Learn
to feel what your body and your soul tell you, and use your feelings to improve
your health rather than destroy it
LEARNING TO FEEL
By Walter Last
Feelings are the builder of the body, the glue that holds body and soul
together. Tender feelings make us open and vulnerable. In order not to get
hurt, we prefer to close up and not to feel. This has the added advantage of
making us stronger in our career, because we do not need to take our feelings or
the feelings of others into consideration.
Each time we suppress a feeling or do not express it in a suitable way,
the generated energy solidifies into muscle tensions. Eventually, this leads to
widespread muscle armoring, a permanent state of muscle contractions. This
closes off the circulation of blood, lymph, bio-energy and, equally important,
the flow of feeling energies.
Once we are in an armored condition, we simply cannot feel any more
even when we want to. This applies especially to the tender feelings in the
heart and all over the body. This is a great loss. Our conscious control is
then out of touch with the body, with its needs, its wisdom and with the
pleasure it could give us.
We are equally out of touch with the requirements of others, with the
forces of nature and with our higher guidance. Everything is wrong if we are
out of touch with ourselves and with everyone and everything else, and we have
to rely exclusively on our ego-controlled mind. In order to heal our emotions
we need a four-fold approach.
1. We need to 'let go' - release the accumulated negative emotions and
associated tension.
2. We need to become aware again how we feel and express our emotions
appropriately.
3. We need to learn feeling good about ourselves as well as others and
generate positive feelings.
4. We need to live in our daily lives what we have learned in our
exercises.
In addition, see also the article on Mind
Tools.
LETTING
GO
Feelings which we have not expressed and often not allowed ourselves
even to feel have accumulated within us in the form of repressed emotions. They
choke our emotional body in the same way as accumulated metabolic residues
obstruct our physical body. In our relationships and social interactions we
react with emotions mainly to reactivated hurts within us and only to a lesser
degree with true feeling to the actual situation itself. This causes endless
frustration, misunderstandings and disappointments in our daily lives.
In order to free ourselves of these emotional obstructions from the
past, we need 'emotional cleansing periods' - times and situations in which we
feel safe enough to release and express our suppressed emotions. This will
already partly be achieved and made easier as a result of bio-energetic exercises,
deep muscle massage and other methods to relax our muscle armoring. In
addition, there are several release techniques to induce emotional catharsis.
Forgiveness
The key and cornerstone of emotional healing is forgiveness. As long as
we cannot unconditionally forgive, ourselves as well all others, we remain
trapped in past negative emotions. This prevents us from fully loving ourselves
as well as all others.
A good way to do this is by writing a list of everyone that you feel
has hurt you in the past or whom you may have hurt. Recall especially your
relationships with each one of your parents, with your siblings, other
relatives and partners. Think of incidents that may have caused anger,
resentment, disappointment, sadness, fear or insecurity.
Then mentally go through each incidence and feel into yourself to see
if there is still any trace of that old hurt feeling within you. If there is,
then go more deeply into it, try to reach the bottom
of it. Examine that hurt feeling from all sides. It may then just evaporate so
that you cannot find it anymore. However, if there is still some or even a lot
remaining, then you just make a mental decision to free yourself of this
ballast. Do some deep breathing, and with each exhalation you imagine blowing
it into a balloon. When you have transferred all the hurt into the balloon,
close it up and let it float off into the blue sky for the universe to take
care of.
Now you imagine being in the presence of the one that had hurt you and
you formally and lovingly forgive this person. A very important person to
forgive in this way is you. Forgive yourself for all the distress and hurt that
you caused other people. If you are not quite ready to forgive everyone unconditionally,
then come back to this step after you have worked some more on your belief
systems and adopted a spiritual philosophy of life. Basically, you need to
realize that you are not doing a favor to others by forgiving them, but to
yourself by freeing yourself from destructive emotional toxins.
This is not different to cleaning your biological body of chemical
toxins. An alternative possibility is to write a letter to everyone against
whom you still feel a residual resentment and therefore, are not able to fully
forgive. Write down in detail what exactly was it the other one did and how it
affected you. Then formally forgive and express your love and appreciation.
Finally you may either give or mail this letter to the recipient or you may
just burn it and hand it over to the universe.
Direct
Release
A simple and efficient way of emotional cleansing is possible in a
secure relationship with an understanding and co-operating partner. When we
feel angry, sad, or in any way upset, we can just tell our partner that there
is something coming up which we want to release and then let go.
It is often necessary to exaggerate our expressions in order to get to
the old emotions at the bottom of our feelings. Therefore, when you are angry
during an intentional release, show that you are really angry, throw yourself
on the bed or the floor, kick and punch a cushion, pillow or mattress, wring a
towel, scream, shout or cry. Similarly with hatred, sadness, grief or any kind
of frustration, bring it out as forcefully as you can. Your partner can help to
deepen the feeling, telling you to get into it, to hit harder, cry louder.
