HOW TO FEEL THE FEELS
How can we best FEEL our emotions? Let’s start by looking at what “emotions” actually are.
Emotions are merely energy in motion. They are nearly instant reactions (sometimes even just automatic pre-patterned biological responses), that our brains then add meaning to. Yep! We are the ones who attribute the meaning. We do so subjectively through our lens of reality.
WATCH : How our perception can totally flip our experience depending on what glasses we see through
So if we can control our meaning, let’s just think sparkly positivity right? Wrong! The key is in removing the meaning making entirely. How? Enter Buddhist psychology and Non-attachment.
Non-attachment is the practice of noticing, but not identifying with.
The idea of living with non-attachment is to avoid being controlled by things that aren't present. Buddhist philosophy says, suffering arises when we hold to things that are impermanent and ultimately unsatisfying (ie material possessions, relationships, thoughts, and emotions). When we detach from situations and outcomes, we reduce their influence over us. Emotions are easier to endure as we know they are not permanent and we embrace the good and bad more deeply, with the understanding that they, are transient.
In relationships, we can love a person for who they truly are, rather than for what we need them to be. We can savour each moment without being hindered by fears of change or loss.
In a professional setting, we can release our fixation on specific outcomes. We can approach failure with the same openness as we do success. We can see the limits of our influence, letting go of the areas beyond our control.
In The Self, we can feel our feelings without being controlled by them. We can learn to observe with curiosity rather than judgment and the need for control. We do not attach to it as a part of our identity but rather see the temporary ‘energy in motion’.
Practicing non-attachment requires consistency. Just like a physical endurance exercise, results are built overtime.
TRY:
When the feeling comes up, notice it with curiosity rather than judgment.
FEEL Feel the sensation in the body
STORY What is the story / meaning that I am trying to attach to it?
BEHAVIOUR Notice the behaviour / response I am using or leaning towards?
LET IT BE Radically accept it with complete non resistance. Don’t accept ir but also don’t strive to change it.
EXAMPLE: A feeling arises. Notice it
FEEL Skin crawling, heart bounding, mouth dry
STORY I am anxious. I have a deadline at the end of the day and I don’t think I will be able to make it. I am a failure who gets anxious and my brain gets blocked so I continuously underdeliver and disappoint.
BEHAVIOUR Get distracted, spiral further into panic and tense shoulders, breathe shallower and restrict neural capacity.
LET IT BE Let it be there. Let it carry on in the moment knowing that the energy is in motion that this is an experience not a state of existence. Do not attach. Do not push away.
Instead, by letting the energy flow and not attributing “meaning” you can let go. As a result you can ACTUALLY be present.
Feelings are not facts. Emotions are energy with self-defined meaning attributed. The trick is to truly acknowledge the self importance and arrogance of the brain and put it back in it’s place.
As humans, we would usually prefer to be right about the conclusions we come to about the world. Its easier to believe our feelings and beliefs as truth rather than accept that these are merely patterned distortions that our minds spew forth.
“I can’t help how I feel” “I know myself and have to trust how I feel” … Do you though?
The brain, especially the amygdala, does not care if the conclusions you come to are accurate or keep you closed off from opportunity/ relationships. It just wants you ‘safe’ and it feeds off the data you put in. But safety itself is an example of patterned distorted meaning (think addictions, eating disorders and phobias where disordered behaviour creates a sense of safety).
Neuroplasticity research shows that electrical patterns are not constant. This means we can change our emotional response pattern by challenging the meaning making. Every time we notice, name, come back to the body and breathe and let it be, we are rewiring our brain and nervous system for regulation and reality. We can get off the rollercoaster of feelings and stories and detach. We let go of the desire to control and be more adaptable and flexible and embrace a fuller version of ourselves and the world and it’s impermanent and ever-changing nature. In doing this we can withstand the good AND the bad as what just IS.
Buddhist philosophy - Non attachment joke