Following Bigger Guidance vs. Following Your Mind The mind knows no answers, the heart knows no questions. – Buddhist saying
Each book we read in our book club is really about exploring who we are, what our minds and thinking are, and the nature of The Something Bigger. Right now we’re reading The Surrender Experiment, by Michael Singer. Our conversation has been about what the heck surrendering is, anyway. Why is it a good idea? What is it in us that feels really uncomfortable with that? What is it we’re surrender TO?
We realize that the mind has an agenda and preferences from its small vantage point, but there is a Bigger Force that sees the big picture and can orchestrate all life in an obviously more intelligent, beautiful way. In our group, we’re realizing that “surrendering” really means allowing ourselves to move with that larger, natural flow of life force energy. So surrendering is really about moving with whatever is life affirming. Sometimes the mind, in its limited ideas, tries to force things, control things or restrict things because it feels safer. Our minds are innocently trying to protect us, but from a very limited point of view. Because of that, our minds will tell us to do all kinds of things that aren’t so helpful.
Someone in the group recently asked, “But how can I tell if the guidance I am getting is from my mind or from that Flow of Life?” Ahh! One of my favorite topics!
The truth is always in the feeling. And you can sense that energy in your body. If we move below the neck and give our attention to the quality of the energy moving through us, it will tell us what is life affirming and what is our mind trying to get us to do something from a small, protective perspective.
As a group, we started to form a list of indicators that would help us surrender to Life (God, The Universe, Wellbeing, Nature, Source, Love) rather than follow the misguidance of our well-meaning minds.
Here’s a partial list in case it might be helpful to you too! And of course we’ll all experience this differently at different times and in different situations. But these might be some helpful clues and indicators for you!
It’s coming from our little mind’s preferences and comfort zones if: It feels like tension You’re upset and agitated You feel defensive. You feel like you need to “draw the line,” “set your boundaries,” or “not get pushed around.” You’re confused. It feels complicated. It feels like pressure (mentally or even physically) You feel a sense of urgency and like you have to take action RIGHT NOW! 😉 You might be torn between two or more options. You want to take some action or make some decision because it feels so uncomfortable to have things be “up in the air, “undecided, and unknown. The mind hates this and will push to make any decision just so it can know. It feels like contraction. It feels really familiar. E.g.: “Oh, I recognize this theme or pattern, even though the details look different.”
Guidance that is coming from a Bigger, Loving Perspective, feels more like: Peace Ease Calm You feel open You feel clear. It feels really simple, natural and like that’s just how life is obviously moving You feel relaxed You feel spacious and like there is no urgency. If there is action to take, there is no rush and there is an obvious, common sense time to take that action. You don’t really have a question or feel torn. A single action or direction just is. It feels like expansion. It feels fresh, bringing a sense of newness or opening.
It was helpful for us as a group to talk about these differences, and to realize that we really can feel the difference in our bodies. We are all equipped with the ability to relax into the flow life, because we all feel the physical sensations, tensions and easing in our body that shows us the way. We all intuitively know that if it feels awful and like contraction, it’s not the natural way of Life. Blessings in your feeling journey, everyone! Blessings in your relaxed, innate alignment with Life!
https://christinabrittain.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ChristinaBrittainLogo-300x61.png00chrisbhttps://christinabrittain.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ChristinaBrittainLogo-300x61.pngchrisb2021-02-04 16:33:362021-12-17 20:50:59Following Bigger Guidance vs Following Your Mind
Inside, there is a Kindness waiting. A home that Never leaves, is always present with Open Wide Wings of “I am Here and I love you.” Allow That Rest. Your Ears have Longed to hear the Acceptance, the Exquisite Affirmation That you effortlessly, Intimately belong. One. At peace. At home. From that New surrender, Fresh life can Enter Everything And Lead you to Soft Lines of Inspiration. There is a simple Knowing. A clarity and flow in the Exhale. Common sense Insights are somehow Newly seen, Real, Made available because You Breathed open. Rejoined the One voice of all things, all possibility. From this easy home within There are no Decisions to be made. Just a watching, a relaxing into life’s eternal continuing, Continuing, continuing of Yes, yes, yes……..
