BLAST FROM THE PAST!
Re-post from 2013! That's right...I wrote this in January 2013. Nearly 6 years ago. I titled it: "Emotional baggage...From our caveman days."
Comments welcome...from my 1-2 readers.
And before you dive in...I fully intend on writing an epilogue to this post. A "Where Are They Now" of sorts, wherein, they = me.
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Today's post is brought to you by: Lunch Hour: "The time for eating reheated soup...and blogging!"
I have been thinking a lot about emotions recently. Probably because I am reading Dr. David Hawkins' most recent book: Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender. It was his final work before he passed away. I have read a lot of his stuff (spoiler alert), and it gets pretty heady and hard to digest. Sometimes I would only be able to read a page or two in one sitting because I thought my head was going to explode.
This book is different. It is extremely accessible, readable, and applicable to daily life. His other writings contain a lot of background theory about how his concept works and how it came to be, etc. This one is a no-B.S. user's guide to managing emotions.
The short version of David Hawkins' theory is that all emotions have their own energy field, and carry with them an overarching view of the world. When we experience any given emotion, the thoughts that occur alongside it are secondary to that emotion. So the emotion actually changes the way we see the world. When the emotion is Anger, as the saying goes, we "see red." Everything seems to piss us off. When we are in Fear, everything seems scary. When we are in Guilt or Shame, it seems like everything is our fault and we're a worm, the scum of the Earth. He says the majority of the world is dominated by the emotion Fear. It makes sense--just turn on the news. Terror, mayhem, doom, gloom...it's everywhere. (Another big one is Guilt, which is almost impossible to separate from Fear. He points out that we often feel guilty for EVERYTHING. Even when we do something well, we feel we should be doing it better, or more often, or all the time, or BLAAAHHHH. Just notice how often you apologize for things or get that little tweak in your stomach that notifies you: "I just did something bad/wrong/ugh.") Regardless of which emotional state we are in, it colors our picture of the rest of the world. With Fear, the world is scary, intimidating, anxiety-provoking.
So starting a couple weeks ago, I did an experiment. I started paying attention to my thoughts. If my thoughts are secondary to my emotions, then wouldn't the content of my thoughts alert me to which emotion I am experiencing? For example, if my thoughts say, "That guy is an a**wipe!" That's probably anger, right? Or if my thoughts say, "I hope I'm not getting a cold," that's probably fear. You may wonder why I didn't just pay attention to my feelings. Well, it gets a little tricksy. See, emotions get repressed. They show up in really odd and annoying ways, especially when we're not quite sure what we feel. My emotions manifest in colds, neckaches, fatigue, acne, injuries, etc. Sure, I do feel emotions a lot...but I'm so used to telling myself, "No, don't be mad...no, don't worry...no, it's fine..." Denial, party of one. Denied emotions turn into the conditions for which we go to therapy: depression, anxiety, grief, etc. I have personally experienced all of those too.
I observed that the majority the content of my thoughts were worries, fears, frustrations, attempts to control, etc. These observations matched what I experience day to day in my body: muscle tension, especially in my neck, inflexibility in my muscles, aches and pains, etc. Think about how much you tense up when you're scared. Imagine being scared 95% of the time and not realizing it. It's not very awesome. The world doesn't seem very fun. It seems...well, scary!
Now. Hawkins ain't done yet. His solution to getting from unpleasant emotions to pleasant ones is hilariously simple: surrender. Let go. Give in. Give yourself over. Resign. Relent. Cease. Desist. Abdicate. Relinquish. Succumb. Thank you, thesaurus.com. He says when you become aware of an emotion, let it go. Don't hang on, don't try to fix or repair or make it go away. Just sit with it without judging...and it. Will. Vanish.
At first I was like, "Really? That's your magnum opus, Sir Dr. David Hawkins, MD, PhD? Don't do anything?" But think about it. What do we all do when we start to experience an emotion, especially if it's a negative one? We DO something. We worry. We run. We eat. We drink. We vent. We discuss. We blog. We use drugs. Pop pills. Gossip. Zone out. Phone out. Watch TV. Go shopping. Start yelling. Shut down. Shut up. Lash out. Point fingers. Blame others. Blame ourselves. Then the guilt starts! The last thing we EVER do is let it be there. Even when we're happy we instantly worry that something might come along and ruin our fun. Some of our coping skills are healthier than others, yes. But the point here is that we could save ourselves the need to cope with our emotions if we would let 'em go when they're fresh out of the hopper.
