This Emotional Life

The Day I Fell Off the Horse—and Landed Inside an Old Story

I didn’t just fall.

My body remembered.

When I hit the ground, I curled instinctively to the same side, folding into a fetal position so familiar it felt rehearsed. In that shape—small, bracing, protective—I suddenly recognized something I hadn’t named in the moment: this wasn’t only an accident. It was a reenactment.

It was my nervous system doing what it learned to do a long time ago.

The Original Template: “Danger, No Protection”

As a child, I had an experience that became a template in my body.

My father attacked me one day when he was upset. My mother didn’t protect me.

That combination—threat paired with no rescue—does something profound to a developing system. It doesn’t just create a memory you can recall. It can create a pattern your body repeats when it senses anything even remotely similar:

Someone has power over you The environment feels unpredictable Your “no” doesn’t land You have to manage someone else’s intensity You don’t feel fully protected, fully seen, or fully safe

And here’s the hard part: adulthood doesn’t erase these patterns. It often refines them.

The Barn as a Re-Creation of the Dynamic

I loved the horses. I loved the beauty, the awe, the intimacy of learning. But the barn carried an energy I couldn’t ignore—stress, volatility, the sense that anything could shift quickly.

In my body, it started to feel like the old landscape:

a powerful force (the horse, the environment, the “way things are”) a sense of needing to adapt, appease, endure an underlying question: Will I be protected here if something goes wrong?

Even when no one is “doing” anything intentionally, dynamics can still echo. And the body—especially a body that has stored trauma—doesn’t need a perfect match. It needs a rhyme.

When Trauma Isn’t Remembered, It’s Repeated

One of the most misunderstood things about trauma is this:

If it isn’t fully processed, it doesn’t disappear. It stays organized in the body.

Not as a story you can tell, but as:

bracing in the muscles tension in the jaw, throat, belly vigilance in the eyes collapse in the chest numbness in the limbs a reflex to fold, freeze, or fawn

In other words: the trauma becomes a posture, a strategy, a way of moving through life.

So when I fell off the horse and landed in that exact fetal curl—the same side, the same shape—something important happened.

It was as if my body said:

“Here. This is where it got stuck.”

The Fall as a Dislodging

I didn’t process it in the moment. I was focused on the physical impact, the logistics, the shock.

But afterward, something began to stir—emotionally, somatically, energetically. Almost like the fall shook loose what had been packed away, sealed off, stored in muscle and bone.

Sometimes an event doesn’t “create” trauma. Sometimes it touches an old one and brings it up for completion.

Not because life is cruel—though it can feel that way—but because the psyche and the body are always moving toward wholeness. When we’re ready, what was frozen looks for a way to thaw.

The Ancestral Thread: Horses, Survival, and the Body’s Long Memory

And then there’s another layer—one I’ve come to respect deeply.

For many of us, our nervous system isn’t only shaped by what happened in our personal childhood. It can also be shaped by what our ancestors endured and passed down through the body’s inheritance: patterns of survival, vigilance, readiness for threat.

For my people, the horse is not simply an animal. It carries history. I can feel an ancient storyline in my body—images and sensations of being on horseback, being attacked, fighting for life. I’m talking centuries back, the kind of survival that marks a lineage.

Whether we understand this spiritually, psychologically, epigenetically, or somatically, the lived reality can be the same:

The body holds history.

And sometimes, when we touch a symbol that’s big enough—like the horse—we touch the whole archive.

This Is Exactly How Present Problems Get Made

This is also why I do the work I do.

Because what looks like a “present-day problem” is often a present-day portal.

A conflict at work.

A relationship dynamic.

A panic response that “makes no sense.”

A chronic tension pattern.

A repeated attraction to unsafe situations.

A deep shame that arrives out of nowhere.

So often, these are not random failures. They are re-creations—attempts by the nervous system to return to the scene with one unconscious hope:

“Maybe this time it will resolve.

