Tag: eft for adverse experiences

Empty the Barrel

Have you ever felt that even though you’ve weathered the toughest crises in the past, now even a small problem makes you feel like you’re losing control and you can’t take it anymore? That’s because your barrel is full. You cannot pile on more things on your system otherwise it will break down. This is what burn out looks like.

The full barrel effect refers to how when the immune system becomes overburdened and the body is full to its capacity of fighting pathogens and stress, you get autoimmune conditions where the body attacks itself.

“As long as your barrel is less than full, however, your immune system is still able to deal with what it confronts every day. But once the immune system becomes overburdened and that barrel fills to capacity it can begin to misread signals, causing the immune system to make costly mistakes and attack the body itself.”( Nakazawa, 2008)

So empty your barrel. You need to release the stress, let go of the adverse experiences and the stuck emotions that are keeping your barrel full. Once you start emptying the barrel, you will have more space in your body and mind to deal with new stressors. If your system is full of stress, then you don’t have any mental capacity to deal with new stuff, and anything new, no matter how small, can cause a breakdown.


Read more on the barrel effect here: