We all understand the importance of eating well, exercising and sleeping well, but I believe there’s a forth component needed to create a balanced life – Emotional Wellness.

Emotional Wellness is the ability to understand how our emotions impact our lives; something I never fully understood until a few years ago.

After the death of my father, a series of personal events led to my ‘Pandora’s box’ being opened. That’s the place deep within where I use to store all my toxic memories. You know the kind; those unhappy and hurtful events from the past that you simply ignored or remain unhealed.

Once my box was opened decades of pain and suffering all came to the surface looking for answers I simply did not have.

Within days I found myself struggling both physically and emotionally. My life then started to spiral out of control at an accelerated rate and I was at a loss to stop it from happening.

At one stage I found myself in a very dark place, one I simply could not leave. My life was in a shambles and I had no idea how to put the pieces back together.

On a day when life seemed bleakest I got a call from a friend who was embarking on a wellness program and suggested I attend. By the end of her call, she’d instilled a glimmer of light at the end of my very dark tunnel.

I went along and found most of the information too foreign to accept. I mean I was a victim in my current circumstance because of what someone had done to me, yet the speaker was telling me otherwise.

She was saying my troubles stemmed from programming instilled in my childhood that was now wreaking havoc in my adult life.

What I have since learnt is that when memories are created, how you are feeling at that exact moment is impregnated onto the memory. When the memory is summonsed the attached emotion provides our actions and reactions.

Memories don’t have a ‘shelf life’ or a ‘good for one use only’ tag. So if a memory has a powerful enough emotion (anger or sadness) it attracts a charge (red flag) and can literally be selected (hey- pick me pick me) time and time again.

In my instance it was the memories from my childhood, my not good enough, not worthy enough that were creating the pain I was experiencing.

I also learnt the memories could also be handed down the genetic lineage via our DNA.

That means its possible for us to receive memories and their subsequent emotions (good or bad) from our parents and grandparents.

That was my light bulb moment. No wonder certain professions ran in the same family. Wouldn’t it make it easier though to assimilate into a profession if some of the info had been handed down the genetic lineage? It would certainly explain why my daughter is good at the same things her dad is.

It may also explain déjà vu. I mean isn’t that where you feel like you’ve been somewhere before but can’t quite put your finger on it. What if you’ve ended up with a memory from a relative yet the when and where part of the experience is missing? Certainly, food for thought.

As for me I often wondered whether my ‘dark days’ came about due to memories from my ancestors, it would certainly explain why I felt so overwhelmed and I had trouble locating the origins of some emotions.

[Tweet “So how does one go about ridding themselves of the charge on their red flag memories?”]

When an emotion comes up you can suppress it with drugs and alcohol, ignore it or deal with it. I learnt that in order to heal it I had to deal with it.

One trick I found when I got angry was to write really fast as to why I was angry. By doing so I would bypass the conscious and allow my subconscious to release that, which needed to be healed.

On a conscious level I may have been angry with the person but on a subconscious level the real issues could have been something totally different.

That’s the problem with our emotions; often there’s no logic in how a memory is selected.

Once I worked out who was at fault (according to my radar) I then wrote them a letter outlining how angry I was or why I was disappointed they didn’t do XYZ.

At the time it felt odd writing letters to people I had not seen or heard from in over 30 years but as each incident was stripped away the lighter and happier I became.

I didn’t need to send the letter for the very act of writing removed the charge from within and transmuted to the paper. Sometimes just acknowledging how I felt was all that was needed to heal. Afterwards I burnt the letters and the negativity went with it.

The more I wrote the more I healed. It took about a year to turn my life around and I can honestly say that my past no longer affects my future.

When you learn how to detox your mind you too can have what we all search for but few of us find – inner happiness.