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Monte
USA
125 Posts |
 Posted - 11/22/2004 : 20:35:00
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This question was recently presented to me again. And why not, it is
the most challenging aspect of this disorder. And there are many different answers/solutions. If a person is going to heal from this disorder, they must begin to experience/feel their emotions.
so what follows is a compilation/collaboration of views on how to
feel/experience emotions/feelings from myself, candace pert, deepak chopra, eckart tolle, caroline myss and belleruth naparstek.
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let's discuss what it is not first. feeling emotions that result in a release, like the deep seated fear that is underneath a person's anger or resentment is not like having the sensation of joy or happiness or anger/angry-outburst.
you, and not necessarily "you" personally, begin with awareness. the type of inner awareness that ask yourself the tough questions that "you" really don't want the answer to...you have to Identify the repression activities that you do to Block feeling these emotions...
this has been discussed many times, for example, having a angry outburst is not feeling anger, it is expressing
anger in a way that let's you Avoid/Deny/Resist, in other words Repress the true feeling behind the feeling.
there are things/events that you personally do to repress experiencing your true feelings...so this takes some
keen inner awareness to identify. some people eat, some exercise, some talk obsessively, some go on the message boards, some become very quiet and block out others, some do just the opposite and show-off,
some become control freaks, ect. ect. these are all repression activities that keep you from feeling/identifying
the true feeling. most people have this crazy, unconcious, dramatic dialougue continue on in their minds....
this is why it is so beneficial to become a detached observer of your inner dialogue...to watch and observe this
drama that a person is creating with their scattered fragmented thoughts...over and over again. with awareness
you can learn and then interupt these repression activities.
you interupt the repression activity by not following through with the outburst when you are angry, or by
not continually judging or complaining about everyone else when you are upset...
so, to answer your question, when you interupt the repression activity, for example the outburst, and instead
of yelling or slamming doors you just remain within yourself---use your breath to stay in the moment, you magically
have a release, you also gain some kind of Clarity within yourself. you get a knowingness of what is really going on
within a situation. this simultaneous release and clarity is Feeling your emotions...
most people I work with are disappointed that this is so Un-dramatic. But this is the way it works within your whole mindbody system. it's not necessarily romantic or fascinating as most people expect it to be, but the Instant
Transformation that begins when this Stuck energy is released because you are no longer repressing is a thing
and feeling of beauty. you can immidiately begin to feel the difference in your body...
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i started reading Myss and Chopra and others back in the early 90's...understood their concepts and was
delighted to know that somehow emotional content was in me and causing some or all of my physical pain.
but that did not help me heal nor did it prevent me from getting "the pain in the butt" five years later...
i was at the point that i would strangle anyone who said just become "one" with whatever, or just surrender
and accept or "be" now...it made no sense to me and there was nothing their to lead me in a practice.
also realize you do not necessarily need to create your own path, the path is the same, it is experiencing your
repressed emotions, letting your emotional energy flow instead of being stuck in your body/mind.
and all of these insightful authors/experts are saying the Same thing albiet with their own twist.
mainly, to live in the present, which means to become aware of when you are letting your mind take you to the past or the future. that it is your ego, that part of you that has angry outburst, is overly controlling, worries about
money, strives for power, wants to be accepted, yes that ego part of you that is Repressing your feelings,
so you must use Emotional Awareness to be able to Interupt this repression and become present within yourself.
and the underlying message is always that you have the choice and only You can do/be this emotional awareness.
The easiest most efficeient and most effective way to be present inside of this disorder is to use your breath and
ask yourself a question....whenever you become aware that you are going to have an outbursst, start complaining,
constantly judging, letting your mind build huge amts of drama with resentment or revenge, STOP when your awareness brings this to your attention and, stay or be with your breath for a moment, and then ask yourself,
"what am I feeling right now" or some question that will help you gain insight into these emotions....
in this way you have interupted the repression, and you have stayed present, and given yourself the oppty to
experience a feeling instead of experiencing a repression activity.
