Daniel: Tell me a little bit more about how you got started on this journey of emotional release?

Barry: I read Letting Go by David Hawkins after reading a tremendous number of spiritual books after the break-up of my marriage. A lot of them were great and helped me shift a lot of things that I had being hanging onto. Many of them shifted my perspective. Letting go and emotional release really got to the root of the problem more than anything else. In fact, it would not be an over statement to say that it saved my life. I’ve been doing emotional release now for about three years but on and off.

 

That’s pretty amazing stuff. You mentioned that you were struggling with alcoholism previously. Can you tell me a little bit more about this?

Pretty much for 30 years since I was a late teenager to my early 20s, I have been an alcoholic. It has been physically impossible for me to have just one drink. I have never been able to do that. I have always had a deep yearning inside of me once I get a tiny bit of alcohol, even just one sip, to continue until I’m drunk and it’s definitely a reflection of how I am feeling at that time. If I’m really stressed, then I basically won’t stop until I’m in a coma. However, if I’m moderately stressed which I have been for most of my life then I will just get drunk. It’s never less than severe intoxication. As soon as alcohol hits my lips, I have this drive inside of me that I am completely powerless against or I have been since my early 20s.

 

More specifically, how would you say it has affected your life in general?

It’s created some terrible situations in my life. I’ve done some things that I really regret, and I’ve said some things I really regret to people I care about. It’s destroyed a large part of my health and my mental clarity. It’s made me really anxious, but it was a force inside of me that was much more powerful than me. My will to stop it was never great. I have stopped at various points in my life but never anything permanent. I was in rehab for 2 years and I managed to convince myself and my therapist that I was ready, but I wasn’t. I still had so much damage inside of me, so many unreleased emotions. I have just gone in cycles of pain and torment and it has caused problems for me, my family and the people around me.

 

We spoke earlier and you said to me that you experienced an emotional release and that because of this you are no longer an alcoholic. That would seem to most people a fantasy or a little bit crazy. What do you say to that?

To me it seems crazy. My dream for the last thirty years was to be able to drink like everyone else, just like normal, have one drink and be content with that. I have never been able to do that; it was a fantasy of mine. I have never been able to control it in any shape or form. Alcohol for me was like a warm blanket. It got rid of all my fears and it stopped boredom. It made me into the person I thought I wanted to become. With alcohol, I was not scared. I was courageous. However, it was so temporary and deep down it never addressed the root cause. I didn’t realise that naturally I had all this positivity inside of me. Letting go and releasing my emotions enabled me to see this so clearly.

What actually happened was that about a month ago I had a major release on a completely unrelated subject. As you well know, Daniel that once you release on one area, other areas of your life are also affected. It also happened to me about 2 or 3 years ago when I released on some other stuff and a phobia that I have had since I was a child completely disappeared. At the time, I was astonished that such a thing could happen.

So, continuing with my story, a month ago I experienced a major emotional release which was pretty traumatic. An intense, unbelievable feeling overcame me whilst I was out shopping. I went home and just sat there allowing the feeling to wash over me completely. I said to myself that I would not move until I felt different. Later that night I did what I usually do which was that I reach for a drink. However, now something was different, and it was the most bizarre thing that has ever happened to me. I only wanted the one. It was literally mind blowing because I could NEVER stop at one but this time I didn’t want another one. I have never felt this before in my life. I didn’t want five or ten drinks or twenty. I was like “that’s nice.” and then I put it down and didn’t have another one. I thought wow and the next day I had another drink and the same thing happened. I only wanted one drink.

Over the past month I have thought to myself “this can’t be right.” But I have gradually come to understand that I have cured myself and that I am no longer an alcoholic. I have been drinking once or twice and some days I just don’t feel like a drink. Now my thoughts are different because I’m not telling myself to have just one drink. It’s automatic and is unforced. I have realised that my alcoholism is over. This never happened to me in 30 years.

 

Can you be more specific about what was involved in that emotional release? Was it to do with your parents? Was it to do with a traumatic event? Was it to do with how you felt about yourself?

It was to do with some unresolved issues I had with my girlfriend. It was completely unrelated to alcohol or so I thought. There was some anger, some jealousy, there was some guilt. It had nothing to do with alcohol.

 

Do you think these emotions to do with your girlfriend could be traced further back into your past?

Definitely, these emotions that I had were to do with relationships and have come up in every single relationship I have had since I was ten years old, since my first girlfriend in the playground who I kissed. They have been a recurring theme. So, it’s something I have hung onto for a very long time. Relinquishing that, releasing that feels like all that stuff has disappeared. It feels like a massive weight of negative energy within me has dissipated. I feel lighter, I feel the joys of life. I think there is still more to release in different parts of my personality, in my character but in terms of what has happened, it is simply amazing. It is definitely from a childhood experience and it was obviously a major contributing factor to me drinking. However, it feels completely unrelated but of course it must be related in some bizarre way.

I have just been staying in varying parts of my personality and white knuckling it but this emotional release has just cleared all of it. I’ve never felt anything like this before. Ever. I’ve spent tens of thousands of pounds going to rehab, going to years of therapy. I went to AA for years. I have tried Ayahuasca. I have tried every single type of spiritual work. Conventional and non-conventional interventions and 12 step programs but nothing has ever worked like this.

 

To the people that are going to be reading this, what advice would you give to them with regards to their emotions. How important is it to do this work?

I would say that emotional release is the most important thing to do in life if you want to have a happy life, if you do not want to spend the rest of life in quiet desperation or anxiety. This lifts all of that like nothing else. Psychotherapy for me was bottomless pit. You can go and talk about it forever, but you don’t get any kind of resolution. You can feel better about stuff temporarily, that’s why they call it the talking cure, but I studied a lot of Freud, Jung but this is completely different. It is the complete opposite of what society tells you to do, especially for men. The amount of distraction and over stimulation in today’s world in breathtakingly overwhelming and I personally I have found myself going from stimulant to stimulant, running away from and hiding my emotions. I have found myself pushing them to the back because I just can’t handle them since they are too painful. Even the tiny little ones related to someone barging in front of me in the queue or cutting me up in a car to the big ones related to the family, job and relationships. I have spent my life distracting myself with TV, with the internet, with smartphones, movies, drugs, alcohol, women, with everything. However, actually sitting down, facing this stuff, letting go and releasing has changed my life. It is so important to just sit down in a quiet room by yourself without distraction, or stimulation and just let the emotions go through you. Yes, it is painful, and you want them to stop because it is a natural instinct but doing that you just feel amazing. The most amazing part is that the problems don’t come back, they don’t return. Once you release something it goes away. I would say that this is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, ever and I have tried everything.

 

Barry, it’s been an absolutely pleasure hearing about this amazing transformation. Thank you so much for sharing. I am hoping that many more people start to undertake this incredible journey of emotional release and letting go.