In my last post I shared one expert’s way to start feeling and letting go of the crap we have buried inside. Michael Singer author of the Untethered Soul and Dr. Shefali Tsabary author of the Conscious Parent recommend a different way; using triggering events to dig into our emotions. We become triggered when we don’t want whatever is happening in our life to be happening. We resist what is essentially saying, “I don’t want this situation to be happening.” When this type of situation occurs and you are feeling triggered, Singer and Tsabary recommend finding a quiet space and asking, “Why am I being triggered right now?” Then remain silent and still and listen. “Truly feeling an emotion means being able to sit with the incoherence we experience at such a time, neither venting it nor denying it, but simply containing it and being present with it.” Shefali Tsabary from the Conscious Parent. Feeling the emotion requires you to stay in your body, feel your body, while physically doing nothing; if you are struggling with not doing anything and quieting the mind (which oh MY I did), focus on your breath. Focus on where the feeling sits in your body and what it feels like? Is it in your gut causing nausea; is it in your chest making you feel like someone is sitting on you? Stay with it until the emotion (remember its just energy in motion) leaves your body.
***Feeling
our emotions without reacting to them can be terrifying. To sit with our emotions means we have to be
in solitude, which is unbearable for many of us. We are too used to having a thought and being
triggered by it, experiencing an emotion and reacting to it. For instance, if we feel anxious, we eat or
self-medicate in some way. If we feel
angry, we experience an urge to vent or even explode at someone. Sitting and watching our thoughts and
feelings in stillness may seem pointless to us, but it’s by doing precisely
this that the core lessons of consciousness are learned. By silently witnessing our thoughts and
feelings, we learn to accept them as they are, allowing them to rise and fall
within us without resisting them or reacting to them.
Shefali Tsabary from the Conscious
Parent.
This
process terrified me. I wasn’t sure I had
ever TRULY felt a feeling. I was an
expert on how to react, blame, distract and stuff, but DOING NOTHING…doing
nothing was NOT in my DNA. At first,
every time I felt triggered, my head immediately screamed “IT’S THEIR
FAULT!!!!” and soon after sitting down
in silence, I stood up and reacted. I felt
like I was coming out of my skin and simply couldn’t handle it. I tried a few times with the same
result. Since I was struggling
miserably, I decided to find, and start with, one person and one type of
situation. I scanned my life and decided
to NOT respond immediately (i.e. react) to my Mom’s emails. With my Mom’s barrage of daily emails, and
how often they triggered a firestorm of anger, frustration and hurt, this would
allow me to practice while not being face to face. The first few times were rough forcing me to
turn off my computer and just sit there while my mind drafted a hurtful and
totally appropriate response J. But,
eventually my thoughts would start to tire allowing my feelings to pop
through. They felt like pockets of pain
as they popped through and if I sat silently, I could feel them eventually
leave my body.
As more “pockets of pain” were released,
the less reactive I became. My
relationship with my mother became better and I began to see her in a different
light. I can honestly say (on most days)
it’s the best it’s ever been. “Your
wisdom will increase in line with your capacity for embracing all of your
feelings, whatever their nature. Along
with an increased wisdom comes a greater capacity for compassion.” Shefali Tsabary from the Conscious Parent.
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