Returning to Essence: Healing Emotional Suffering | Breaking Free from OCD, Anxiety & Stress
Sep 24, 2025
If you’re searching for real healing from emotional suffering—whether it’s anxiety, OCD, panic attacks, or even chronic pain—Matt Codde’s insights on “Returning to Essence” could be the game-changer you need. In this blog, we’ll dive deep into what it truly means to return to your essence, why so many approaches to healing miss the mark, and how you can finally break free from the cycle of suffering.
What Is “Essence” and Why Does It Matter?
According to Matt Codde, essence is simply your pure consciousness—your ability to be present, here and now, without filters or masks. Essence is the state of just being, without any of the limiting beliefs, painful emotions, or personas we develop over time.
Our suffering often emerges when we leave that essence behind. As Matt explains, we all have emotional experiences early in life that can be overwhelming or painful. To cope, we bury these emotions, filling up what he calls our “emotional tank.” To avoid feeling these emotions, we create personas (masks or roles we play) and project our discomfort onto the world, believing our environment or other people are the problem.
Why Most People Get Healing Wrong
A key takeaway from Matt Codde is that most people misunderstand healing. We tend to think the answer is to "work harder"—to climb the mountain of recovery through sheer effort. But, as Matt points out, true healing isn’t about forcefully achieving something. Instead, it’s about letting go of the mountain you’ve been carrying all along.
Think about it: compulsively trying to control your environment, avoiding emotions, scrolling endlessly on social media, or venting to others—these are ways we try to avoid our suffering. While they might help for a brief moment, they only serve to deepen the cycle by keeping us away from our true essence.
The Unfolding Process: How True Healing Happens
Matt Codde describes healing as a natural unfolding, not an accomplishment. Every time you let go of an old belief, persona, or pent-up emotion, you reveal more of your essence. It’s a gradual process of releasing these layers, not forcing them away.
This journey involves:
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Becoming conscious of your projections: Realizing that what you fear or fixate on outside yourself often mirrors unresolved feelings within.
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Recognizing your personas: Seeing the roles you play to avoid painful emotions, such as the overachiever or the scapegoat.
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Letting go of limiting beliefs: Noticing and releasing beliefs about yourself that don’t serve you anymore.
By peeling back these layers, you become lighter, more present, and more at peace.
Practical Steps to Return to Essence
1. Notice avoidance behaviors: Are you frequently distracting yourself, venting, or trying to control your environment? These may be signs you’re avoiding your emotions.
2. Allow emotions to surface: Instead of burying or expressing emotions impulsively, let them arise and pass without judgment.
3. Observe your personas: Become aware of the roles you play and consider what emotional wounds they might be protecting.
4. Let go, don’t force it: Healing is not about force, but surrender. Each time you let go, you make room for your true self to emerge.
Why This Approach Works
When you make your focus the return to essence—rather than symptom control or fixing everything externally—you’ll likely start to feel lighter. As Matt Codde says, the pressure and pain stem from carrying an “emotional tank” that’s overflowing. By releasing, you free yourself from suffering at the root level, not just covering it up.
Begin Your Journey Today
If this resonates with you, consider following Matt Codde’s advice to start letting go rather than climbing an endless mountain of self-improvement. Remember, healing is about returning to yourself—layer by layer, with patience and self-compassion.
To dive deeper, be sure to subscribe to the Restored Minds YouTube channel and check out the accompanying resources linked in Matt’s video description. Transforming emotional suffering into a path of true healing is possible when you return to your essence.