Maybe this time I will be protected.

Maybe this time I will get to complete what never completed.”

But resolution doesn’t come from repeating the scene externally.

It comes from completing the emotional sequence internally.

The Missing Piece: Moment-by-Moment Completion

Trauma isn’t just about what happened. It’s about what didn’t get to happen.

Maybe the body needed to:

push away run yell shake cry rage be held be protected feel the truth and have it witnessed

When those impulses are cut off—because it wasn’t safe, or you were too young, or you had to survive—the body “stores” them.

That’s why working through trauma isn’t just insight. It’s not only understanding.

It’s step-by-step, moment-by-moment re-processing—at a pace the nervous system can tolerate—so the body can finally do what it couldn’t do then.

This is the heart of somatic work: the body completes the loop.

A Gentle Way to Begin: Recreating the Moment Without Re-Traumatizing

If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself, here’s the most important guideline:

We don’t force the body through trauma. We invite the body to unwind it—slowly.

A simple entry point (that you can do gently, and ideally with a skilled practitioner if the trauma feels intense):

Orient to safety first. Look around the room. Name 5 neutral objects. Feel your feet. Let your eyes soften. Find the smallest piece of the memory. Not the whole event—just a single snapshot: a posture, a sensation, a moment right before impact. Track sensation, not story. Where do you feel it? Jaw? ribs? hips? throat? Let it be specific. Let one emotion be true. Not the whole flood. One honest thread: fear, sadness, anger, disgust, grief. Let the body respond in micro-movements. A tiny push with the hands. A slow turn of the head. A tightening then release. A tremble. A breath that changes on its own. Pause and come back to the room. The body learns completion through titration—little sips, not drowning.

This is how trauma leaves the body: not through willpower, but through completion.

The Deeper Meaning of “Falling”

I don’t romanticize injury. I’m not “glad” I fell.

But I can honor what it revealed.

My body showed me an old shape it had been holding for decades. It showed me a pattern of helplessness paired with lack of protection. It showed me that part of me was still curled on the ground, waiting for safety to arrive.

And maybe—just maybe—this time it can.

Because now I’m here.

Now I’m listening.

Now I know what’s happening.

Now I can protect the part that wasn’t protected.

Now I can let the body finish what it couldn’t finish.

And that is not a setback.

That is a turning point.

Emotional Evolution

I am dedicated to the idea that one day everyone will understand that the quality of one’s health is always influenced by the quality of one’s emotional life.

Ways of dealing with emotions are inherited, and so the likelihood of conflict as well. We can only allow children to feel the emotions that we ourselves are comfortable feeling. The effectiveness of any therapy lies in its ability to reconnect us to the repressed emotions from our past; allowing our minds true communion with our bodies, and restoring our ability to face all of life’s challenges. It’s not about blaming our parents, or the generations past, it’s about feeling the truth of what happened, and the truth, really does, set us free.

My goal is the help implement into everyday life, ways in which emotional awareness can guide and enhance everything; resulting in better decision making and harmony between man and his/her true nature.

I continue to be dedicated to helping people understand the importance of exploring how the body breathes. To understand, and so appreciate, the complexities of something as simple as our breathing so that one may at first, become really aware of the obvious, and then be inspired to explore the infinite details. To stimulate a curiosity that will lead to a dedicated awareness, and result in a lifetime of health and fitness; yes, learning to breathe well is that powerful.

My Clients Heal…..

and they explain it better than I ever could!

I now see my trauma so clearly. It doesn’t make me depressed, it makes me realize how much of my life I sacrificed to trauma. It’s just such a deep realization. I see flashes of my past in front of me and I know why I made certain choices and have done the things I did in my life that used to haunt me. It is so unsettling, because the past is experienced and the future is not. And I know and believe that I am freeing myself because I see the past so clearly, and I can have hope that the future will not be a replica of the past. I need faith and belief, two things I was never wired to have unless my survival is threatened. So I choose to believe that I’m on my way. I will need faith and the reminder that when my traumatized self shows up, I will not let it tell me I’m not good enough.