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Edited by - Monte on 11/22/2004 20:47:44 |
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Monte
USA
125 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 20:37:06
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so I going to rant a little. "you" do not need another book...pert, myss, chopra, tolle, sarno, ect. they all same
the same thing in their own way. continually searching for another book is avoiding what you Really need to do to heal from this disorder. it is just another way to deny your feelings. yes, it appears on the surface that you are
trying to, attempting to take action to heal, but in truth, you now know everything about this disorder that you need to know to heal. sarno has taught you all the basics, all the other books on energy medicine, emotions,
meditation, mindfulness tell you how to be present, balanced, and aware...
now you just have to do the inner work...this is where the tribal mindset is so powerful. it is easier to be apart of the tribe, even if it isn't working, than to take the step into the unkown of exploring and understanding your own feelings...no one else can do this, no therapist, book, pill, message forum can do this...only you.
that is the pure beauty of this disorder...once you understand it, know the basics of it...it is then all up to you to do the healing...yes, it would be great if I could tell you to do this and that, and then this and then you will feel this and then that and whamo, you are cured....since we are dealing with, emotions, and ego, and behavior and faith and self-esteem this is a very personal disorder and the way you heal is personal...
no one or thing is ever going to have the answer/solution/cure for this disorder that is going to work for those still in the conventional medical treatment tribal mindset. you can not be Cured from this disorder...you can only heal from it...and that in itself implies only "you" can do it. know one or thing can do it for you or do you.
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Monte
USA
125 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 20:38:48
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it can be helpful to review how some of the experts in their respective fields go about explaining how to "feel"
your emotions...
Caroline Myss, from Anatomy of Spirit...
"Healing and curing are not the same thing. A "cure" occurs when one has successfully abated or controlled the physical progression of an illness. Curing a physical illness, however, does not neccessrily mean that the emotional and psychological stresses that were a part of the illness were also alleviated. In this case it is highly possible, and often probable, that an illness will recur. The process of curing is passive, that is, the pateint is inclined to give his or her authority over to the physician and prescribed treatment instead of actively challenging the illness and reclaiming health. Healing on the other hand is an active and internal process that includes investigating one's attitudes, memories and beliefs with the desire to release all negative patterns that prevent one's full emotional and spiritual recovery.
**Develope a practice of introspection, and work to become conscious of what you believe and why.
**Keep an open mind, and learn to become aware when your mind is "shutting down".
**Recognize defensiveness as an attempt to keep new insights from entering your mental field.
**Work toward releasing any thoughts that promote self-pity or anger, or that blame another person for anything that has happened to you.
**Practice detachment. Make decisions based upon the sisest assessment you can in the immediate moment, rather than working to create a specific outcome.
**Refrain from all judgments.
**Learn to recognize when you are being influenced by a fear pattern. Immediately detach from that fear by observing its influence on your mind and emotions; then make choices that weaken the influence of those fears.
**Act on your inner guidance and give up your need for "proof" that your inner guidance is authentic. The more you ask for proof, the less likely you are to receive any.
**Keep all your attention in the present moment-refrain from living in the past or worry about the future. Learn to trust what you cannot see far more than what you can see.
"There is nothing easy about becoming conscious. My own life was much easier before I knew about the deeper meaning of choice, the power of choice that accompanies taking responsibility.Abdicating responsibility to an outside source can seem, at least for the moment so much easier. Once you know better, however, you can't get away with kidding yourself for long.
My heart goes out to people who are working hard to release their negative attitudes and painful memories. "Just tell me how, and I'll do it," they say to me. We are forever looking for the easy mediitation, the easy exercise, that will lift us out of the fog, but consciousness doesn't work that way. Ironically, there is a simple way out, only it's not easy. Just let go. Let go of how you thought your life should be, and embrace the life that is trying to work its way into your consciousness." Pages 47, 48, 255, 256, 257.
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Monte
USA
125 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 20:39:56
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The Heart of The Soul, by Gary Zukav
"Emotional Pain is Physical Pain. Yor body hurts, sometimes intensely. As you become aware of what you are feeling, you become aware of this pain when it comes. Do not worry about what emotions you are feeling. Direct your attention to what your body feels. Its experiences are the emotions you are looking for.
Scan the locations in your energy system. Notice what your body is experiencing and where....
When you direct your attention elswhere, you miss your emotions. Your see yourself in the past or in the future. You think about what you could have don, or what you will do. You dwell on what others did, or will do. You think about how things will be or could be.