https://christinabrittain.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ChristinaBrittainLogo-300x61.png00chrisbhttps://christinabrittain.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ChristinaBrittainLogo-300x61.pngchrisb2021-02-04 16:32:302021-12-17 20:51:05I Know What Relaxation Feels Like In My Body
The question of natural vs. normal came up recently in The Little School of Big Change community. The idea here is that “normal” is what is commonly done, the usual, the conventional or even conditioned habits. The generally accepted attitudes we adopt without thinking. What is natural to us might be entirely different. As in, it might be normally expected that a person would feel upset if they lost a job. “Well, of course I’m sad – anyone would be.” Yet if the person felt into it before the usual orientation kicked in, they might realize they are feeling a profound sense of freedom to move on to something else, excitement, gladness to be letting go of something that wasn’t feeling good anyway, and any number of other possible responses that could be someone’s natural response to that circumstance.
When we move this into the personal, it gets even juicier for me. For example, what has been “normal” for me in many areas of my life is clearly not what is actually natural. I’ve had periods in my life where it was my usual to get upset and feel insecure if someone didn’t like me. That was my “norm.” And it was normal for me to not sleep well. But that isn’t natural. And I’ve had a “normal” way of eating that I learned that is absolutely not natural.
There are a lot of things that have been normal for me that I have learned and have become habitual behaviors that I do without thinking. Really, I’ve never really thought to ask, what is natural for me? What are my natural rhythms, preferences, ways of being? How does my unique body, personality, being respond in this situation, in that moment? What arises naturally out of the “creature of me” as it responds to a new moment?
What is normal for you? And is that the same as what is natural for you? If you’re like me, you might not have been given a chance as a kid to follow your natural impulses. But we can certainly be curious about that now. That curiosity can open the door to living our lives in a way that is much more authentic, present and in alignment with natural, life-affirming ways of being! It’s really been eye-opening and freeing to ask myself if something feels normal or if it feels natural. Maybe it has some juice for your naturally wonderful self too?!
https://christinabrittain.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ChristinaBrittainLogo-300x61.png00chrisbhttps://christinabrittain.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ChristinaBrittainLogo-300x61.pngchrisb2021-01-27 18:07:472021-12-17 20:52:01What Feels Natural vs. What Feels Normal
Welcome the internal messages. The things that sing in theHeart – the Affirmations of Life, Telling you “Yes, yes, thank you, I love you. The Flow is this way, my dear one.” Entertain what feels easy. Let it Enter, envelop, exit in its clear Line of direction that Supports all Nature, because nature is what you are. Nature is Alive as you. No need to Try, to force, anything. The Bigness, the Interconnected Universe, has got this. Has got you. Rest in that. Allow the Living, simple movement to Take you along in the Obvious way of it. The Meaningful, mysterious design of it All so effortless and Effulgent. Equally inherent in each star in the universe, and in each, intelligent cell of your own, natural body.
Incandescent Direction revealed in each Opening day, in each fresh moment of Not knowing any sense of past Time, past rules. Kneeling at the shackles of pre-decided identities, possibles and Not possibles, allowed and not allowed is Over. I thought I knew! But nothing is really here except Wonder – and the unending Yes! of the Imaginative Universe. When I tried to Pin it down – just to know, just to be right or consistent, Predicting every outcome – I closed my eyes and arms to the Infinite Allness of being here, truly alive. How can I “know” anything in this miraculous, Evolving Life that only says yes to Itsef – and to me – over and over and over again?
Incandescent Direction revealed in each Opening day, in each fresh moment of Not knowing any sense of past Time, past rules. Kneeling at the shackles of pre-decided identities, possibles and Not possibles, allowed and not allowed is Over. I thought I knew! But nothing is really here except Wonder – and the unending Yes! of the Imaginative Universe. When I tried to Pin it down – just to know, just to be right or consistent, Predicting every outcome – I closed my eyes and arms to the Infinite Allness of being here, truly alive. How can I “know” anything in this miraculous, Evolving Life that only says yes to Itsef – and to me – over and over and over again?
https://christinabrittain.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ChristinaBrittainLogo-300x61.png00chrisbhttps://christinabrittain.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ChristinaBrittainLogo-300x61.pngchrisb2021-01-05 03:03:512021-12-17 20:51:07I Can Relax Into Life Now
Hold your horses! ~ A pause. ~ A moment to note that in every day spread out in front of us, there is Always new Pleasure – always the fresh new Play of Existence. Not just in the new Year, but in every new day of Life, Never-ending. The Eternal Wisdom keeps Dancing its ecstatic Awe and full appreciation of Itself in You.