Even in more restricted situations with other people, try to experience
and express your immediate feelings in an appropriate way. When you are angry,
say so and possibly hit with the fist on the table, when you have tender
feelings, acknowledge them with a loving smile and, if appropriate, with a
loving touch.
Re-enactment
In many instances, however, an understanding partner is not available
for immediate release or the situation is inappropriate. Then it is best to
re-enact a recent hurtful or otherwise frustrating experience as long as it is
still fresh in the memory and the feelings are easily aroused.
Do this at a convenient time in the privacy of your bedroom or even in
a car parked with closed windows beside a busy highway. Recall the details of
the scene and especially your feelings. Bring out these feelings as much as you
are able to. Suddenly, a similar situation from the past may pop into your mind,
when you felt hurt in the same way yet did not react to it. Then relive and
exaggerate the memories of this past experience in order to get to the old
emotion behind your present feeling.
Learn to do this quite habitually. Whenever you encounter an emotional
situation to which you cannot react in an appropriate way because of
inhibitions or conventions, then re-enact it and respond in an exaggerated
form. This does not only apply to anger and hurts, but also to gratitude and
tender feelings that you were unable to express at the time.
Overcoming Fear
Our disease provides us with a great
opportunity to learn not only how to care for our body, but also how to heal
our mind and emotions and to become truly spiritual. Some of the inner causes
of diseases are long-standing resentments, habitual worries, carrying inner
hurt or grief, guilt, repressed sexuality and a lack of inner joy and
spontaneity. All of these are expressions of fear in its many and varied forms
which we need to overcome by developing unselfish love.
One of the most basic forms of fear to overcome
is the fear of dying. This can best be done by seeing yourself as an immortal
soul, which temporarily inhabits and operates a biological body in order to
gain certain experiences. Numerous near-death experiences show that death or
shedding the biological form is generally a liberating and pleasant event for
the soul, and you may even have similar experiences during meditation.
Another aspect is a fear of pain and dependence
on others and especially in an impersonal and technological hospital setting.
However, by using a holistic program you remain in charge. There is hardly any
pain, and even if you are too old or start holistic therapy too late, you can
expect to spend your last days in a dignified way. Instead of trying to cling
to the body or being drugged semi-conscious, this should become the spiritual
high-point of your life, as you prepare in prayer and meditation for the
liberation of your soul.
After the shock revelation that you have a
serious disease you must gradually progress to hope, belief and faith - faith
in your spiritual guidance and that all will be well. You just do your best and the rest is in
God's hands: 'whatever will be will be', there is
nothing to be afraid about. This inner transformation can be achieved with the
indicated mind tools. Preferably develop a daily routine, which you start with
prayer, affirmations, relaxation and followed by guided imagery and meditation.
BECOMING AWARE
In
order to learn acting appropriately, we first need to become aware of our
feelings and emotions when they do arise. An easy way is to start with simple
body sensations before getting deeper into feeling our emotions.
Experiencing
Body Sensations
As another step towards becoming fully feeling beings, we try to
increase our awareness of body sensations. Whenever a sensation arises
naturally, be it warmth, cold, tingling, hunger, thirst, the tastes during
chewing or any other body sensation focus your attention on it. Soon the
sensation will intensify and gradually you will learn to pick up even faint
sensations that you normally would not have felt.
Unpleasant sensations will usually recede after a while and may
disappear completely. This is especially the case with hunger or pain. In order
not to feel hungry during a fast, tell your body beforehand that you are going
to cleanse to make it feel better and that it will get food afterwards. Then
ask for its fullest cooperation. If you forgot to do it beforehand, you can
still start explaining when you feel hungry. Usually the craving for food
disappears after this. It is similar with pain. By focusing your attention on
it, the pain can tell its message, the reason why it is there and then it can
withdraw helped by the muscle relaxation induced by your attention.
One of our most frequent sensations, important as well as pleasant, is
our food taste. Use the excellent opportunity provided at each meal to savor
the flavors that develop while placidly chewing. This not only increases our
awareness, but greatly helps our digestion as well. For healing a specific
problem also imagine that powerful nutrients in that food are now on its way to
the problem area to improve it.
At other times try to feel the various parts of your body as you are
moving, standing, sitting or lying-down. Gradually, you begin to sense which
muscles are tight and which ones relaxed, warmth may develop wherever you focus
your attention, yet you can also feel a refreshing coolness if you concentrate
on it. An easy way to do this is by mentally transferring the warmth of the
breath felt during exhalation or its coolness during inhalation to another part
of the body.
Slightly move an arm, a leg or your head and experience how each move
feels. Focus on the beating of your heart, feel the pulse at the sides of the
neck. Put a hand on the chest to feel the movements caused by the heartbeat and
the breathing activity. Shake your whole body or only one part and feel the
energy flow when you stop. Lightly touch various objects, your own skin and
that of others, tree bark, a stone, glass and feel the differences.
Slowly move your lightly cupped hands closely together but without
touching, then move them apart. Repeat
for a minute or two moving them slowly towards each other and away again.