Each thought is accompanied by emotions, but if you are not willing to examine what your body is experiencing in the moment, you will divert yourself again and again into more and more thoughts, ideas, plans, calculations, and judgments. Entire domains of intellectual activity have been created in order to divert the attention of those who created them from emotions they do not wish to feel...
The second way to avoid painful emotions is to escape into an activity. It is easier to create a business, become an honor studen or a varsity player than it is to experience the intense physical pain of a painful emotion. It is easier to become the best salesperson in the company, the hardes worker, or the most brillant problem solver. ..
Any acitivity can---includidng eating, shopping, drinking, and sex. Climbing ladders--social, economic, or military---diverts attention from painful emotions.
When an acitivity is used to divert attention from painful emotions, it is compulsive...
The first step in uncovering the origin of a compulsion is the hardest. To uncover the origin of a compulsion, you must stop doing what is compulsive and experience what you feel when you do. If you flee back into an activity or your thoughts, be gentle with yourself. Your wholeness is greater than you can imagine. It is worth the effort and the time required to uncover it. If the intensity of a painful emotion is more than you can endure without striking out at another person, complaining of an injustice, blaming someone or yourself, or withdrawing or dominating, try to experience it for one minute without distracting yourself.
The next time the pain of rage, or of feeling inferior, feeling superior, jealousy, vengefulness, or greed comes, try to experience it without distraction for two minutes. Learn hwo to swim before you jump into the deep water. The waters of your soul are very deep.
If you are not aware of what you are feeling in your body and what your are thinking, you are not aware of the present moment. You have no power...Most importan, you are unaware of yourself. Becoming conscious of these things requires that you become aware of your emotions.
When you are not aware of your emotions, your attention is focused on the circumstances around you. The major element in your experience will remain invisible to you---the emotions that continually move through you. As long as you do not know what you are experiencing inside, you are asleep to your life, even though you may think that you are very much awake. Emotional awareness is necessary but not sufficient to becoming aware of the present moment. without emotional awareness, you cannot be aware of the present moment because the present moment contains your emotions....
Detachment allows you to remain aware of what you feel while the events of your life unfold. When you are not detached from your emotions, you cannot separate yourself from them and they possess you. You strike out, withdraw, or shout. You fester in resentment or laugh uncontrollably.
When you become aware of your emotions, you are in a position to change how the energy moving through your energy system is processed. Your emotions no longer seep you away. They inform you and provide you with important data. you cannot receive this information and be submerged in your emotions at the same time, you cannot become aware of what your body is feeling when you are angry, for example, and shout in anger at the same time. You must choose between being in the water and letting your emotions determine you words and actions, and standing on the bridge watching your anger as it moves painfully through you. When you are in the water, your anger is your master, and it controls what you do. When you stand on the bridge and experience your anger, no matter how painful the sensations in your body are, you are the master of your anger, and you contorl what you do. Each time you do this, your anger loses power over you and you gain power over it.
When you are aware of your emotions and what is occurring around you, you step into the present moment.
...When you feel angry, stop what you are doing, what you are saying, and what you are thinking and focus your attention on what you are feeling.
This will not be easy, but is is worth your effort. When you are in the grip of a powerful emotion such as anger, and you stop speaking and acting and start feeling, you channel the full force of that energy into your consciousness.
Choosing not to act on an angry impulse and to feel the pain that lies beneath it instead is very courageous.
Emotional awareness requires attention. Emotional awaeness is focusing on the experince of an emotion. It is one thing to have an emotiona while your attention is on something else. It is another, very differnt, thing to have an emotion while your attention is on the emotion..."
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Monte
USA
125 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 20:41:39
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The Power of Now, by Eckert Tolle
Mind, in the way I sue the word, is not just thought. It includes your emotions as well as all unconsious mental-emotional reactive patterns. Emotion arises at the place where mind and body meet. It is the body's reaction to our mind or you might say, a rerflection of your mind in the body. For example, an attack thought or a hostile thought will create a build up of energy in the body that we call anger. The body is getting ready to dight. The thought that you are being threatened, physically or psychologically, causes the body to contracft, and this is the physical side of what we call fear. Research has shown that strong emotions even cause changes in the biochemistry of the body. These biochemical changes represent the physical or material aspect of the emotion. Of course,you are not usually conscious of all your thought patterns, and it is often only through watching your emotions that you can bring them into awareness.
