Emotional Fragment Recovery

Do you ever find yourself feeling overwhelmed by emotions, or exceptionally reluctant to engage, when confronted with certain objects, locations, or memories? Do you often find yourself relying on codependent relationships, substances, or food to fill a void inside? You may be struggling to reconnect with emotional fragments that have been trapped in the past.

Latest! November 2024 United Front: Welcome Back is a 1-page solo journaling TTRPG available pay-as-you-will on itch. It's based on Decording and Emotional Fragment Recovery (this page). Learn about these self-help tools by playing a character struggling with loss & attachment issues.

What are Emotional Fragments?

Emotional fragments are dissociated parts of our psyche — essence, spirit, emotions, energy — that may either become attached to objects, places, events or memories or be left behind or shoved away when we move on without them. However, they're still connected to us and we may still encounter them or tug on that connection, evoking an emotional response or avoidant behaviors when trying to deal with the things we have been avoiding or separated from.

For plurals, emotional fragments may be parts of individual headmates. The advice on this page should work for both singular and plural folks with these issues.

Explanation

When something big and impactful happens (especially trauma, sometimes other things), we might leave a part of a headmate (or parts of several) behind in place/time, similar to how a whole headmate might be left behind and get stuck/lost in time (see Stuck Residents aka stowaways, lost souls, non-coaware identities, emotional parts, etc. New.

Sometimes we find examples and hints that we may have left parts behind:

• "I left my heart in San Francisco" (is that 100% figurative, or maybe it's somewhat literal?)
• Losing one's innocence, or one's mind.
• Leaving a part of oneself at a place something great happened, like it got stuck there in that "better place".
• Losing a part of ourself that was yearning for something, or that had a dream, behind when the dream was crushed or became no longer viable.
• Moving house as part of "a fresh start" and thus leaving parts of themselves behind in the old home.
• Running away from their problems or leaving problems behind.

Illustration

A traumatic event deals a blow to our psyche that detaches (dissociates) or dislodges key components of our person. For example, trauma may cause us to lose our innocence, our hope, a portion of our self-concept, or our willingness to trust.

When this happens these emotional fragments don't vanish: they end up stranded in space & time (in the There & Then New), or they flee and hide — and we move on without them. They're still connected to us with a sort of energetic umbilical cord, even though we're pushing them away because they are now associated with something we find painful.

PTSD of all types is characterized by avoidance. We're avoiding these emotional fragments, even though they belong to us.

[Note: If you have gotten rid of such objects, no worries, the fragments can still be recovered!]

This is obviously a dilemma. It can lead to both emotional distress and a type of hoarding of memorabilia that is very difficult to declutter. It can also lead to avoiding places, or being reluctant to come home, moving out when the space isn't the problem -- an inability to deal with emotional fragments can leave us feeling haunted by our past, avoiding our problems, making expensive changes of scenery, or holding on to too many relics from our past.

Objects are just objects, places are just places. What we're reluctant to part with, or reluctant to associate with, is a part of ourselves that is now glued to the place or object in question.

Behind the Scenes: Separation Anxiety

We'll often push away the emotions associated with these things (places, objects, events, etc.) thinking it's the emotions themselves that are painful, when usually it's the lack of processing the emotions, owning them, accepting them, and cherishing them for what they are that's the painful issue at hand. In other words, being separated from our emotional fragments can be even more painful than dealing with the emotions themselves.

Unfortunately, since these are emotional fragments -- fragments of ourselves that we've sloughed off but are capable of their own emotions -- this part or fragment still experiences being lost or left behind. We are still tenuously attached to the emotion in question and it feels stranded, abandoned, and ashamed (see shame New) due to the loss of belonging & inclusion in our life. It may isolate further and get more stuck in time & space. The more we push the fragment away, or the fragment isolates and pushes us away, the more uncomfortable the situation gets -- consider the umbilical cord connecting us to be like a rubber band and the tension created by stretching it to its limits. The more we repel each other, the more strained the connection becomes.