https://christinabrittain.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ChristinaBrittainLogo-300x61.png00chrisbhttps://christinabrittain.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ChristinaBrittainLogo-300x61.pngchrisb2021-01-05 03:00:372021-12-17 20:51:00Happy New Day! (a little new year poem for you)
A lovely woman emailed me with her questions about how to stay with emotions in moments when they feel too overwhelming to feel. With her permission, I’m including her email here:
“You said something that hit me.…which is that the story we attach to the energy that is flowing creates more discomfort (or that’s how I’m perceiving it is for me)…. I am finding it a challenge to allow for such discomfort in the moment of the uncomfortable “angry” or “self sabotage” or “beating myself up b/c I’m not perfect” energies, and very aware of the stories I attach during those times. I find I cannot even sit calmly and observe it, I’m so overtaken – (Ex: yesterday I was getting more worked up about something I was doing wrong to the point that I could watch myself, but could not sit and be with the emotion, accept the emotion, and release the story I knew I was creating in that moment. I had to go for a walk. And part of me wonders, what if I could have sat there and released the story – would the energy really flowed through and would the anger go away? Is it the story that creates the anger?
Was there a practice you had that reminded you to do this when that happens when you’re angry, beating yourself up, or noticing self sabotage in the moment – where you could be with it w/out a story? ie: the story as it’s happening and the discomfort partnered with it as it’s perceived?”
Thank you so much for asking me this! First and foremost, the fact that you are AWARE that there is a difference between energies moving through and the story we attach to it is THE major practice. Keep giving your attention to that fact! That is amazing, and it is what gives you space to do more than ACCEPT and be present with whatever is rolling through. It helps you understand that the energies are safe and that the mind is just doing its job of loving and protecting you by trying to put you back into a known story. That understanding makes any need to accept just, well, irrelevant and unnecessary. Truly, that space between you and the stories will start to expand more and more, which will allow you to be more and more present to the energies rolling through without pigeon-holing them into pre-fab identities of the “angry,” “self-sabotaging,” or self critical” person.
Secondly, you wonder if the energies really would have moved through if you were able to be with them? In my experience, yes. In fact, if we give our attention to them, that’s what makes them able to shift – rather than us resisting them, plugging them into a story, and keeping that story going (which keeps the discomfort going). I’ve heard that it takes about 90 seconds for the biochemical process of an emotion to move through (once we actually feel it). Remember that feeling the physical sensations of the emotion is very different than telling a story about it and stewing about it. Being in the head’s repetitive thoughts is very different than being in the body’s in-the-moment experience.
Remember that our brains are trying to distract us from the raw energy by plugging it into a “known” story. The brain mistakenly believes it is helping us to avoid threat. But it keeps the “threatening” sensation going by keeping the threatening story going, which holds the energy in place and doesn’t let it shift.
Okay, so I hear you that you would like some suggestions about what would help you in those red hot moments when you want to run from the seemingly overwhelming energies!! I can certainly share what helps me in those moments!
First, see if you can STOP. Literally stop moving and be still. When I feel some energy coming up in me that feels overwhelming, I often get REALLY busy. I know that I am avoiding, and I’ll often hear my mind say “yeah, I’ll sit down and feel it after I get these things done.” My mind tells me that the errands, the email, the whatever is WAY more important than me sitting down to attend to the discomfort inside me! It sounds like you have the same awareness in the back of your mind as you go through these moments. So, if possible STOP. And here’s the thing, eventually, we DO stop. We can’t keep it up forever. We naturally come to a more still place where we’re able to go inside and check it out. So whenever you can stop, either then or later, then really be stopped. Be still.
It helps me to sit in a position I don’t normally sit in. It helps me be present, helps me break the trance of the mental panic – partly because it literally requires that I step out of the usual neural pathways and into the new ones of that physical position. I like to sit on my heels on the floor in those moments. Or, sit perched on a chair I’ve dragged into the middle of the room. Or sit on the floor, a table, or somewhere in a room or part of my house I don’t usually sit in. Again, it literally gives us a new vantage point and wakes up new neural pathways in the body. It signifies a “specialness,” or that something new is happening. It helps with separating ourselves from the old stories and identities.