The more you are identified with your thinking, your likes and dislikes, judgments and interpretations, whcih is to say the less present you are as the watching consciousness, the stronger the emotional energy charge will be, whether you are aware of it or not. If you cannot feel your emotions, if you are cut off from them, you will eventually experience them on a purely physical level, as a physical problem or symptom. A geat deal has been writen about this in recent years, so we don't need to go into it here.
If you have difficulty feeling your emotions, start by focusing attention on the inner energy field of your body. Feel the body from within. this will also put you in touch with your emotions. Make it a habit to ask yourself: What's going on inside me at this moment? That question will point you in the right direction. But don't analyze just watch. focus your attention within. Feel the energy of the emotion. If there is no emotion present take your attention more deeply into the inner energy field of your body. It is the doorway into Being.
The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.
The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. the intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering and free of the egoic mind. Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable. The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to cover up the present moment with past and future... All individuals are suffering under this burden, but they also keep adding to it every moment whenever they ignore or deny that precious moment or reduce it to a means of getting to some future moment, which only exists in the mind, never in actuality.
If you no longer want to create pain for yourself and others, if you no longer want to add to the residue of past pain that still lives on in you , then don't create any more time, or at least no more than is necessary to deal with the practical aspects of your life...What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is? what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, whcih is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say "yes" to life and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you...Accept then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transorm your whole life.
Intense presence is needed when certain situations trigger a reaction with a strong emotional charge, such as when your self image is threatened, a challenge comes into your life that triggers fear, things go wrong or an emotional emplex from the past is broguht up. In those instacnces, the tendency is for you to become "unconscious" the reaction or emotion takes you over you "become" it. you act is out. you justify, make wrong, attack, defend...except that is isn't you, it's the reactive pattern, the mind in its habitual survival mode.
Identification with the mind gives it more energy; observation of the mind withdraws energy from it. Identification with th emind creates more time; observation of the mind opens up the dimension of th etimeless. The energy that is withdrawn from the mind turns into presence. Once you can feel what it means to be present, it becomes much easier to simply choose to step out of th etime dimension...
the key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body to feel it at all times. This will rapidly deepen and transorm your life. The more consciousness you direct into the inner body, the higher its vibrationalfrequency becomes, much like a light that growns brighter as you turn up the dimmer. If you keep your attention in the body as much as possible, you will be anchored in the Now. You won't lose yourself in the external world, and you won't lose yourself in your mind. thoughts and emotions, fears and desires, may still be there to some extent, but they won't take you over...
Unless you stay pressent and inhabiting your body is always an essential aspect of it you will continue to be run by your mind. The script in your head that you learned a long time ago, the conditionaing of your mind, will dicate your thinking and your behavior. you may be free of it for brief interval, but rarelyu for long. this is especially true when something goes wrong or there is some loss or upset. Your conditioned reaction will then be involuntary, automatic and predictable, fueled by the one basic emotion that underlies the mind identified state of consciousness: fear.
So when such challenges come, as they always do, make it a habit to go within at once and focus as much as you can on the inner energy field of your body. this need not take long, just a few seconds. but you need to do it the moment that the challenge presents itself. Any delay will allow a conditionaed mental-emotional reaction to arise and take you over. when you focus within and feel the inner body, you immediately become still and present as you are withdrawing consciousness from the mind. If a response is required in that situation, it will come up from this deeper level. Just as the sun is infinitely more intelligence in Being than in your mind.
As long as you are in conscious contact with your inner body, you are like a tree that is deeply rooted in the earth, or a building with a deep and solid foundation. The latter analogy is used by Jesus in the generally misunderstood parable of the two men who build a house. One man builds it on the sand, without a foundation and when the storms and floods come the house is swept away. the other man digs deep until he reached the rock then builds his house, which is not swept away by the floods."
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Monte
USA
125 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 20:42:48
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Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert
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whereas Chopra brought a Harvard educated medical backgound combined with his Indian Spiritualism,
and Myss brings a Spiritualism/Reliogion education combined with her Inutitive abilities,
Pert brings us a truly Scientific/Laboratory education/experience that has evolved in Holistic health experiences.
