Breaking Down The Heart-Wall: Protection, but at what cost?
“It just feels like they have a wall up.”
You may have heard this said as a way to describe someone’s inability to connect with others. You can visualize it; someone has ‘built’ a wall around them for protection from potential hurt. The problem is that it also blocks them from closeness and connection with others. Usually, people are consciously aware of experiences that may have led to being protective, wary or even avoidant of intimacy or connection with others. Sometimes though, it's not as obvious.
Dr. Bradley Nelson, founder of Discover Healing and The Emotion Code technique, took this theory to a deeper level by discovering the existence of a Heart-Wall.
What Exactly Is a Heart-Wall?
Essentially, a Heart-Wall is where one’s unprocessed past emotional wounds are used to construct a barrier around the heart as a method of protection. It's not just a figure of speech! It’s actually an energetic barrier, created by the subconscious as a shield from future pain.
When we feel painful emotions or go through difficult or traumatic experiences, our subconscious mind creates this energetic wall to protect you from further pain. It's like an emotional suit of armor, serving us during times of threat or stress. But it can also become a burden, weighing us down, limiting our ability to give and receive love fully, and therefore impacting our relationships and feelings of connectedness.
The subconscious mind uses trapped emotions, which are unprocessed emotional energies from past difficult experiences still stuck in the body's energy field, to construct the wall. Think of the Heart-Wall like a physical brick wall made of many bricks. Each individual brick represents a unique trapped emotion from a particular instance in your life.
How a Heart-Wall Impacts Your Life
The impacts of a Heart-Wall vary from person to person as do the unique unprocessed emotions it's built with.
Heart-Walls can impact your emotional regulation and well-being in the following ways:
Feeling disconnected from your feelings, like you’re numb to or distant from them
Catching yourself holding back in relationships even when you don't want to
Maybe you're surrounded by people who love you, but somehow still feel lonely
Finding it tough to be vulnerable, even with those closest to you
Noticing the same relationship patterns over and over
Heart-Walls may manifest physically as symptoms like:
Tension and tightness in the chest area
Unexplained heart-related issues
Getting sick more often/reduced immune function—emotions and immunity are closely linked
Unexplained fatigue or low energy, even if you’ve slept enough or feel like you should be rested
Shallow breathing or patterns of holding your breath
It may also show up in day-to-day life in ways like:
Challenges finding fulfilling relationships, like they are promising in the beginning but hit a ‘ceiling’
Career stuckness, especially if work requires emotional intelligence or connection
Feelings of being "stuck" or “almost there” with your goals but are not able to achieve them
Finding yourself sabotaging success or happiness just when it's within reach
Signs You May Have a Heart-Wall
After working with thousands of clients, Dr. Bradley Nelson concluded approximately 93% of people have a Heart-Wall at some point in their lives1 , so they aren’t uncommon! Do you suspect you have a Heart-Wall? Here are some common indicators. Do any of them resonate with you?3
You find it difficult to trust others
You feel "guarded" in relationships
Past heartbreaks still feel painfully fresh when you think about it
You feel panicky or uncomfortable when expressing deep emotions
You often feel misunderstood or like people ‘don’t get you’
You feel unexplained sadness or emptiness
You have chronic tension or discomfort in your chest
You find yourself anxious or pulling away if a relationship gets too close
If any of these resonate with you, please don't feel upset or ashamed. You are not alone, and the good news is that Heart-Walls can be released gently and safely!
Rather than adding to your list of problems, think of it as an opportunity—or a roadmap! Your symptoms are your body's way of communicating with you. When we listen and learn what it's trying to tell us, we become empowered to resolve the root cause rather than simply masking symptoms. With an honest inventory of what you’re experiencing, we can more accurately find the energies causing or contributing to it. With each release, you get to witness your own transformation unfold!
The Freedom of Heart-Wall Release
Now for the good stuff! What can happen when you clear your Heart-Wall?
Common experiences include:
Ability to feel joy and positive emotions more often and more fully
Relationships feel easier and more authentic
A physical feeling of lightness or weight being lifted off you
Easier flowing creativity and self-expression
Lessened impact from anxiety and emotional triggers
Sleeping better and waking with more energy
Deeper genuine connection with yourself and others
The most impactful transformation I see in my practice is how a Heart-Wall affects your connection with yourself. When we operate with a Heart-Wall, we're essentially experiencing life through a filter that dampens both emotional pain and joy. Once it's released, people often ‘feel’ life more, like the saturation has been restored and they can finally live in full color again.
How Bioenergetic Release Helps Clear Your Heart-Wall
So how do we help you clear your Heart-Wall? Going back to the physical brick wall metaphor, we take it down, brick by brick, by identifying the emotion and what other details we may need to consciously identify before we can release it by essentially neutralizing the wavelength.
What I love about this approach is that, unlike traditional talk therapy, we don't need to spend sessions analyzing, talking, and reliving every painful experience. The Emotion Code allows us to work directly with your body's energy system to find and release emotions. We use muscle testing to confirm the needed information.
Counseling and therapy are important parts of the healing journey and may be needed in healing from traumatic experiences, The Emotion Code can work in tandem to release the energetic frequencies of what might have gotten stuck along the way. It can be especially helpful if you’ve processed mentally or with other trained professionals and feel like you’re still unable to move on.
Every Heart-Wall is unique. Some are created from recent heartbreaks or losses, while others could be constructed all the way back in childhood. My approach honors your individual emotional story, addressing the specific trapped emotions from your life experiences with compassion. Many of my clients feel significant shifts after just a few sessions!
Taking the First Step Toward Emotional Freedom
Living with a Heart-Wall is like viewing life through a frosted window–you can see shapes and colors, but the vibrant details and connections are muted. Removing this barrier allows you to experience life and relationships with new clarity and depth.
If you recognize yourself in any of this, remember the Heart-Wall serves an important purpose at a time in your life! It protected you during a time when your heart needed defending which is truly incredible. If you're reading this now, perhaps you're ready to see what life feels like with an uninhibited heart.
Curious if a Heart-Wall is affecting you? I'd love to help you discover if this could be the missing piece in your overall wellness journey. Book an Emotional Bioenergetic Release session with me, and we can begin the gentle process of clearing these emotional barriers!
Author Bio:
Steph Speeney is an Emotion Code Practitioner, certified through Discover Healing.
This blog post is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition. Bioenergetic Release techniques are complementary approaches that work alongside, not in place of, conventional medical care.
Citations
Discover Healing. “Tragedies and Heart-Walls.” Discover Healing, 19 Apr. 2013, discoverhealing.com/articles/tragedies-heartwalls/. Accessed 20 May 2025.
Nelson, Bradley. The Emotion Code: How to Release Your Trapped Emotions for Abundant Health, Love, and Happiness. New York, St. Martin’s Essentials, 2019.
“How to Know If You Have a Heart-Wall.” Discover Healing, 27 Jan. 2025, https://discoverhealing.com/energy-healing-articles/how-to-know-if-you-have-a-heart-wall/. Accessed 2025.