It also helps me to set a timer. When I am feeling overwhelmed by some kind of mounting internal pressure of energy, it can feel like if I actually sat down to attend to it I would be spending DAYS feeling the hugeness of it! (Which is a story that is designed to help me avoid the energy). So if I can set a timer, I let my brain know it will just be for this teeny chunk of time. Maybe 5 minutes on the timer. Every single time I’ve done this, by the time the timer goes off, the energy has either completely moved through, or it has shifted enough that I am not only able to stay with it, but want to. I feel engaged and interested in what is rolling through and I actually want to stay with it.
Super importantly, the next thing that helps is to give my attention to my physical body. To give my attention to the physical sensations I can feel in my body. Not to change any of them, but to notice whatever is there. I get curious about “how does it feel to be inside my skin right now?” I catalog what is there. Is there a pressure in my chest? My throat? Do I notice pain anywhere? Is my breathing fast or slow? Maybe there is a sense of trembling, or being super cold, or like there is energy moving so fast through me it is enervating every muscle. Maybe there are images flooding me. Maybe there is even something that feels truly like I am PISSED, but I don’t have to have that anger be about anything in particular. Move down out of the head and into the body. Staying with what can actually be felt below the neck IS the process of staying with the energy rather than the story.
Hopefully some of that is helpful to you – especially in terms of growing your wonderful awareness of what the energy is and the difference between that innocent, fresh, spontaneous movement of LIFE, versus the repetitive patterns of a story or identity trying to keep things from shifting so that it keeps you “safe” from feeling and from the unknown!
We’re free. We really are free to experience each moment without trying to make it fit into past stories and identities.
Thank you for writing me with your question. It helped me to answer it, and my guess is that it will help others too.
https://christinabrittain.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ChristinaBrittainLogo-300x61.png00chrisbhttps://christinabrittain.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ChristinaBrittainLogo-300x61.pngchrisb2020-12-16 23:54:222021-12-17 20:51:41Staying With Emotions When They Seem Overwhelming
Following Bigger Guidance vs Following Your Mind
Following Bigger Guidance vs. Following Your Mind
The mind knows no answers, the heart knows no questions.
– Buddhist saying
Each book we read in our book club is really about exploring who we are, what our minds and thinking are, and the nature of The Something Bigger. Right now we’re reading The Surrender Experiment, by Michael Singer. Our conversation has been about what the heck surrendering is, anyway. Why is it a good idea? What is it in us that feels really uncomfortable with that? What is it we’re surrender TO?
We realize that the mind has an agenda and preferences from its small vantage point, but there is a Bigger Force that sees the big picture and can orchestrate all life in an obviously more intelligent, beautiful way. In our group, we’re realizing that “surrendering” really means allowing ourselves to move with that larger, natural flow of life force energy. So surrendering is really about moving with whatever is life affirming. Sometimes the mind, in its limited ideas, tries to force things, control things or restrict things because it feels safer. Our minds are innocently trying to protect us, but from a very limited point of view. Because of that, our minds will tell us to do all kinds of things that aren’t so helpful.
Someone in the group recently asked, “But how can I tell if the guidance I am getting is from my mind or from that Flow of Life?” Ahh! One of my favorite topics!
The truth is always in the feeling. And you can sense that energy in your body. If we move below the neck and give our attention to the quality of the energy moving through us, it will tell us what is life affirming and what is our mind trying to get us to do something from a small, protective perspective.
As a group, we started to form a list of indicators that would help us surrender to Life (God, The Universe, Wellbeing, Nature, Source, Love) rather than follow the misguidance of our well-meaning minds.
Here’s a partial list in case it might be helpful to you too! And of course we’ll all experience this differently at different times and in different situations. But these might be some helpful clues and indicators for you!
It’s coming from our little mind’s preferences and comfort zones if:
It feels like tension
You’re upset and agitated
You feel defensive.
You feel like you need to “draw the line,” “set your boundaries,” or “not get pushed around.”
You’re confused.
It feels complicated.