"The tendency to ignore our emotions is oldthink, a remnant of th still-reighing paradigm that keeps us focused on the material level of health, the physicality of it. but the emotions are a key element in self-care becasue they allow us to enter into the bodymind's conversation. By getting in touch with our emotions, both by listening to them and by directing them through the psychosomatic network, we gain access to the healing wisdom that is everyone's natural biological right.
And how do we do this? first by acknowledging and claiming all our feelings, not just the so called positive ones. Anger, grief, fear these emotional experiences are not negative in themselves; in fact they are vital for our survival. ...It's only when these feelings are denied, so that they cannot be easily and rapidely processed through the system and released, that the situation becomes toxic...And the more we deny them, the greater the ultimate toxicity, which often takes the form of an explosive release of pent up emotion. So my advice is to express all of your feelings, regardless of whether you think they are acceptable, and then let them go. Buddhists understand this when they talk about nongrasping, or nonattachment to experience. By letting all emotions have their natural release, the bad ones are transormed to good ones.
The goal is to keep informaation flowing, feedback systems working and natural balance maintained, all of which we can help to achieve by a conscioius decision to enter into the bodymind's conversation. I'd like to explore a number of different ways of using awareness and intention to tap into the psychosomatic network in order to prevent disease and maximize health.
One: Becoming Conscious. Most lifestyle choices involve things we do or don't do. but I'd like to consider a choice that has more to do with being than doing--after all, we are human beings, not human doings--and this is the decision to become more conscious. Full consciousness must invovle awareness of not just mental but emotional and even basic physical experiences as well. The more conscious we are, the more we can "listen in" on the conversation going on at autonomic or subconscious levels of the bodymind, where basic funtions such as breathing, digestion, immunity, pain control and blood flow are carried out. only then can we enter into that conversation using our awaeness to enhance the effectiveness of the autonomic system, where health and disease are being determined minute by minute.
Two: Accessing the Psychosomatic Network...In order to function at a level that allows it to perform the kind of conscious intervention into the bodymind conversation that I am talking about, the frontal cortex needs adequate nourishment...Only when there is enough blood flow to bring plentiful supplies of glucose to the brain will the neurons and glial cells be able to carry on their functions and ensure full consciousness.
Blood flow is closely regulated by emotional peptides, which signal receptors on blood vessel walls to constrict or dilate, and so influence the amount and velocity of blood flowing through them from moment to moment. However, if our emotions are blocked due to denial, repression, or trauma, then blood flow can become chronically constricted, depriving the frontal cortex, as wwell as other organs, of vital nourishment...By learning to bring your awaeness to past experiences and conditioning---memories stored in the very receptors of your cells--you can release yourself from these blocks, this "stuckness" but if the blockages are of very long standing, you may need help in achieving such awareness, help that may come in many different forms. I would include among them psychological counseling, hypnotherapy, touch therapies, and meditation and prayer. Any or all of these can teach you to respond to what is actuallly occurring in the present, which is in large part what consciousness is all about.
Reducing Stress; In my experience, the most effective method for reducing stress is meditation, becasue it allow us, even without conscious awareness, to release emotions that are stuck in modes that subvert a healthy mind-body flow of biochemicals....(She likes TM--transcendental meditation best....Another form of meditation that is gainning popularity is "mindfulness" as introduced by psychologist/researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn..By breathing consciously in this way, you enter the mind-body conversation without judgments or opinions, releasing peptide messenger molecules from the hindbrain to regulate breathing while unifying all systems. Studies have shown that mindfulness meditation can dramatically reduce pain for people who live with chronic pain...
A simpler, less formal practice than meditation, but equally effective at stress-reduction is the habit of self-honesty. By self-honesty, I mean being true to yourself, keeping your word to others as well as to yourself, living in a state of persoanl integrity. There is a profound physiological reason why honesty is stress-reducing. We have seen how the emotions bring the whole body into a single purpose, integrating systems and coordinating mental processes and biology to create behavior.
...What causes people to consume legal and illegal drugs--one of the central prolems in our society, I believe--is emotions that are unhealed, cut off, not processed and integrated or released. Trauma and stress continually lodged at the level of the receptor block nerve pathways and interrupt the smooth flow of information chemicals, a physiological condition we experience as stuck or unhealed emotions: chronic sadness, fear, frustration, anger. Reaching for that drink or cigarette or joint is usually precipitated by some disturbing and unacceptable feeling that we don't know how to deal with and so we git rid of it in ways we know "work". The frustrated cigarette smoker, the depressed alcohol drinker, the hyper marijuana smoker--what if we stopped and checked in with our feelings to ask ourselves what emotions are present before using an artifical substance to alter our mood? If we can bring this level of awareness to our habitual use of substances, then we have a chance, a possibioity, of making another choice. By continually ignoring feelings, we have none.