As trauma survivors, we may mistake that the reluctance we feel is a problem with the place or the object and we're unwilling, unable, or not ready to face the feelings that are associated with it. We blame the thing or the place. We don't like being there. It's uncomfortable, disturbing. This is because the emotional fragment(s) are feeling very sore and are likely being reactive, isolating further, pushing us away, repelling us. At the same time, some of these end up being objects that we both hide away somewhere but cannot let go of -- when we think about throwing it away or getting rid of it, there's even more discomfort or pain that comes up. The emotional fragment becomes more distressed and we can feel it. We end up with objects, homes, memorabilia that we just can't let go of.

It's possible to look around one's home and figure out some of the little treasure troves of lost emotional fragments we've been "saving" because we're afraid of throwing a part of ourselves out. For us, it's a trove of old photos we never look at, and a big box of memorabilia like tickets to theater shows and travel tickets that we never open to look at. This can also happen with places and spaces — where we grew up, where we have memories we're reluctant to revisit. It's not the memories that are painful so much as the emotions and feelings we don't want to own from those memories, objects, and places.

Over a lifetime we can end up with many things — objects, photographs, sometimes just memories — that we're pushing away in order to disown and put off processing a loss, or owning the way we used to feel before something traumatic happened. We may forget the places we lived, or have a love-hate relationship with a place that goes beyond its physical reality. These added resistances to handling and dealing with "stuff" usually isn't serving us after a while. At first, when the trauma is new, it may make sense. But we've got emotional fragments that have been waiting decades to come back home.

Having lost fragments that we haven't reunited with can lead to hoarding, as well. It may not be one of an object that has become associated with a lost fragment — it can be collecting the objects associated with it. We collect writing tools. A lot of pens, markers, paper, notebooks, journals, etc. We will want to figure out why we're quite so emotionally attached to collecting writing tools. How many fragments are stuck in our notebooks, journals, diaries, letters to friends, etc.?

Considering the Process of Reuniting

There is a process for discovering these fragments and reuniting with them that we've been working on with others.

To start with, when we experience trauma or strong emotions that we are unable to handle, we may push that part of ourselves aside at which point that part (cf the NeoshamanicPerspective New of trauma i.e. soul loss) may become stranded in time & space. When it's a whole headmate, we look to rescue missions New to try to reunite with this stranded person, but in the case of emotional fragments it may be a part of us as an individual headmate that gets stuck or lost.

When we do come across these things around which our feelings are so complicated and layered, our emotional fragments may be hoping for connection, yet often we are afraid that the emotions and feelings associated with "stuff" is too difficult or too painful for us to face. This can lead to a sense of shame, and can create an even bigger emotional mess. The emotion feels like it's "too much" or that it's unworthy, both feels that are strongly associated with shame feelings.

So — what if we choose to accept these emotions back? This article explores the concept and process of emotional fragment recovery.

Associated Concepts

See also the parallel neoshamanic idea of soulloss — parts of our life essence having fled from traumatic impacts that are trapped or hiding either in another time and/or another place that are not ready or able to return and rejoin our spirit cf Neoshamanic Perspective New.

There's also associations with shame. Shame is the feeling that monitors threats to belongingness. When we exile our own emotional fragments, they experience shame, and that's where the pain comes from. They want to belong to us, to ourself as individuals, or to our system as a whole.

So we come across an item, and that emotional fragment is there hoping to reconnect with us. When we're not ready to attach to them yet we end up pushing it away. The part or fragment reacts with pain which we feel too (because no one wants to be pushed away. Everyone wants to belong.). Thus may become shame-triggered by looking at our own collected objects that have emotional fragments attached. This pain reinforces rejecting the fragments again.

Preparation Idea: Making Space

In working your way up to the following exercise, consider the idea of decording or doing a cleansing process to remove unwanted energies or connections from your life, and make it easier for emotional fragments to come back home.

In addition, this exercise is best done when you have been working on staying present with emotions and ideas that come up, so that you can stay in the Here & Now in spite of what comes up when accepting back your emotional fragments.

Defintions

Entities - for this exercise, the emotional fragments or "feel entities" in question may also be parts, people, stowaways, subsystems, emotional parts (EPs), memories, or "just" emotions. The best way to treat them is as living feeling entities (perhaps "stowaways" or refugees) that are attempting to reunite with us. We've found that when we treat these entities as refugees returning after exile with compassion and warmth and welcoming that magic can happen. Please try to reframe these painful feels that come up like someone who was lost for a long time, scared and frightened of being abandoned or left behind — and is finally able to come home. They're asking to be accepted and embraced. Please enter the exercise prepared to be compassionate with yourselves and with your feelings.