It feels like pressure (mentally or even physically)
You feel a sense of urgency and like you have to take action RIGHT NOW! 😉
You might be torn between two or more options.
You want to take some action or make some decision because it feels so uncomfortable to have things be “up in the air, “undecided, and unknown. The mind hates this and will push to make any decision just so it can know.
It feels like contraction.
It feels really familiar.
E.g.: “Oh, I recognize this theme or pattern, even though the details look different.”
Guidance that is coming from a Bigger, Loving Perspective, feels more like:
Peace
Ease
Calm
You feel open
You feel clear.
It feels really simple, natural and like that’s just how life is obviously moving
You feel relaxed
You feel spacious and like there is no urgency. If there is action to take, there is no rush and there is an obvious, common sense time to take that action.
You don’t really have a question or feel torn. A single action or direction just is.
It feels like expansion.
It feels fresh, bringing a sense of newness or opening.
It was helpful for us as a group to talk about these differences, and to realize that we really can feel the difference in our bodies. We are all equipped with the ability to relax into the flow life, because we all feel the physical sensations, tensions and easing in our body that shows us the way. We all intuitively know that if it feels awful and like contraction, it’s not the natural way of Life. Blessings in your feeling journey, everyone! Blessings in your relaxed, innate alignment with Life!
I Know What Relaxation Feels Like In My Body
Inside, there is a Kindness waiting.
A home that Never leaves, is always present with
Open Wide Wings of “I am Here and I love you.”
Allow That Rest. Your Ears have Longed to hear the
Acceptance, the Exquisite Affirmation That you effortlessly,
Intimately belong.
One. At peace. At home.
From that New surrender, Fresh life can Enter Everything
And Lead you to Soft Lines of Inspiration.
There is a simple Knowing.
A clarity and flow in the Exhale.
Common sense Insights are somehow Newly seen,
Real, Made available because
You Breathed open.
Rejoined the One voice of all things, all possibility.
From this easy home within
There are no Decisions to be made.
Just a watching, a relaxing into life’s eternal continuing,
Continuing, continuing of
Yes, yes, yes……..
Love to you all,
Christina
What Feels Natural vs. What Feels Normal
The question of natural vs. normal came up recently in The Little School of Big Change community. The idea here is that “normal” is what is commonly done, the usual, the conventional or even conditioned habits. The generally accepted attitudes we adopt without thinking. What is natural to us might be entirely different. As in, it might be normally expected that a person would feel upset if they lost a job. “Well, of course I’m sad – anyone would be.” Yet if the person felt into it before the usual orientation kicked in, they might realize they are feeling a profound sense of freedom to move on to something else, excitement, gladness to be letting go of something that wasn’t feeling good anyway, and any number of other possible responses that could be someone’s natural response to that circumstance.
When we move this into the personal, it gets even juicier for me. For example, what has been “normal” for me in many areas of my life is clearly not what is actually natural. I’ve had periods in my life where it was my usual to get upset and feel insecure if someone didn’t like me. That was my “norm.” And it was normal for me to not sleep well. But that isn’t natural. And I’ve had a “normal” way of eating that I learned that is absolutely not natural.
There are a lot of things that have been normal for me that I have learned and have become habitual behaviors that I do without thinking. Really, I’ve never really thought to ask, what is natural for me? What are my natural rhythms, preferences, ways of being? How does my unique body, personality, being respond in this situation, in that moment? What arises naturally out of the “creature of me” as it responds to a new moment?
What is normal for you? And is that the same as what is natural for you? If you’re like me, you might not have been given a chance as a kid to follow your natural impulses. But we can certainly be curious about that now. That curiosity can open the door to living our lives in a way that is much more authentic, present and in alignment with natural, life-affirming ways of being! It’s really been eye-opening and freeing to ask myself if something feels normal or if it feels natural. Maybe it has some juice for your naturally wonderful self too?!
W.h.a.t. F.e.e.l.s. N.a.t.u.r.a.l. T.o. M.e.?
Welcome the internal messages. The things that sing in theHeart – the
Affirmations of Life,
Telling you “Yes, yes, thank you, I love you. The
Flow is this way, my dear one.”
Entertain what feels easy. Let it
Enter, envelop, exit in its clear
Line of direction that
Supports all
Nature, because nature is what you are. Nature is
Alive as you. No need to
Try, to force, anything. The Bigness, the Interconnected
Universe, has got this. Has got you.
