Feel it in your body

[SuperStar]

I've been playing with this new idea recently, and it seems like the key to real emotional mastery. It's that thinking intellectually, analyzing your emotions will never bring you full understanding and peace with them. You must go underneath the rational thinking and FEEL them. How do you do that? You concentrate on your physical body whenever you have an emotional reaction - you ask yourself where in your body you feel it. Is it in your heart area? Your stomach tightening up? Butterflies? Lump in the throat? Face scrunching up? etc. This will increase your sensitivity to those emotions so that you *know* when an emotion is controlling (or wanting to control) you, and you will then have the choice to let it control you or not. That is the path to emotional mastery.

Anyone agree/disagree/have any more insights about this?

[JJH]

You are so right SuperStar.

If you want to look into this in more depth (and haven't already), read Eckhart Tolle and learn about EFT. Great sources for emotional mastery.

[Shamou]

Originally Posted by JJH

You are so right SuperStar.

If you want to look into this in more depth (and haven't already), read Eckhart Tolle and learn about EFT. Great sources for emotional mastery.

Here is a great quote by Eckhart Tolle...

“The moment that judgment stops, through acceptance of what is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace. First you stop judging yourself; then you stop judging your partner.

The greatest catalyst for change in a relationship is complete acceptance of your partner as he or she is, without needing to judge or change them in any way”.

.

[Gary]

Being present with your emotions very much part of emotional mastery, but not all of it.

This process of going into complete feeling of emotions is a powerful process.

However my experience is that it is not one for beginners. In order to go completely into the emotion you must suspend belief in any of the thoughts you have while there. This is generally not a skill someone has unless they have practiced meditation for a while or learned to control their attention.

If someone intends to feel their emotions deeply, those emotions generally push stories and beliefs that align with the emotions. If a person begins to believe these stories, points of view, and interpretations, they will generate more of the same emotions from their beliefs this time. A person will no longer be in "presence" to as Tolle calls it. Instead they will be indulging in more of the same emotions that they are artificially creating. This can generate a downward spiral.

Being present with your emotions is a tremendous practice. However like all great techniques, there is a near enemy when misunderstood, or misused by someone that is not prepared.

[AidanMatthews216]

Originally Posted by SuperStar

I've been playing with this new idea recently, and it seems like the key to real emotional mastery. It's that thinking intellectually, analyzing your emotions will never bring you full understanding and peace with them. You must go underneath the rational thinking and FEEL them. How do you do that? You concentrate on your physical body whenever you have an emotional reaction - you ask yourself where in your body you feel it. Is it in your heart area? Your stomach tightening up? Butterflies? Lump in the throat? Face scrunching up? etc. This will increase your sensitivity to those emotions so that you *know* when an emotion is controlling (or wanting to control) you, and you will then have the choice to let it control you or not. That is the path to emotional mastery.

Anyone agree/disagree/have any more insights about this?

Understanding exactly what emotions you're feeling and why is only part of it. Discovering how to eliminate or overcome those emotions is much more difficult.

But I definitely agree that emotions can be felt in a very physical way. I can't think of any more physical emotion than guilt--it's so unpleasant it's almost painful. And of course love...

[SuperStar]

Originally Posted by JJH

You are so right SuperStar.

If you want to look into this in more depth (and haven't already), read Eckhart Tolle and learn about EFT. Great sources for emotional mastery.

Hehe, cool. I have "The Power of Now" waiting to be read on my bookshelf and the EFT introductory PDF waiting to be read on my desktop. Guess I'm going in the right directions.

Originally Posted by Gary

Being present with your emotions very much part of emotional mastery, but not all of it.

This process of going into complete feeling of emotions is a powerful process.

However my experience is that it is not one for beginners. In order to go completely into the emotion you must suspend belief in any of the thoughts you have while there. This is generally not a skill someone has unless they have practiced meditation for a while or learned to control their attention.

If someone intends to feel their emotions deeply, those emotions generally push stories and beliefs that align with the emotions. If a person begins to believe these stories, points of view, and interpretations, they will generate more of the same emotions from their beliefs this time. A person will no longer be in "presence" to as Tolle calls it. Instead they will be indulging in more of the same emotions that they are artificially creating. This can generate a downward spiral.

Being present with your emotions is a tremendous practice. However like all great techniques, there is a near enemy when misunderstood, or misused by someone that is not prepared.

Thanks for your insights. The main impetus for this revelation for me came from my mindfulness meditation class. So I've been practicing that, learning to control my attention and awareness in general, as well as in several specific areas, including this one. You're echoing just what my teachers said - let the story play in the background and concentrate your attention on the body sensations of the emotion without "owning" or self-identifying with them.