Hawkins says that emotions are our built in evolutionary survival system. They let us know when there is danger, etc. So they do serve a purpose. However, they're just so dang convincing. Getting stuck in traffic isn't a threat to our survival but doesn't it really, really feel like it sometimes? We just hang onto these emotions so hard that they start running our lives.
Hawkins goes on to say that our "natural state," the one which we ALL have the capacity to experience is a state of perfect peace and happiness, regardless of what's going on around us. And he wasn't talking about the peace that comes after leaving your worldly possessions behind and seeking peace on a mountain top. He was talking about in any given moment, that peace is there waiting, untouched, undamaged, and pure. And the way to get there is to surrender the emotions, one by one.
I am trying this. It's eerily effective. Most mornings I wake up flustered because all I can see is a busy day ahead. I instantly have emotions of Fear, Anger, and Guilt. Fear that it's going to be a stressful day. Anger that life has to be this way. Guilt that I didn't get enough done yesterday, hence making today more stressful. It just repeats, repeats, repeats. A few times I have tried lying there with the Fear, Anger, and Guilt. I don't try to think or do anything. I let thoughts come and then go. I wait and feel these feelings. And on those days, when I feel my emotions first thing instead of flying out of bed to makesomethinghappenandgetonwiththestressfulday, the rest of the day seems to unfold before me like a dream. I find I am able to enjoy and appreciate the day. It's even fun sometimes. People are helpful and forgiving, and so am I.
Well...sometimes. On most days, before I'm out the door in the morning, the emotions come back. Of course they do, they're not used to being surrendered. They are used to being in charge of pretty much everything I do. So they pop up through out the day with all the old favorites: "Why aren't you working harder?" "You need to work out more." "I hope so and so isn't angry at you." "What about the FUTURE?!?!" "You shouldn't have done that." And of course each time, in true fashion, I clench up and get ready to do more stuff, be a better person, improve my career, lose 10 pounds, overachieve...and then I remember! Oh yes! This is a program. I can let go of this. This is just an emotion, and I'm safe.
If you try this, I hope we can discuss it. Happy letting go.
Comments welcome...from my 1-2 readers.
And before you dive in...I fully intend on writing an epilogue to this post. A "Where Are They Now" of sorts, wherein, they = me.
-------------------------------
JANUARY 14, 2013
Today's post is brought to you by: Lunch Hour: "The time for eating reheated soup...and blogging!"
I have been thinking a lot about emotions recently. Probably because I am reading Dr. David Hawkins' most recent book: Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender. It was his final work before he passed away. I have read a lot of his stuff (spoiler alert), and it gets pretty heady and hard to digest. Sometimes I would only be able to read a page or two in one sitting because I thought my head was going to explode.
This book is different. It is extremely accessible, readable, and applicable to daily life. His other writings contain a lot of background theory about how his concept works and how it came to be, etc. This one is a no-B.S. user's guide to managing emotions.
The short version of David Hawkins' theory is that all emotions have their own energy field, and carry with them an overarching view of the world. When we experience any given emotion, the thoughts that occur alongside it are secondary to that emotion. So the emotion actually changes the way we see the world. When the emotion is Anger, as the saying goes, we "see red." Everything seems to piss us off. When we are in Fear, everything seems scary. When we are in Guilt or Shame, it seems like everything is our fault and we're a worm, the scum of the Earth. He says the majority of the world is dominated by the emotion Fear. It makes sense--just turn on the news. Terror, mayhem, doom, gloom...it's everywhere. (Another big one is Guilt, which is almost impossible to separate from Fear. He points out that we often feel guilty for EVERYTHING. Even when we do something well, we feel we should be doing it better, or more often, or all the time, or BLAAAHHHH. Just notice how often you apologize for things or get that little tweak in your stomach that notifies you: "I just did something bad/wrong/ugh.") Regardless of which emotional state we are in, it colors our picture of the rest of the world. With Fear, the world is scary, intimidating, anxiety-provoking.