Rest in that.
Allow the
Living, simple movement to
Take you along in the
Obvious way of it. The
Meaningful, mysterious design of it All so effortless and
Effulgent. Equally inherent in each star in the universe,
and in each, intelligent cell of your own, natural body.
Love to you all,
Christina
I Don't Know. Yippie!
Incandescent
Direction revealed in each
Opening day, in each fresh moment of
Not knowing any sense of past
Time, past rules.
Kneeling at the shackles of pre-decided identities, possibles and
Not possibles, allowed and not allowed is
Over. I thought I knew! But nothing is really here except
Wonder – and the unending
Yes! of the
Imaginative Universe. When I tried to
Pin it down – just to know, just to be right or consistent,
Predicting every outcome – I closed my eyes and arms to the
Infinite Allness of being here, truly alive. How can I “know” anything in this miraculous,
Evolving Life that only says yes to Itsef – and to me – over and over and over again?
Love to you all,
Christina
I Don’t Know. Yippie!
Incandescent
Direction revealed in each
Opening day, in each fresh moment of
Not knowing any sense of past
Time, past rules.
Kneeling at the shackles of pre-decided identities, possibles and
Not possibles, allowed and not allowed is
Over. I thought I knew! But nothing is really here except
Wonder – and the unending
Yes! of the
Imaginative Universe. When I tried to
Pin it down – just to know, just to be right or consistent,
Predicting every outcome – I closed my eyes and arms to the
Infinite Allness of being here, truly alive. How can I “know” anything in this miraculous,
Evolving Life that only says yes to Itsef – and to me – over and over and over again?
Love to you all,
Christina
Your Curiosity Opens Possibility
With Curious Eyes And A Curious Heart,
I Am Open To New Worlds Of Possibility
Wonders don’t really ever
Cease. The Great
Everything keeps coming. The Unending
Abundance of
ALL things streams on. All possibility is
Created, expressed – constantly. Always has been. It is
Happening now, in the
Infinite flow of unstoppable LIFE. That
Awareness, that awe,
Opens me to the truth that there is so much more than I could ever
Think or know. I am willing to
Not know – Because
“What if” has given me more freedom,
Opportunity, options and delighted, discovered
Pleasure than being sure I’m “right” ever has.
I Can Relax Into Life Now
Happy New Day! (a little new year poem for you)
H.A.P.P.Y N.E.W. D.A.Y!
Hold your horses!
~ A pause. ~ A moment to note that in every day spread out in front of us, there is
Always new
Pleasure – always the fresh new
Play of Existence. Not just in the new
Year, but in every new day of Life,
Never-ending. The
Eternal
Wisdom keeps
Dancing its ecstatic
Awe and full appreciation of Itself in
You.
Staying With Emotions When They Seem Overwhelming
A lovely woman emailed me with her questions about how to stay with emotions in moments when they feel too overwhelming to feel. With her permission, I’m including her email here:
“You said something that hit me.…which is that the story we attach to the energy that is flowing creates more discomfort (or that’s how I’m perceiving it is for me)…. I am finding it a challenge to allow for such discomfort in the moment of the uncomfortable “angry” or “self sabotage” or “beating myself up b/c I’m not perfect” energies, and very aware of the stories I attach during those times. I find I cannot even sit calmly and observe it, I’m so overtaken – (Ex: yesterday I was getting more worked up about something I was doing wrong to the point that I could watch myself, but could not sit and be with the emotion, accept the emotion, and release the story I knew I was creating in that moment. I had to go for a walk. And part of me wonders, what if I could have sat there and released the story – would the energy really flowed through and would the anger go away? Is it the story that creates the anger?
Was there a practice you had that reminded you to do this when that happens when you’re angry, beating yourself up, or noticing self sabotage in the moment – where you could be with it w/out a story? ie: the story as it’s happening and the discomfort partnered with it as it’s perceived?”
