As we sit at home, scrolling through posts eager for some inspiration or affirmation that whatever is happening in our internal worlds these days is normal, we come across messages encouraging us to embrace all that we are feeling, affirming that whatever we are intentionally or unintentionally using as a coping mechanism in response to those feelings is okay. There are different ways in which each of us may respond to trauma and uncertainties – both with regards to the feelings that arise in us as well as action we take in a response to those feelings – and regardless of what those responses are, we would be well served by extending ourselves extra love and compassion. Absolutely.
Yet accepting and loving ourselves unconditionally is not always easy, and the inability to “snap out of it” can feel defeating to most of us, perpetuating the sense of helplessness and hopelessness. We get bogged down by thoughts that perpetuate the “heavy” feelings and leave us doubting our self-worth. We wonder if things will ever shift. Even when external circumstances change, can we be sure our inner states will change?
We cannot be sure. Often, we find that we cannot escape our internal landscapes by changing our external circumstances, at least not for long (though severe negative change in outer circumstances can certainly exacerbate our inner fragility). But there is a practice each of us can do that will show us that things, in fact, do change, and that change really is the only constant in life. Knowing this on an experiential level helps us notice and appreciate the beauty of the ever-elusive and transient “now,” and can also help get us through those times when we think: “This is never going to change… I’m always… I’ll never… “ while our heart races just as fast as our negative, self-defeating thoughts.
The practice is this: it starts with understanding that there are no good or bad emotions per se. The emotions we are experiencing make us feel a certain way, so we have come to associate some with feeling good, and others with feeling bad. But instead of emotions being good or bad, they are simply “energy in motion.” In this view, while neither good nor bad, emotions do operate on different frequencies. We have low-frequency emotions (those that make us feel bad) and high-frequency emotions (those that make us feel good). And while we are encouraged to recognize and embrace everything we are feeling, this is only the first step. As essential as it is for our emotional and mental well-being to have an accurate assessment of what we are feeling, lingering here is not going to be self-serving if we are perpetuating the low-frequency emotions by our, frequently subconscious, self-defeating thoughts. While the assurance that it is okay to feel the myriad of often conflicting emotions might help alleviate our fears about being “normal,” we need a road map to get to the destination of self-love, self-acceptance and self-compassion – a place where we are all eager to operate from not only for our own sakes but in order to be the best humans (partners, parents, teachers, friends…) we can be to others.
So when you embark on the very important journey of deepening self-awareness by taking inventory of your feelings, focus on “feeling your feelings” (in a physical sense) versus “thinking your feelings.” Where in your body are you experiencing unease? Which sensations are you experiencing (racing heart, knot in your throat, constricted chest, fluttering in your belly)? Can you focus on one of those sensations and just stay with it? Observe it till it passes? Watch the waves of sensation in your body come and go… Everything is in constant motion, ebbing and flowing, just like the breath. The practice of feeling your feelings as sensations in your body, and following your breathing from the start of an inhale to the bottom of the exhale, will help focus your mind and silence the stories running in the back of your mind that are so often full of judgments and criticism. Not only will the thoughts slowly dissipate, but you will begin to notice how the sensations in your body shift. The racing heart will slow down, the constricted chest will start to open up, the knot in your throat will unravel and pass, and the fluttering will cease…
Once you lose focus on the immediate now, thought patterns that have been running beneath the surface for the majority of your life might bring right back all the sticky, uncomfortable, heavy feelings, but at least you will have directly and consciously experienced your body showing you that everything constantly shifts, and that you have the power to bring your body into a place of calm. And that is a superpower that has been granted to us in this life. Too many of us have been conditioned to believe that it is the external world that holds the power of making us feel better. But it can only be accessed from within.
Feeling our feelings as sensations in our bodies without judgment, and noticing how those sensations shift the longer we stay with them, is only one way that can bring us into a state of ease precisely because they bring home to us the idea that everything eventually shifts, and so does the way we feel. It is beyond the scope of this piece to delve into other practices, but what I can say is that focusing on the present moment as uncomfortable feelings arise is only the beginning. With continual practice of feeling our feelings, we might be able to expand our focus from the sensations in the body to naming the feelings, while refraining from labeling them as good or bad. Simply honoring them for what they are, and reminding ourselves that they will pass. We might expand our self-awareness even further by shedding a light on the stories we tell ourselves that might contribute to pervasiveness of the low frequency emotions. Once we can recognize our thought patterns and catch ourselves in listening to a story in our mind that is less than encouraging, we are that much closer to breaking free.
Cultivating this “witness” awareness where we can begin to identify the thoughts associated with low frequency emotions might be easier said than done, especially without guidance, but the principle is simple: our thoughts drive us to action (or inaction) and in this way create our experiences, which make us feel a certain way. These feelings then perpetuate the thoughts that created the experiences which led to the low frequency emotions.
To finally start feeling better, we need to break the pattern. While this can happen at any point in the cycle, let’s choose the practice of feeling our feelings as the initial entryway. As we focus our awareness on the sensations in the body, which are simply the manifestations of our emotions, we inevitably experience the shift in the sensations over time. As the sensations shift, the darkness will lift with equal certainty. While this doesn’t mean that it won’t fall again – quite the contrary, it surely will – we will be better prepared to respond the next time around, calling in on our inner strength to pull us from desperation to mental and emotional well-being.
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