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Monte
USA
125 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2004 : 20:44:09
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Belleruth Naparstek, Staying Well With Guided Imagery
Belleruth has been a psychologist for over 28 years and is a true pioneer and genius in the work of imagery.
Initiially most people make the mistake of thinking that imagery means something strictly visual. When I refer to imagery, I'm talking about any perception that comes through any of the senses. That means sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feel. So, for instance, recalling the smell and feel of the air at the start of the first winter snowfall is an image. Remembering the sound and timbre of Daddy's smiling voice, saying he is proud of you is an image. And recalling the internal bristle of energy in your body when you realize you are about to triumph at something you've been striving for--that it's going to happen--is also an image.
These sensory images are the true language of the body, the only language it understands immediately and without question. To the body, these images can be almost as real as actual events. This is the first operating principle of imagery: Our bodies don't discriminate between sensory images in the mind and what we call reality.
With a sensory image, echoes of the mood, emotions, physiological state, and blood chemistry associated with the original event reverberate in the body...
In the altered state, the heart opens wide and any emotion intensifies. Generally, people who aren't familiar with their feelings might have trouble identifying the subtler-variations in their emotions for a while.
Practice changes that. The more we experience imagery, the more conversive we become with our feelings. Our emotions become far more available to us, both in the normal, waking state and in subsequent imagery experiences. And the more our emotions are available to us, the more vivid and powerful our imagery gets. And that's another major benefit: Becoming more in tune with our feelings is good for our mental health and emotional resiliency, even when it initially feels uncomfortable...
Psychological imagery is imagery that shifts our perception of ourselves. It can help us deal with long-standing psychological dilemmas or some temporary emotional turtmoil. In reality, it is inseparable from body-focused imagery, because emotions are physical occurrences to the body. Hope, anger, love, and despair are biochemical events. And psychotherapists are more and more coming to understand that core psychological struggles appear to have actual locations in the body. Someone who feels responsible for everyone and everything might indeed have the weight of the world on very tight, aching shoulders; someone whose psyche is spring-loaded for yet another betrayal may indeed be "stabbed in the back" by chronic lower back pain; and a heartache may indeed look and feel exactly like a hear ache.
Because the mind isn't really distinct from the body, psychological imagery might look a lot like physiological imagery, or any of the other kinds I've described in this chapter...
People will often engage in exhausting, frenetic activity, just to try and avoid the pain. But it doesn't help, because it only wears them down and the feelings don't go away anyway. What they need to do is to stop running and start feeling. Imagery can help take them through their feelings instead of around them....
Because imagery is so effective at shifting mood, cognition, and body sensation. it is a wonderful tool for fostering emotional resiliency and maintaining mental health. The mind and body are not separate entities. In fact, to even claim that they are intimately connected is misleading, because such a statement implies that they are separate. In fact, they are really one and the same thing. So imagery that is specifically geared to help with physical symptoms and body ailments will automatically help with mood and emotions at the same time. All of the imagery in this book, then, by definition, is imagery for emotional resiliency. Each and every exercise can boost self-esteem, foster a relaxed appreciation of self and others, and provide a kind of protective "emotional cushion" that slows down the psychic wear and tear of daily living...
Emotionally we can be foar more resilient if we can allow ourselves to experience our feelings without criticism or blame. To fully know who we are, we need to experience what we feel. To have all our energy available to us, we need to experience what we feel. And we need to experience what we feel in order to properly protect ourselves.