Thank you so much for asking me this! First and foremost, the fact that you are AWARE that there is a difference between energies moving through and the story we attach to it is THE major practice. Keep giving your attention to that fact! That is amazing, and it is what gives you space to do more than ACCEPT and be present with whatever is rolling through. It helps you understand that the energies are safe and that the mind is just doing its job of loving and protecting you by trying to put you back into a known story. That understanding makes any need to accept just, well, irrelevant and unnecessary. Truly, that space between you and the stories will start to expand more and more, which will allow you to be more and more present to the energies rolling through without pigeon-holing them into pre-fab identities of the “angry,” “self-sabotaging,” or self critical” person.
Secondly, you wonder if the energies really would have moved through if you were able to be with them? In my experience, yes. In fact, if we give our attention to them, that’s what makes them able to shift – rather than us resisting them, plugging them into a story, and keeping that story going (which keeps the discomfort going). I’ve heard that it takes about 90 seconds for the biochemical process of an emotion to move through (once we actually feel it). Remember that feeling the physical sensations of the emotion is very different than telling a story about it and stewing about it. Being in the head’s repetitive thoughts is very different than being in the body’s in-the-moment experience.
Remember that our brains are trying to distract us from the raw energy by plugging it into a “known” story. The brain mistakenly believes it is helping us to avoid threat. But it keeps the “threatening” sensation going by keeping the threatening story going, which holds the energy in place and doesn’t let it shift.
Okay, so I hear you that you would like some suggestions about what would help you in those red hot moments when you want to run from the seemingly overwhelming energies!! I can certainly share what helps me in those moments!
First, see if you can STOP. Literally stop moving and be still. When I feel some energy coming up in me that feels overwhelming, I often get REALLY busy. I know that I am avoiding, and I’ll often hear my mind say “yeah, I’ll sit down and feel it after I get these things done.” My mind tells me that the errands, the email, the whatever is WAY more important than me sitting down to attend to the discomfort inside me! It sounds like you have the same awareness in the back of your mind as you go through these moments. So, if possible STOP. And here’s the thing, eventually, we DO stop. We can’t keep it up forever. We naturally come to a more still place where we’re able to go inside and check it out. So whenever you can stop, either then or later, then really be stopped. Be still.
It helps me to sit in a position I don’t normally sit in. It helps me be present, helps me break the trance of the mental panic – partly because it literally requires that I step out of the usual neural pathways and into the new ones of that physical position. I like to sit on my heels on the floor in those moments. Or, sit perched on a chair I’ve dragged into the middle of the room. Or sit on the floor, a table, or somewhere in a room or part of my house I don’t usually sit in. Again, it literally gives us a new vantage point and wakes up new neural pathways in the body. It signifies a “specialness,” or that something new is happening. It helps with separating ourselves from the old stories and identities.
It also helps me to set a timer. When I am feeling overwhelmed by some kind of mounting internal pressure of energy, it can feel like if I actually sat down to attend to it I would be spending DAYS feeling the hugeness of it! (Which is a story that is designed to help me avoid the energy). So if I can set a timer, I let my brain know it will just be for this teeny chunk of time. Maybe 5 minutes on the timer. Every single time I’ve done this, by the time the timer goes off, the energy has either completely moved through, or it has shifted enough that I am not only able to stay with it, but want to. I feel engaged and interested in what is rolling through and I actually want to stay with it.
Super importantly, the next thing that helps is to give my attention to my physical body. To give my attention to the physical sensations I can feel in my body. Not to change any of them, but to notice whatever is there. I get curious about “how does it feel to be inside my skin right now?” I catalog what is there. Is there a pressure in my chest? My throat? Do I notice pain anywhere? Is my breathing fast or slow? Maybe there is a sense of trembling, or being super cold, or like there is energy moving so fast through me it is enervating every muscle. Maybe there are images flooding me. Maybe there is even something that feels truly like I am PISSED, but I don’t have to have that anger be about anything in particular. Move down out of the head and into the body. Staying with what can actually be felt below the neck IS the process of staying with the energy rather than the story.
Hopefully some of that is helpful to you – especially in terms of growing your wonderful awareness of what the energy is and the difference between that innocent, fresh, spontaneous movement of LIFE, versus the repetitive patterns of a story or identity trying to keep things from shifting so that it keeps you “safe” from feeling and from the unknown!
We’re free. We really are free to experience each moment without trying to make it fit into past stories and identities.
Thank you for writing me with your question. It helped me to answer it, and my guess is that it will help others too.
Love,
Chris