To which I replied.

“When one starts on a path in therapy, which is essentially a healing of the human that allows the soul to fill us, when that happens, we awaken as the days and months go by, in ways we never could have imagined. Because of the teacher/therapist, the student has willingly stepped onto the path and so the soul joins hands with the human and delivers signs and thoughts and guidance in the most mysterious yet obvious ways. Once on the path you cannot step off, nor would you wish to for with each painful breaking down, with real growth, you become more and more yourself. But most of all you have reconnected with love as well as the trauma and your faith becomes stronger because of this power. At the end of the day, all good comes from love.

EMOTIONS our SANITY and HEALTH

When we feel stuck, anxious, confused or dissatisfied – what we are really experiencing are the effects of our unresolved, inner conflicts.

These conflicts silently shape our lives. They cloud our judgment, sabotage our relationships, and disconnect us from our deeper needs and desires. They also make us feel helpless just when we most need clarity and strength.

Most inner conflicts begin in moments when we were forced to bury an emotion. Over time, that buried emotion turns into thoughts and feelings we don’t like—frustration, anxiety, guilt, shame. These aren’t just unpleasant feelings; they’re signs that something within us remains unresolved.

The first step in this work is learning to recognize and resolve those conflicts. I’ll guide you to uncover the buried emotions at the heart of your struggles and show you how to release them. As you do, you’ll experience something powerful: great relief and mental clarity. And with clarity comes peace within, strength, the ability to make better choices and foster healthier relationships..

A key part of this journey is learning to distinguish between emotions and feelings. Many people confuse the two. For example, frustration often gets mistaken for anger. But while pure emotions like anger, sadness, fear, and joy can move us forward and set us free, certain feelings—like anxiety, resentment, or guilt—keep us stuck. I’ll help you separate true emotion from limiting feelings, so you can use your emotional awareness to create real, lasting change.

As you gain emotional clarity, your relationships will shift. You’ll stop walking away from interactions feeling confused, out of control, or shut down. You’ll understand what you’re feeling and why—and that insight will bring strength, compassion, and calm to every connection.

The biggest reward of this work is not perfection—it’s resilience. You’ll know, deep down, that no matter what life brings, you will be okay. You’ll face challenges with confidence, feeling more alive, more centered, and more empowered than ever before.

And the benefits go beyond the emotional. Emotions don’t just relieve stress—they have a direct impact on the body. When you learn how to process and express pure emotion, your health improves too. Unresolved emotions don’t just harm relationships; they take a toll on your physical well-being. As you begin to heal emotionally, you’ll notice your body healing too.

This journey is not about fixing you. It’s about freeing you—so you can live, love, and move forward with clarity, courage, and joy.

Harnessing the Power of Pure Emotion

Our emotions are not just feelings; they are the four fundamental energies of physics—electromagnetism, gravity, nuclear force, and weak force—flowing through our bodies and brains. When we have full, unhindered access to these energies, we become fully human. And that is the prerequisite for evolving and deepening our connection to spirit.

Pure emotions—fear/excitement, anger/desire, sadness/comfort, love/need—are the bridge between our physical existence and our spiritual selves. They work in tandem. As we open ourselves to these energies, we open ourselves to spirit. The soul’s journey aligns directly with the work of accessing and balancing these forces. We are, in essence, the evolving energy of existence—God, physics, and humanity intertwined.

Our evolution accelerates when we confront the inner conflicts that block the flow of these energies. And we all have them. As we resolve these conflicts, we release the natural forces of the universe within us, allowing us to grow.

This healing isn’t just for us—it’s for future generations. No matter how much we try to do things differently for our children, the unresolved energies within us will affect them. Children are pure energy; they sense everything beneath the surface. The best gift we can give them is our own healing.

