of a breakup… The second arrow is suffering, the one that we sometimes pierce ourselves by clinging to our own wound but without fully assuming it. Far from closing it, we feed it daily with its memory.

Emotional knots hurt, but we can stop suffering if we choose to accept that internal injurytrying in turn to resolve said personal reality.

Present emotions and the importance of focusing on the here and now

These emotional knots are the result of one more event that occurred in the past. However, it is necessary to assume something: what happened yesterday cannot be changed. What we can change is how we feel now. We must transform suffering into calm, fear into security, restlessness into serenity.

We must learn to recognize our present emotions. Point out what hurts us, give a name to what makes up that emotional knot: fear, worry, nostalgia, sadness…

By recognizing emotions and managing them we will give ourselves the opportunity to close a cycle. To free ourselves from that knot.

Feel responsible for your life: you are your emotions, your thoughts and your actions

Gestalt psychology focuses on the sense of totality and seeks to enable the patient to understand their problems in a global sense.. For this reason, it drives us to work on raising awareness about everything that happens inside us, in turn promoting an authentic sense of responsibility with ourselves.

Something like this implies the need to attend to our emotions at all times. Because An emotional knot is the consequence of something that we have neglected, of something for which we have not taken responsibility. and that has become a burden, a debt to our growth, a weight that hurts daily.

Any annoyance, concern, concern or fear must be addressed in the here and now. Therefore, Let’s learn to be more aware of our emotional universe, let’s learn not to run away from what hurts or what scares us.. Otherwise, all of this will leave a residue, it will crystallize until it forms a loop and that loop, sooner or later, will create the shape of a knot. Let’s avoid it, we’re on time.

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