Exercises

Probably best done from a safe emotional space, but if you can do these exercises, they may provide a safe emotional space where you don't already have one. If you are not safe in the present, if any sort of abuse is still going on today, please seek professional assistance from a domestic violence agency.

1. When going through things (photos, memorabilia, paperwork…) and feels start to come up — pay attention to the painful feels. Anxiety, anguish, regrets, guilt, fear, recoil, nausea, insecurity, etc. Stay in the present and lightly detached from the painful feelings through the exercise.
2. Normally we shy away from these feels. When we have painful feels, we often push them away, we may hide, run, repress, reject, hate (the feeling), etc. Reframe this reaction and switch to looking at the situation from a plural paradigm. These rejected and repressed emotions are entities coming back to us, asking to be reunited with members of our system. The pain is because these feels are afraid of being hurt, rejected, pushed away, locked up, or excluded again. This is why the feelings hurt. They have been lost, stuck, abandoned, exiled…before.
3. React — once you see this feel entity as both other and as a nameless member of your system in its own rights, welcome it home and allow it entry. For now, suspend all judgement, all labels. Like a refugee, this entitiy is knocking on the door — travel worn, exhausted from a long journey, starved for affection & belongingness. The only things it needs for now are welcome and warmth, to be fed with compassion, to rest and recuperate, to find a place where it belongs, the acceptance to find itself truly home again. So allow the feel entity in, with open heart and open arms.
4. Refuge & Recovery. Newly recovered feels need time to adjust. Be extra compassionate with yourselves and the new entities in your& system. If you& are always selves-compassionate, this will be easier. It would be a really good practice too, as you& then will be gentler & kinder to all your& system entities.
5. Continue to practice this mindset with going through "things" at first, and practice being constantly compassionate with yourselves.

Expanding to Intermediate Practice

Branch out this practice of welcoming "feel entities" back home to other pained & exhausted feeling refugees who knock on your emotional door: they may come with memories, or events. Keep practicing accepting back your& own lost/stuck or painful feels.

• Go back over spaces that y'all have felt avoidant of, or that bring up uncomfortable emotions for y'all. You can do the work imaginally, and through memories of the There & Then. Combing back over places that y'all have either been reluctant to leave, or in all too much of a rush to leave, may help y'all find lost bits of feelings, attachments, pain, or lost/abandoned parts that y'all need to reclaim in your& healing journey.

This can also happen around places we spend any amount of time. A friends' house, a workplace, a vacation spot, places we've been traumatized. This is a slight tangent off the living space issue, but the same exact concept can be used to recover emotional fragments from other places than homes. Once we tidy up our living spaces, and past living spaces, we can also tackle places we've worked and so on.

Note - An Important Companion Skill

Do an occasional housekeeping session practicing "decording". In case any feels have returned with unhealthy attachments to people in tow — you want your own feels, spoons and essence back home in your system, but you do not want external energetic siphoning or for external manipulative or abusive people to gain purchase on y'all. Cleaning up your attachments (literally & figuratively) by decording is an essential emotional/energetic hygiene practice. Crisses on Cording

If you want a better "order of operations" then decord before a session of welcoming back emotions and bringing them back home. Alternating between getting rid of unwanted connections and welcoming back the connections to lost parts of yourselves is a terrific way to increase your emotional range, boost confidence, restore presence in the Here & Now, and become more emotionally secure.

Background About This Exercise

What are emotional parts? They're energy or essence that we have pushed away (dissociated) in the aftermath of trauma, or (different perspective) were knocked out of us by a traumatic impact. This results in being unable to normally experience something, and a painful gap where it used to be.

We often fill these gaps one way or another, and often in toxic ways. We might fill it with other people (or try to) — the sense that someone else might "complete me" and "make me whole" is definitely a sign that something was missing in the first place. Filling holes in yourself with someone else is not a healthy relationship paradigm. Some turn to drugs, food, gaming, work, etc. basically anything to fill emptiness inside of them. If enough of this emotional essence is lost, people become despondent, burned out, deeply depressed, fatigued or lethargic, completely unmotivated, and it can also result in chronic illness flares, and so on. Basically with losing so much emotional essence, some also lose their will to live.

