At the heart of our collected stories is an emotion – good, bad, indifferent. Our 'bad' stories don’t have to be huge or dramatic to cause harm; often a story from the past may appear deceptively benign. Getting lost from a parent in public for minutes as a child, may not seem equivalent to being involved in a car crash, but stories are not for making comparisons. Whether or not our story has been repressed by our subconscious, we always 'feel' its presence in our body. What is critical is that we heal those stories that have caused trauma. It is the FEELING that our stories brought up when we first experienced them that matters… and what became of the anger, shame, fear, sadness, terror, grief, hopelessness, etc. Heightened emotions pass when we are allowed to process our given situation. But all too often we are forced to bottle up our feelings and never given the chance to express ourselves. We have all experienced some degree of unsatisfied, thwarted or denied emotions at a young age; or we may not have had the language to articulate our feelings at all because of abusive or unavailable parents, or religious or cultural doctrines to be docile and quiet. Perhaps we were never taught or allowed to ask for help; or maybe we were overwhelmed and confused by our chaotic home lives. “Issues in your tissues” – these aspects of our primary life usually remain buried in our cells, causing us to be forever on the alert for the next threat. When this happens we recycle the exact same emotions as the first time. This is a negative spiral that takes its toll on all aspects of our being until, finally, hopefully, the story is resolved.