Criticism and blame tend to interfere with this process of experiencing our feelings. We are all filled with "shoulds" and "should nots" about our emotions. We shouldn't feel angry, frightened, jealous, or spiteful. Much as we might try, we can't control or deny our feelings---our behavior, yes, but our feelings, no. They are what they are. And the price of denying them--at least overtime--is a sense of emptiness, anxiety,, or depression, or all three. We cannot authentically change our feelings into something more "acceptable" to us until we first acknowledge what they are and own them. Because a real paradox operates here: The more we disown, deny, and hold ourselves apart from our feelings, the more stubbornly stuck they stay to us. And the more we can soften around them, accept them, and allow them to just be, the more likely they are to flow on out of us, of their own accord, exactly the way they were meant to do. Denying feelings is the same as lying to ourselves. At some level, our true self knows the truth, and so we are split off from ourselves. When we disconnect from the truth of ourselves, we are cutting ourselves off from our very life force, and we are in fact weaker, less energized, and less focused than we could be. In fact, we could define depression as the absence of a connection to our feelings, a blckage between ourselves and our emotions...So, too, a full blown anxiety attack is initially generated, psychodynamically speaking, by the rumblings of suppressed feelings that just don't want to stay down. Rather than let them come up, which feels wring or dangerous in some way, the psyche sits on them harder. The tension from this inner battle finally erupts as a sudden, intense experience of anxiety. And, as the thousands of people who suffer from severe anxiety or phobias know all too well, over time anxiety can take on a life of its own and become hard to extingquish. But in the beginning, it is simply the inner self saying, No more denying these feelings. So at the psyches's simplest level, we can say that both depression and anxiety are a function of denying feelings. It's a learned behavior, not a natural one, and it usually comes from having been taught negative judgments about them.
Imagery can help us accept, acknowledge, and release our feelings. Even the most rigidly defended psyche will eventually soften and relent with repeated listening to imagery....In any case, I want to focus on how depression is experienced, because I think that will be the most useful perspective for our purposes. And mostly, depression is experienced as the absence of feelings. Very depressed people come by thier characteristicallly flat, deadened facial appearance and immobilizing fatigue honestly enough--quite simply, there is a barrier between them and their feelings. Feelings are energy. When feelings can't be accessed, generic energy is blocked as well. Imagery can help release some of that trapped energy...
Psychologically and energetically speaking, we are compartmentalizing the pain: trying to wall it off, hold it away from us, and disown it, in an attempt to get away from it. But we can'tget away from it, and this response only intensifies pain. In psychologically terms, the same general idea holds true. We can't get past our feelings or our experiences until we can own them, acknowledge them, and accept them. Angain the paradox; When we quit fighting with our feelings, we can transcend them. And so with pain...
HOW DOES IT WORK? HOW COULD IMAGES IN THE MIND ACTUALLY CHANGE THE PHYSICAL BODY?
The new field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) demontrates that images and thoughts with their accompanying mood states are actually accompanied by alterations in the biochemistry of the body. Images apppear to activate the nervous system, sending neurohormones (chemical messengers) through the bloodstream to specific cells, where they trigger healing activity. In a sense, the new discoveries reguire a profound shift in our thinking about ourselves. Because what all of this really means is that the mind is not limitted to the brain; the mind is part and parcel of the whole body.
On a less biochemical note, you could say that imagery works because the body doesn't althogether distinguish between images and real events, especially if the images are highly sensory and evocative. And in a good, strong altered state (a trance or reverie state) the images can be quite potent and real to the body. So when we access this altered state, and in it create healing sensory images, the body to some degree believes they are real events, happening both inside and outside of it."
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Toronto
25 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2004 : 08:20:33
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Great post Monte!!! It has a lots and lots of useful information.
I recommend to read it. |
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diverlarry
USA
44 Posts |
Posted - 11/30/2004 : 06:53:58
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A very good post. I got a lot out of it. One of the most important items you mentioned was "you" do not need another book". I see people writing and asking if this or that book is good etc. Dr Sarno's books are all you need. The other's basically just repeat what he says.
If you don't understand and put to work what you read in Dr Sarno's book the other books will not help. It easy to read his books but much more difficult to do the work. It has worked for me. |
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menvert
Australia
133 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 05:51:15
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Some very interesting insights there into humanity .
I at least read half of it for now :) , it is kind of nice to read some activities described which I have already begun myself spontaneously... thanks to the(often vague) . directions of Sarno. And yes, I wholeheartedly agree. We do not really need to search for more books & more data externally, when it is simply holding us back from actually beginning and progressing along the healing path.
Just stopping in the moment and observing is a wonderful thing. |
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"How do you actually Feel emotions?"