Originally Posted by AidanMatthews216

Understanding exactly what emotions you're feeling and why is only part of it. Discovering how to eliminate or overcome those emotions is much more difficult.

But I definitely agree that emotions can be felt in a very physical way. I can't think of any more physical emotion than guilt--it's so unpleasant it's almost painful. And of course love...

One thing my meditation teachers emphasized is that the goal of this is never to "eliminate or overcome" any emotions - that will only lead to denial and repression, the opposite of acceptance and awareness.

[AidanMatthews216]

Originally Posted by SuperStar

One thing my meditation teachers emphasized is that the goal of this is never to "eliminate or overcome" any emotions - that will only lead to denial and repression, the opposite of acceptance and awareness.

Sure. To clarify, I mean you should also either change/remove what causes the emotion if it doesn't help you, or learn how not to act on the emotion. Trying to suppress emotions which just make them manifest less directly.

[Mark Lapierre]

Originally Posted by SuperStar

...thinking intellectually, analyzing your emotions will never bring you full understanding and peace with them.

I'm a strong proponent of using the appropriate tool for a specific job. As far as emotions are concerned, intellectual analysis is a useful tool for conceptualising emotions in a communicable fashion, can be used to alter emotions, but is completely unnecessary for the experience of the emotion, and yes, when experiencing an emotion unfiltered, that emotion can be "understood" without needing to involve rational thought.

But as Gary says, emotions can be misinterpreted so there is danger in a false belief that one's emotional understanding is any more or less valid than intellectual understanding. It all depends on what you're trying to understand.

In terms of emotional mastery, someone with very little understanding of their emotions who attempts to immerse themselves is as likely to spiral out of control as to improve. In that case intellectual understanding and guidance can be useful in re-associating certain stimulus with positive instead of negative emotion, such as through the use of affirmations, or NLP, or CBT.

[Liara Covert]

I agree with Mark's points. Nothing truly compares with being brave and learning to accurately interpret your own emotional life experience. This can come with patience, the passage of time and a variety of resources, if you so choose. For anyone who's interested, Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ is a worthwhile book written by Daniel Goleman.

[Matthew Shea]

I think that one very useful tool in mastering your emotions is simple patience. Having the patience to think things through, let your mind do it's work and wait for it to arrive at the "right" response is the key to avoiding rash decisions and for understanding the big picture behind the situation that created the emotion in the first place.

Check out this smart-kit.com article for the wisdom behind the expression "sleep on it." This is why I say to wait for your brain to arrive at the right conclusion, rather than forcing a response that might not be right for the situation.

[Alchemiss]

I think you are definitely onto something with the idea of feeling an emotion or state in your body. I had a bodywork session recently on patience (oddly enough considering the previous post) and my practitioner said, "Replace the concept of patience with the feeling of patience in your body." I've been using this in various situations ever since!

[Matthew Shea]

LOL. I'm not so sure the timing of our posts was purely conincidental.

[Alchemiss]

I don't actually believe in coincidence. Synchronicity? Yes.

[Matthew Shea]

That's just my point.

Everything for a reason (even if we never figure out what that reason is).

[betlamed]

Oh yes - it's an advice I read in buddhist texts, recently. I'm using it with lots of things - like my hayfever, for instance. When I feel that urge to sneeze, instead of fighting the impuls and generating negative emotions, I just accept it. Sometimes when I do this, it's not necessary to sneeze, the urge just drifts away.

[AdamUK]

I think this might be what psychotherapy calls focusing and connecting with your felt sense? im familiar and agree with you.

When dealing with suppressed pain/anxiety I found connecting can bring a deeper understanding of the underlying problem, then accepting what is changes the emotion. I feel like i live always connected now and i cant remember before when i did'nt.

[MartialDev]

IMHO you are on the right track. When the body speaks, it never lies.

[Mark Lapierre]

The body might not lie, but our misinterpretation can easily turn the body's truths into lies.

Consider a woman who doesn't know she's pregnant until she goes into labour. When I first heard that I thought it was a myth, but then I met someone who experienced it.

All the more reason to pay attention to one's body, so that when it does speak the truth, we hear it accurately.

[Enlightenment]

Actually, Deepak Chopra teaches that method of trying to identify the place in your body in which you feel the pain. He suggests putting your hand on the place, whether it be your head, your heart, or your stomach and saying simply 'It hurts here' thereby acknowledging the pain associated with the feeling. I suppose it would work for positive feelings also, wouldn't it?

[Joe826]

Nice thread everyone. This is something I've been experimenting with as of late and there's a lot of truth to it. So often we compound the natural physical sensation of an emotion with our long, drawn out backwards rationalizations. Emotions are natural, good and for our protection, it's our mind that does the damage.

Tolle has some great stuff on this.