Loving for the Sake of Love

What if we loved not to get something back—but simply for the sake of loving? Just to love, as fully and freely as we are able?

So why do we often feel stressed, disappointed, even heartbroken in our efforts to love?

Because most of us are still loving for results. Hoping, unconsciously, to receive something we didn’t get as children. The child within us is still searching—longing to be seen, to be chosen, to feel safe, valued, or enough.

What allows us to love without needing something in return?

It begins with working through the very places where love once failed us. Each time we feel disappointment, frustration, or pain in our career, relationships, parenting, or friendships, an old wound is being touched. As we begin to recognize and heal these echoes of the past, we slowly become capable of loving without clinging. Without needing a particular outcome.

And from this place, we show up differently. We become more present. More generous. We give to others—and to our work—not from ego, but from something deeper. From pure love.

And here’s the paradox: this kind of love is not weak. It does not abandon itself. It does not need to shut down, lash out, or flee. Because love in its pure form is strong. It knows how to say no. Not out of fear or reactivity, but from clarity.

When a “no” comes from love, it is neither aggressive nor punishing. It’s firm, grounded, and honest. And while it doesn’t always cause others to become more loving, it creates the conditions where true connection becomes possible.

Emotional Health is a PARADOX

Life is full of paradoxes. We need to make mistakes in order to get better. We need to fail in order to succeed. We need to be lost in order to be found. No pain, no gain. No comfort without sadness. I could go on and on. The two that are most important for our happiness and therefore the most profound are as follows:

1. We need to have clear boundaries if we want to have functioning, intimate relationships.

2. We need to be strong in order to be vulnerable.

Let’s look at the first one. We can very often mistake real intimacy with merging in a way that actually fosters co-dependency over self-fulfillment. This is all part of the plan. We are destined to attract into our lives, the friends and lovers that fit ever so perfectly the missing curves and angles of our particular puzzle piece. This is the beauty of the design of the universe. The universe is always searching for balance. This attraction of what we lack is the energetic universe’s call to heal. Or as Joseph Campbell named it “The Hero’s Journey”. The human ready to keep searching for the answers within his or her own self, knowing that no one can save them except their own quest for truth and love.

We also need to full embrace our pain in order to have the capacity for compassion for ourselves and others, i.e,, pain creates caring – another paradox.

The second is the idea that in order to be truly open and vulnerable we need to be strong. Only the resilient can afford to keep their hearts open. Without the strength that comes along with trust of self, we cannot afford the risk of potential pain that being open and vulnerable might bring to us.

Why is it that these paradoxes exist? Is it the yin/yang energy of life that requires it? As my friend says, “the bigger the front, the bigger the back”. No light without darkness etc. ?

What do you think?

Can you offer other paradoxical truths?

Yours in this emotional life,

Carla

How Inner Work Can Heal The World

Healing Starts Within: How Inner Work Can Heal the World

We live in a world full of division, judgment, and disconnection. In the face of so much suffering—globally and personally—it’s easy to feel powerless. But here’s a truth I’ve come to know deeply through years of inner work and guiding others: the most powerful thing we can do for the world is to heal ourselves.

Real healing isn’t about erasing the past or pretending pain didn’t happen. It’s about facing what we’ve buried—our anger, our grief, our shame—and giving ourselves permission to feel it fully. Only then can we begin to understand the pain we carry, forgive ourselves, and access the compassion that’s been waiting beneath the surface.

This process doesn’t just change us. It changes how we show up in the world.

Without our own suffering, we would never truly understand compassion. When we deny our pain, we also deny ourselves the chance to become more loving, more present, more whole. And when we stay disconnected from our pain, we remain disconnected from others.

This disconnection plays out everywhere—from our personal relationships to our political systems. It’s often those who haven’t processed their own wounds who become the most judgmental, the most hardened, or the most indifferent. When we witness cruelty or alienation and ask, “How could someone do that?”—the answer often lies in unacknowledged suffering.

