Releasing emotional blockages is a process. Sit quietly and begin.
Healing the mind/body connection and removing blockages requires strategies to increase awareness of what we are already thinking and feeling. But first, we need something to get our attention. Something to interrupt our normal and usual way of being. Pain can do that. Pain, emotional and physical is great at bringing us to consciousness, if we allow ourselves to feel it.
As human beings, we are accustomed to what we are thinking. (We’ve been thinking that way since early childhood.) It’s familiar, and it feels like our thoughts are who we are. Therefore, what we think is invisible to us. We do not naturally observe ourselves think. It is a skill to be developed. Kids with unconventional learning processes, those diagnosed with learning disabilities, must learn to develop meta-cognition; a way of stepping outside themselves and witnessing their thinking. So must we in order to heal our autoimmunity. The good news is that we can grow in our awareness of what we are thinking and feeling at any given moment. This intention and practice will help us become aware of our unconscious patterns of thinking. These hidden patterns, or beliefs, govern our perceptions of the world which, in turn, determine how we feel (and what we do.) How we feel, negatively or positively, affects our bodies. With increased awareness, we have a choice of whether to continue in this spiral, or to release old beliefs and create new, stress-free perceptions and interpretations of events.
Louise Hay, in her book You Can Heal Your Life http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Heal-Your-Life/dp/0937611018 explains this in depth. She also gives practical strategies for growing awareness, and releasing emotional and physical energy blocks. I recommend everybody read it. Another great resource is Joe Vitale (great name, great insights.) He’s written a number of books and conducts on line video workshops. http://www.mrfire.com/mailinglist/optinconfirmation.html, http://www.amazon.com/Key-Missing-Secret-Attracting-Anything/dp/0470503947/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446065333&sr=1-8&keywords=joe+vitale)
My experience is that pain is a messenger to bring us to awareness. Any kind of pain, physical or emotional. I resisted emotional pain all my life. Who doesn’t? It hurts. Today I’ve learned to sit quietly, alone, in the morning right after I get up, for a half hour or more (I am retired.) But I started out sitting for 10 minutes. Length of time is not important, it’s the habit I needed to develop. You can grow your habit if you commit to it. Set your intention and then do it.
The Buddhists say to sit and let whatever comes up, come up. Psalm 46 says “Be still and know that I am God.” Allow the emotion sparked by a dream, a memory, or a pain in the body to catch your attention. Let it come. You will be tempted to override it with a thought or reject it or distract yourself with something you have to do. Because it’s scary to feel. But tell yourself what Pema Chodron the Buddhist Nun says, “Stay, stay, stay.” http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Closer-Ourselves-Everything-Awakening/dp/1604077948. Then let the feeling wash through you. You may cry, you may get angry. You are growing stronger in awareness of self. You may not see God or feel the universe move in you yet, but in feeling the feeling you are growing stronger in awareness of self. Both the ego self and your true self.
Now become curious. How does this emotion look to you? Notice the color, sound, shape, texture of what is there for you. (My fear’s yellow and looks like jello.) Trust your interpretation. If it shows up that way for you, it is appropriate for you.
Be gentle with yourself while you are in this place of feeling. Notice when you criticize yourself or stop the process. Notice and then breath and release the thought. Below is something I wrote immediately after practicing this process – to remind myself:
- Be gentle with that part of you in pain. Be kind, curious and respectful. Allow that pain to speak to you.
- What is its message?
- What does it want you to know (about you) that you do not yet know? Ask, “What would you like me to know now?”
- Listen.
- In your mind a thought, a picture, a scene, a voice or music might become clear evoking a feeling. Allow the feeling and it will take you deeper, growing your awareness.
- You may cry or feel sad and helpless as you did as a child.
- Feel all this in your body.
- There is that quick release of tension, a sense of space, an opening inside you where tension and anger made you tight. Notice the release of tension and a sense of flowing easily, as if tubing on a gentle river.
- This short, quick release of energy that was once blocked inside of you is flowing, and you are moving forward.
- Breathe in and out. Feel air come in and go out. Again. You are open. Energy is flowing through you. Gratitude will fill you.
Other ways to help release blocked energy in the body include tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique http://caroltuttle.com/about-energy-healing/) Rapid Eye Therapy, Yoga, QiGong, chakra clearing, tai chi, massage, reflexology, acupuncture, Transactual Analysis.
I have tried all of these over the past four years, and find I do best in pain messenger/contemplative clearing such as I have described, Epsom salt soaks, (which are also a great detox) and yoga.
Please share your comments below. What have you done to heal your mind/body connection? What has worked for you? What doesn’t? If you don’t have one, look for your perfect process, the belief identification and releasing process that fits you. Feel it, ride it, enjoy it.
Next week’s post will be about releasing old, no longer useful beliefs.