So starting a couple weeks ago, I did an experiment. I started paying attention to my thoughts. If my thoughts are secondary to my emotions, then wouldn't the content of my thoughts alert me to which emotion I am experiencing? For example, if my thoughts say, "That guy is an a**wipe!" That's probably anger, right? Or if my thoughts say, "I hope I'm not getting a cold," that's probably fear. You may wonder why I didn't just pay attention to my feelings. Well, it gets a little tricksy. See, emotions get repressed. They show up in really odd and annoying ways, especially when we're not quite sure what we feel. My emotions manifest in colds, neckaches, fatigue, acne, injuries, etc. Sure, I do feel emotions a lot...but I'm so used to telling myself, "No, don't be mad...no, don't worry...no, it's fine..." Denial, party of one. Denied emotions turn into the conditions for which we go to therapy: depression, anxiety, grief, etc. I have personally experienced all of those too.
I observed that the majority the content of my thoughts were worries, fears, frustrations, attempts to control, etc. These observations matched what I experience day to day in my body: muscle tension, especially in my neck, inflexibility in my muscles, aches and pains, etc. Think about how much you tense up when you're scared. Imagine being scared 95% of the time and not realizing it. It's not very awesome. The world doesn't seem very fun. It seems...well, scary!
Now. Hawkins ain't done yet. His solution to getting from unpleasant emotions to pleasant ones is hilariously simple: surrender. Let go. Give in. Give yourself over. Resign. Relent. Cease. Desist. Abdicate. Relinquish. Succumb. Thank you, thesaurus.com. He says when you become aware of an emotion, let it go. Don't hang on, don't try to fix or repair or make it go away. Just sit with it without judging...and it. Will. Vanish.
At first I was like, "Really? That's your magnum opus, Sir Dr. David Hawkins, MD, PhD? Don't do anything?" But think about it. What do we all do when we start to experience an emotion, especially if it's a negative one? We DO something. We worry. We run. We eat. We drink. We vent. We discuss. We blog. We use drugs. Pop pills. Gossip. Zone out. Phone out. Watch TV. Go shopping. Start yelling. Shut down. Shut up. Lash out. Point fingers. Blame others. Blame ourselves. Then the guilt starts! The last thing we EVER do is let it be there. Even when we're happy we instantly worry that something might come along and ruin our fun. Some of our coping skills are healthier than others, yes. But the point here is that we could save ourselves the need to cope with our emotions if we would let 'em go when they're fresh out of the hopper.
Hawkins says that emotions are our built in evolutionary survival system. They let us know when there is danger, etc. So they do serve a purpose. However, they're just so dang convincing. Getting stuck in traffic isn't a threat to our survival but doesn't it really, really feel like it sometimes? We just hang onto these emotions so hard that they start running our lives.
Hawkins goes on to say that our "natural state," the one which we ALL have the capacity to experience is a state of perfect peace and happiness, regardless of what's going on around us. And he wasn't talking about the peace that comes after leaving your worldly possessions behind and seeking peace on a mountain top. He was talking about in any given moment, that peace is there waiting, untouched, undamaged, and pure. And the way to get there is to surrender the emotions, one by one.
I am trying this. It's eerily effective. Most mornings I wake up flustered because all I can see is a busy day ahead. I instantly have emotions of Fear, Anger, and Guilt. Fear that it's going to be a stressful day. Anger that life has to be this way. Guilt that I didn't get enough done yesterday, hence making today more stressful. It just repeats, repeats, repeats. A few times I have tried lying there with the Fear, Anger, and Guilt. I don't try to think or do anything. I let thoughts come and then go. I wait and feel these feelings. And on those days, when I feel my emotions first thing instead of flying out of bed to makesomethinghappenandgetonwiththestressfulday, the rest of the day seems to unfold before me like a dream. I find I am able to enjoy and appreciate the day. It's even fun sometimes. People are helpful and forgiving, and so am I.
Well...sometimes. On most days, before I'm out the door in the morning, the emotions come back. Of course they do, they're not used to being surrendered. They are used to being in charge of pretty much everything I do. So they pop up through out the day with all the old favorites: "Why aren't you working harder?" "You need to work out more." "I hope so and so isn't angry at you." "What about the FUTURE?!?!" "You shouldn't have done that." And of course each time, in true fashion, I clench up and get ready to do more stuff, be a better person, improve my career, lose 10 pounds, overachieve...and then I remember! Oh yes! This is a program. I can let go of this. This is just an emotion, and I'm safe.
If you try this, I hope we can discuss it. Happy letting go.
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