But healing is possible. And it begins one heart at a time.

We all have the power to be a healing force. Each of us influences a small circle of people—our families, friends, coworkers, neighbors. When we choose to live with integrity, to protect our own hearts, and to see the pain in others, we become a source of compassion and change. If everyone did this, love and understanding would ripple out into the world.

This isn’t idealism—it’s responsibility.

In today’s United States, where political division runs deep and antagonism seems to define our national tone, we must remember: change doesn’t start in Washington. It starts in your living room. In your relationships. In your willingness to understand your own pain so you can meet others with empathy instead of judgment.

You don’t need to change the whole world. You just need to heal yourself—and let that healing expand outward. That is how we become part of the solution. That is how we find connection in the face of division. That is how we create a world that operates from love, not fear.

Know this: your acts of compassion, your commitment to inner healing, and your choice to love in spite of it all… these things matter. They are how we heal the world.

One heart at a time.

Emotions Heal Us

The Conflict Within

Restoring the Peace Between Body and MInd

Hundreds of therapies exist to help us with our problems, but my personal and professional experiences have led me to one, very important conclusion: In order for any therapy to be effective, it must do one thing above all else, it must end the discord between the feeling body and the reasoning brain.

The reasoning brain and the feeling body are always interacting with one another, and their relationship, will in many ways determine the quality of our life. With each passing day, the degree to which there is peace in us. Peace between what we think and what we feel, will determine the degree to which we feel calm or stressed. It will determine our mental and physical health. The depth of our relationship to ourselves, others, and the world, will always be determined by the relationship between our thinking self and our feeling self.

“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace within ourselves.”

Dalai Lama

The Mind/Body Conflict Is Real

We all suffer from mind/body conflicts. Our Mind/Body conflicts begin in our formative years when the people whom we are closest to, fail to allow us to process our emotions. The processing of our emotions plays a key role in our mental and physical health because the emotions we feel in our bodies are the only means we have of providing our thinking selves with a true understanding of how we feel. If we donget to feel what happens then we don’t get to understand what happened.

Here is a clear example:

A child is running, he feels joy and excitement, he trips and hits the ground. This child is very young and so still has access to all of his emotions. In the throes of the fall, the excitement turns to fear. Fear is the first emotion he feels as he loses control over his body. After the fear, howling tears of anger and sadness come from the fear and the pain. If this child is attended to, held, hugged, and comforted, his sadness/hurt/pain will have been acknowledged and his emotions will have been validated and he will fully know the truth of what happened and that there is comfort and love in the world to remedy his pain. I am often amazed how physical pain/hurt for the body is not separate from emotional pain. We often separate them and in doing so deny the emotional aspect of pain. If this child is comforted, if his fear and pain are acknowledged he will have processed those emotions and the event, and within minutes his body will become calm. He will have resolved the trauma. The comfort offered will make him feel loved and deserving of care, and the world will be right again. If his emotions are ignored or rejected by the adults that are important to him, his mind will challenge what his body feels. He will deny to himself his body’s organic emotional response, and this will give birth to an inner conflict. The adults that I look to for survival have told me that I feel fine and I should simply continue with my day. But my body hurts and that was frightening and I feel unsettled. Who to believe? My body or them. He will convince himself they are right because after all they are the all powerful parents. But his body, his nervous system and his brain will never fully believe it and the consequences of this will be more situations where he feels bad and thinks he shouldn’t, and that if he does, then there is something wrong with him, which in turn can lead to at best a constant neediness and at worst frustrating feelings that can turn into aggression.

Until our mind/body conflicts are resolved, they will continue to cause problems in our lives. Based on my own healing process, as well as decades of helping others, I can tell you one thing for sure: The way to resolve our mind/body conflicts lies in going back in time and processing our emotions. If we can find the courage to truly feel our past, buried emotions, and equally importantly, imagine the scenario in which the people who caused us to feel fear, anger and hurt could connect to us vis a vis those emotions, we can bring back harmony to our minds and bodies and end the conflicts that show up and cause problems.

