Dr David Hawkins was a renowned psychiatrist and researcher into consciousness. He wrote several books on his research into the energy of consciousness and how we can apply it to our lives generally or more specifically for health and healing.
He proposed in his book, ‘Letting Go’, that “it is the accumulated pressure of our feelings/emotions that causes thoughts. One feeling, for instance can create literally thousands of thoughts over a period of time.” We are afraid of our feelings and fear being overwhelmed if they were faced. He suggests that we suppress/repress/express or escape from feeling them. Dr Hawkins recommends learning to surrender so the feelings can be let go of so that you are then free of these thoughts and feelings in that area of concern and thus are able to be creative and free.
Enormous amounts of energy are needed to keep down the feared feelings and thus decreases our immune system and keep us out of balance in our nervous system and hormonal systems. This can contribute to the injuries and illnesses in our lives. Previous blogs and my website explain the imbalances/dysregulation in the Autonomic Nervous system and hormonal systems so I will not repeat that here.
Stress is determined by our internal environment not our external environment. It is not happens to us but what happens in us that is important. For example if two people walking down the street talking see a person walking towards them with a dog- one may see the dog and feels love and excitement and want to pat the dog; while the other person may become terrified and fear being attacked by the dog- nobody is right or wrong – it depends on how we internally perceive this scenario.
So the more we surrender our stress the less we react. Mindfulness meditation teaches this also. Learning to surrender the suppressed/repressed/expressed feelings allows the cause of the problem to be addressed and possibly over time be permanently resolved (some deeper issues can recur but often less than originally). Many wellness techniques e.g. massage, relaxation etc do not address the underlying cause thus can be nice and helpful but temporary.
Of course if someone has a huge trauma they may require professional assistance of a trauma therapist to undertake this work. The feelings when addressed should not overwhelm you so much it triggers a trauma response. Trauma requires this type of work to be done much slower so I recommend seeing a trauma therapist.
So how can we try this for ourselves? Easy- sit or lie somewhere safe.
- Take 5-10 slow belly breaths- a little deeper and slower than normal. This helps calm the nervous system.
- Allow the feeling/sensation to be felt. Do not judge it, resist it or try to make it change. Just allow it to come up and be felt even if it is unpleasant. If it gets too overwhelming stop and have a break. Be curious and non judgmental – both mindfulness techniques in themselves. Resisting things usually keeps them in place. As in the adage – what you resist persists. Keep doing this until….
- The feeling will morph into a different feeling. Usually one that is lighter in sensation. Feel the sensations in the body and ignore any thoughts that arise, as thoughts are often negative and unhelpful . Sometimes the feeling/sensation will disappear but usually it morphs into different sensations which ultimately can leave you with a sense of lightness or may even resolve. If the sensation does not change and is very strong- then….
- 4. Give yourself a certain time frame to experience the feelings i.e. feel the sensations for 5 mins then stop and return again later and do this in small but frequent bite size pieces. (Or you may require the assistance of a Trauma Therapist)
Sometimes the feelings change as we sit with them. Sometimes they do not, but later in the day we may notice there has been a difference made as we may not feel that feeling any longer or may be less…sometimes the feeling needs us to look away for a while and stop focusing on it before it dissolves. Sometimes it dissolves while we observe it and allow ourselves to feel it, sometimes it is only after we look away from the feeling that it changes. Sometimes it dissolves completely but sometimes it only partially dissolves. The same way we do not expect to get a 6 pack after one gym session, we should not expect total resolution from one attempt at mindfully sitting and experiencing our feelings and sensations. It is a process and technique that requires practice.
The bottom line is – do not expect the feeling to change….do this technique any way and see what happens. The paradox is that if we attach to an outcome we stop the process from unfolding in its highest. Our thinking minds do not always know the highest outcome for us – we may not have thought of it….so we let go of expected outcomes and see what arises…often the outcome then far exceeds any we could have thought about or imposed by our mind/ego.
How do you know you have successfully surrendered the feeling? Because you will no longer have any emotional charge related it. You are ok about what happens either way. This may take time and decrease in small pieces or may occur all at once.
Sometimes when we think we have surrendered a feeling it comes back…but this is not bad. Often then we are releasing an even deeper layer to the original feeling and it is usually this time, not as strong as it was initially. Some feelings are pushed down deep into our systems and so sometimes bits are released at a time, when we are ready and have the tools to meet them. But each time with surrender there should be a feeling of lightness and well being afterwards.
Be aware the ego/thinking mind may not like this technique, as it means it is losing its grip on you and so sometimes your thoughts will tell you that it is not working or it finds ways to avoid doing the technique. Those around you should see a difference in you though as you surrender more and more of the unpleasant feelings.
Try this out for 4-6 weeks and see if you feel any different or if your health has changed.
I use a Mindfulness Based Stillness form of meditation and it involves using this way of non-judgmentally being aware of the body’s feelings and sensations, I also use this as a ‘stand alone’ technique.