Having filled the holes where they belong with other things, we can avoid or ignore the tug by those lost parts to return home. We associate those emotional parts with pain. When we get closer to painful memories, these parts overlap with our energetic body, looking for the hole they came from that we have filled with something else, and they are rejected, which adds to their pain. Generally they communicate with us through that pain which increases when we don't listen. We feel that pain and push them further away. We walk away from or bury the object associated with the parts, we push the memory back, we reject the traumaholder who is experiencing the pain of a rejected part of themself, and doing so we have also hurt that part again — potentially hurt the traumaholder too — and delayed our own healing again.

We can be bombarded by painful memories that have emotional fragments attached to them — this isn't ideal. Flooding is always a potential issue if we keep pushing things away and then suddenly get reminded of too many things at once. It's easier to clear the way for emotional fragments that come up to return to us when we're in a more calm space, where we can be mindful of what we're doing.

While emotional fragments may not be fully self-aware and conscious like our system mates, it's still important to treat them like sentient beings and greet them with compassion and love, acceptance and belongingness. The pain from these fragments isn't because of the feelings or parts of our essence or psyche that they represent — our "innocence" isn't painful in itself, because it's innocence — these emotional fragments are painful because they have been estranged, disenfranchised, exiled or lost. We feel pain when these emotions try to come up because we have been rejecting, pushing away, or disowning these emotional parts or emotional memories. They are sentient enough to feel pain.

These emotional fragments may be lost in the there & then — the same types of spaces that some traumaholders are found in. They can belong to any system member, and you usually don't have to worry about running around with them and trying to figure out who they belong to — once accepted back into the system, they know where to go, like a magnetic connection back to where they came from. The magic is that whomever the emotional fragment(s) belong to becomes a little more whole in themself, a little more solid or complete, a little more self-assured, authentic, grounded, oriented to the Here & Now. Sometimes we can't rescue a traumaholder because they're not ready yet. Reuniting with emotional fragments that belong to traumaholders can help them become ready.

In the meat world, we will often come across emotional fragments that have attached themselves to objects, photos, journals, reminders of past relationships, etc. These may be items you historically have had a hard time looking at, handling, and have tucked away someplace so you don't have to come across them by accident. If you want to do rescue missions for emotional fragments, you might go through a photo album, a box of memorabilia, or re-read an old journal. Do so when you're in an open mindset, when you're ready to react to the initial pain with welcome and acceptance. As you get better at it, it becomes easier. You both build a skill in recognizing when this is happening and accepting the feels, but also over time there's more of you (you as a system member become more solid and grounded/present) to welcome those fragments, and they know that you're trying to help them.

Another result of this is not only an increased emotional range, but more emotional stability and tolerance.

New traumas can always result in "splitting off" new emotional fragments, but if you remain mindful about this process you can reunite with them more quickly — this increases resilience for new traumas and lessens the recovery time when dealing with painful or tragic life events.

This idea is inspired by the neoshamanic perspective New or paradigm of soulloss, and our experience that all system members can individually experience soulloss and the teachings in that paradigm that lost soul (emotional & spiritual essence) parts may want to reunite on their own. They may be trying to do so. These recovered entities may be parts of existing system members — everyone both singular & individual system entities can experience soulloss. By accepting these lost entities back into the system, it will help repair boundaries, help with insecurities, repair emotional experience & range, and help individual system members feel more whole as discrete individuals.

For more about how this paradigm works for plurals, see neoshamanic perspective New regarding soul-loss.

The idea is that traumatic impacts cause parts of ourselves as individual system members (say our innocence, our self-esteem, the ability to be hopeful, security, elation, wants/desire, excitement and so on) to get lost or stuck in time & space (the There & Then).

This leaves holes in our energy body or emotional boundaries that may fester or be filled by negative attachments (hence the reminder to decord after the practice).

Parallel this idea with the idea based on an expansion on structural dissociation theory that individuals in a plural system (parts, and people) themselves have their own emotional parts. This idea goes into our proposed theory on Quarternary Structural Dissociation (long presentation, almost an hour).

Decording is a way of removing unhealthy attachments, including codependency, and more. Taken together as a whole, the practice of accepting back our own feels & essence plus ejecting negative external attachments has the overall effect of fixing broken boundaries and restoring lost emotional range, increasing confidence and emotional health.

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