You have two options.
Option A: You explode. Something insignificant happens—your partner leaves the fridge open, a glass breaks, someone cuts you off in traffic—and suddenly, you unleash a nuclear reaction. You scream, you attack, you destroy the moment. And ten minutes later? You feel guilt, shame, and the weight of having damaged a connection you care about.
Option B: You implode. You swallow it. You play the “good girl” or the “nice guy.” You smile, you say “it’s okay,” and you keep the peace. But inside? You are burning. And that fire doesn’t vanish; it settles into your neck, turns into a migraine, creates a knot in your stomach, or becomes chronic anxiety.
For years, I lived in Option B.
I was 25. I was an engineer. I had the perfect partner, the nice apartment, the “successful” life. Externally, everything was perfect. Internally? I was a ghost. I couldn’t enjoy any of it because I was living a life designed to please everyone but myself. I was faking my desires, faking my decisions, and faking my happiness.
And that fake peace was eating me alive.
If you are reading this, you probably know that sensation: the heaviness of unexpressed truth.
Today, I want to invite you on a journey to understand the mechanics of this heaviness—and how to finally release it without destroying your life.
The River vs. The Swamp: The Mechanics of Rot
Why does an emotion turn toxic?
In its origin, emotion is energy. It is pure. It is Water.
Think of a river. When water flows fresh and fast, it is clean. You can drink from it. It is life.
This is how we come into the world. Look at a child: they are pure spontaneity. Joy, curiosity, anger, sadness—it all flows through them instantly. They express, they release, and they move on. They are the River.
But then, we grow up. We learn to “fit in.”
We learn that certain expressions are “too much.” We learn that being polite is safer than being real.
Imagine you meet someone. You feel a spark. You want to say, “Wow, you are beautiful.” It is an innocent, fresh impulse. But immediately, your mind jumps in: “Don’t say that. It’s inappropriate. They’ll think you want something. It’s too intense.”
So you swallow it.
What happens to that water? It splashes out of the river and lands in a hole on the bank. It gets stuck.
Give it three days. That fresh water becomes stagnant. It starts to smell. It gets dark. Frogs start breeding in it. It becomes Swamp Water.
This is the mechanism of emotional toxicity. The resentment, the bitterness, the heavy depression you feel today—that is simply energy that was once fresh, but you didn’t allow it to flow. It is “rotten water” trapped in your system.
We have created a life where we are terrified of the River. In our offices, we must be professional robots. In our homes, we must be responsible parents or partners. Even in our free time, we numb ourselves with Netflix, sitting frozen, consuming stories instead of living them.
We have dammed the river. And now we are drowning in the swamp.
The Ultimate Solution (And Why You Can’t Have It Yet)
The ultimate cure for this is simple, but it is not easy: Total Self-Expression.
Imagine the life of a true artist—like Frida Kahlo. Despite her broken spine and immense pain, she used her art to vomit her truth onto the canvas. Every ounce of pain, love, and rage went OUT.
If you could build a life where your job, your relationships, and your creative projects allowed you to express 100% of who you are, you would never be sick. You would never have “stuck” emotions. You would be a clear channel.
But we cannot burn our lives down overnight. We cannot change our jobs, partners, and cities in a single day (though sometimes, life forces us to).
So, what do we do in the meantime? How do we clean the swamp while we build the river?
We need a practice. A conscious way to release the rot before it kills us.
Through my years in shamanism and somatic work, I have found that you need Three Pillars to move this stuck energy. If you miss one, it doesn’t work.
Pillar 1: Vitality (Heat the Water)
Have you ever tried to wash a greasy pan with cold water? It doesn’t work. The grease just sticks.
You need HEAT.
This is the number one mistake people make in therapy. They try to analyze their trauma from the couch, with a cold body and a “mental” approach. They try to think their way out of a feeling problem.
It is impossible.
If your body is passive, sleepy, or rigid, the tension is unreachable. It is like trying to mold cold clay.
You must activate your Vital Body first. You need to generate heat. This is why in our tribe we hike, we dance, we do intense breathwork, we plunge into cold water.
When you move the body intensely, you heat the water. Suddenly, the grease (the stuck emotion) softens. You might find that after a simple 20-minute run or a wild dance, you start crying for “no reason.”
That is the heat working. Vitality is the key that opens the door to the subconscious.
Pillar 2: Centered Attention (Stop the Noise)
Once the body is hot, you have a window of opportunity. But usually, we waste it because our mind is somewhere else—thinking about tomorrow’s meeting or replaying an argument from 2015.
You must bring your attention HOME.
You need to take all that scattered mental energy and focus it like a laser beam into your body.
Where do you feel the pressure? Is it a knot in the stomach? A clamp on the throat? A weight on the chest?
This is somatic contemplation. It isn’t about analyzing the sensation (“Oh, this is because my mother said X…”). No. It is about feeling the sensation.
When you combine high vitality with focused attention, you create a container. You are no longer running away from the pain; you are entering it. You are occupying your own vessel.
Pillar 3: Free Expression (The Valve)
This is the hardest one for the “nice guy” and the “good girl.”
You have the heat. You have the focus. Now, you need the OUTLET.
In the Siberian tradition, when we meditate or do ritual work, there are no rules for how you should look. You can cough. You can shake. You can growl. You can cry ugly tears. You can move like an animal.
Most of us block the release because we are ashamed. We feel the urge to cough or scream, and we stifle it because “it’s not polite” or “I don’t want to disturb anyone.”
Screw politeness. Politeness is what got you sick in the first place.
You need a safe space—whether it’s a supportive group or a locked room in your house—where you give yourself PERMISSION to be weird. To be ugly. To be loud.
If you allow the body to move how it wants to move, without the mind judging it, the release is instant. It is magic.
I have seen people release decades of trauma in ten minutes just by allowing their body to shake and scream on top of a mountain. They didn’t need to understand it intellectually. They just needed to let the river break the dam.
The Path Back to the River
We are not meant to be reservoirs of stagnant water. We are meant to be channels.
The headaches, the anxiety, the numbness—these are not “medical conditions” to be managed. They are signals. They are your soul screaming that the river is blocked.
You don’t need to fix yourself. You are not broken. You are just clogged.
Start with the body. Heat the water. Focus your mind. And open the valve.
It takes courage to step out of the “good” behavior and into the REAL behavior. But on the other side of that release?
There is silence.
There is clarity.
There is the person you were actually meant to be.
Ready to Unclog the River?
This work—somatic release, emotional mastery, and returning to your true power—is not something you have to do alone. In fact, it is much harder to do alone because the mind always tries to pull us back into safety.
If you want to go deeper into these practices, ask questions, and be part of a tribe that values Truth over Politeness, join us in the Inner Spark Tribe.
We do weekly livestreams, share exclusive high-value content, and support each other in walking this path of fire and freedom.
Join the tribe here:
https://www.skool.com/inner-spark-tribe-6042/about
With Love and Fire,
Teiwaz