Our emotions are not a luxury, they are a vital partner in our mind’s day-to-day efforts to understand our lives. Because connecting to our emotions is how we connect to our truth, it is the only authentic way we have of understanding ourselves, others and the world around us. Neuroscience now tells us that our brains are wired to protect us from feeling uncomfortable emotions, but when the mind decides how we feel, the resulting inner conflict leaves tension in our bodies, and hinders our future decision-making abilities because the information we will base those decisions on, will be faulty. Although pure emotions, such as anger and sadness are not pleasant, the information they supply to our brains keeps us clear. As children, our emotions flowed freely, but with each new event, that hindered our emotional processing, a conflict was formed, an internal conflict that we will continue to suffer from until the emotions are released and all is put right again. By allowing our emotions to flow freely once again, we can end the internal conflicts that arise from being kept separate from our body’s truth and we can overcome our problems and evolve, but by denying our emotions, we stay stuck. As long as we are separate from our truth, we will stay separate from our own true selves, and this will inhibit our ability to be truly close to others. Until our mind/body conflicts are resolved, they will continue to create problems for our bodies, our minds, our communities and our world. Over the years, I have often thought of the biblical quote, “..and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”. Nature intended us to keep feeling and processing our emotions so that we may live and love better. The Conflict Within will teach people how to restore the natural processing of pure emotion, because as we all move closer to our truth, so to, do we move closer to the freedom that comes when our minds and bodies are at peace.

Emotions vs Feelings

There is a difference between a ‘feeling’ and an ‘emotion’, and knowing the difference, is an important component of healing. Emotions are never the result of thinking, they are organic responses, felt in our bodies first, and then processed by our logical minds; a rapidfire sequencing that allows us to both understand and then accept the truth about the situations in which we find ourselves. Beliefs that come from information that is provided by our feeling bodies, by our emotions, will never be felt as a disturbance in the body. As we awaken to our unprocessed emotions, even and especially the uncomfortable ones, we will experience them as a natural and necessary process essential to our well-being. When we begin to realize the consequences for blocking real emotion, and we start to experience the benefits that come from releasing and processing them, we will embark upon a journey into healing that will bring into our lives positive changes that are instantly noticeable in both inside ourselves and in our world. The process of owning our emotional life, is the process by which we own our truth. We can never be well if we are denying our truth, we truly need to feel it, in order to feel better.

This Emotional Life

Making Sense Of What We Feel

What Am I Feeling—and Why?

Frustrated. Sad. Annoyed. Jealous. Worried. Depressed.

We feel so much, so often—and it can get overwhelming. But here’s something that can change everything: not all feelings are the same. And if you want to start feeling better, it helps to understand the difference between feelings and emotions.

Emotions aren’t a luxury or a weakness. They’re part of your body’s built-in healing system. They’re signals from deep inside you, meant to help you process life, stay healthy, and grow.

Over the years, through study and hands-on work with clients, I’ve discovered that there are only eight experiences that truly qualify as emotions. They come in four pairs: one pleasant, one unpleasant in each.

Excitement and Fear Desire and Anger Comfort and Sadness Love and Need

These are what I call pure emotions. They rise up in response to real-life events, and even when they’re painful, they carry meaning and momentum. They help you move through experiences and come out stronger, wiser, and more at peace.

But feelings like frustration, guilt, resentment, and anxiety? Those aren’t pure emotions. They’re signs of internal conflict—of parts of you pulling in different directions. They don’t move you forward. In fact, they often keep you stuck, circling around the same unresolved thoughts and patterns.

Pure emotions may be uncomfortable at times, but they’re healing. They bring your body and mind back into alignment after life’s big and small traumas. That’s why learning to recognize and work with your real emotions—rather than getting lost in feelings—is such a powerful step toward real, lasting change