Can you feel a resistance developing when the hands are brought closer
together, something like an air cushion? Do the same exercise after shaking
your arms and hands for a minute. Move the tips of your outstretched fingers
close to those of another person. Try with the same hands and also with
opposite hands. Can you feel an energy, a tingling?
Spontaneous Feelings
Focus your attention on any emotional feelings or moods that may arise
from time to time. When you are angry, do not just remain angry in your head. Scan
your body if you can feel it there. It may be in the form of an energy rushing
upward from the lower centers. Is it activating your arm muscles like wanting
to hit or your leg muscles like wanting to kick? Intensify any body feeling you
that you have. Hit the table or a wall with the padded side of the fist, kick a
cushion or into the air. How does it feel now?
If you are frustrated, where do you feel it, apart from your head? The same with all other emotional feelings - fear, anxiety, worry,
jealousy, hatred, longing, compassion, love, devotion. With tender
feelings focus your attention on the heart. Do you feel a stirring there,
something moving?
When you succeed to feel an emotion in the body, try to stay with it
and to intensify the sensation, even if it is anger or another negative
emotion. At the same time, try to express whatever you feel in a suitable way.
Certain muscles may want to move on their own accord; intensify the movement.
If you feel fine, try to sense that feeling of wellbeing all over the
body. If you are dissatisfied, unhappy or discontented for no specific reason,
relax and focus your attention on feeling dissatisfied, unhappy or
discontented. Feel it in the body, where is its center and what does it want to
tell you?
Some of our strongest feelings develop during sexual intercourse. Go
right into these feelings. Try to spread them out from the sex organs
into the whole pelvic area and all through the body. Radiate them out onto your
partner. Do not let yourself be distracted by any fantasies, stay with the
feelings. If, as a male, you want to delay ejaculation, move the center of the
orgasmic feelings into your heart and concentrate your attention there.
SENTIC EXERCISES
Manfred Clynes (SENTICS, Anchor
Press/Doubleday) developed a set of 'sentic
exercises'. Clynes found that the same emotion in
people all over the world produces the same kind of muscle response. He used
the pressure of a finger on a measuring device to record the intensity and
direction of the pressure generated by each emotion.
Even more important for us: this process can be reversed,
a certain finger pressure tends to generate its associated emotional feeling.
At the same time, this feeling is expressed through the pressure in a way that
is satisfying for the body. You may press with one or more fingers or even with
the whole hand against the surface on which the fingers or hand rest.
Negative feelings are best generated and expressed with the fingers
pointing straight down to produce a kind of stabbing muscle response. Positive
feelings, on the other hand, are more effectively produced if the lightly
cupped hand rests on the surface and the pressure is mainly expressed with the
fingertips. Even both hands may be used simultaneously.
To conduct these exercises, keep the executing arm in a relaxed
position. If you sit on a chair, the jabbing pressure may be produced on the
seat of a second chair or even on your thigh. For the whole hand to rest on a
surface, you may use a table, your thigh, your other arm or your chest. Eyes
may be open or closed.
Pressure Characteristics
The
pressure patterns of the seven key emotions are as follows:
ANGER - A jabbing movement away from the body, like hitting out. The
duration is much less than a second and is accompanied by a sharp exhalation
and a corresponding sound. The gaze is slightly downward.
HATE
- The pressure is stronger than in anger, but develops more and is somewhat
longer sustained, it ends abruptly as in anger. The
direction is away from the body. The action occurs during exhalation.
GRIEF
- This may be expressed with the cupped hand. The finger pressure is straight
down and increases slowly for half a second. Then follows a period of passive
weakness and immobility during which the pressure gradually eases. The head may
be tilted forward and to the right (for right-handers). Breathing is slow and
shallow, pausing after the exhalation. The whole action lasts 3 - 5 seconds.
LOVE
- Pressure is gently towards the body, increasing and relaxing very slowly in a
deep, smooth movement. Exhale slowly with a sensual sound. The head remains
level.
SEX
- Push down and slightly away from the body, release quite quickly but finish
with a gentle pressure towards the body. Breathing is rapid, panting-like puffs
during exhalation; the head is slightly down. The action is longer than for
hate but shorter than for love.
JOY - A quick moderate pressure straight down, immediately followed by
an upward bounce with less finger pressure on the surface than before the
action, resulting in a floating feeling until the pressure gradually increases
again to normal. It is like jumping for joy and floating down. The action is
best performed during inhalation, head and gaze slightly raised.
REVERENCE - Very gently increasing pressure nearly vertical or slightly
away from the body. Very slow return to normal pressure in a smooth movement
without any body tensions. Breathing is extremely slow with pause after
inhalation. Head and gaze slightly up.
Sentic Cycles
In order to increase our ability to feel and express our emotions, it
is recommended to practice the described sentic
exercises for about 30 minutes daily. This will help to release the emotional
tension that has accumulated during a lifetime and enables us to respond in an
appropriately feeling way to present and future emotional challenges.
Preferably start with a non-emotional expression. While relaxed
repeatedly press straight down in a mechanical way like hitting a typewriter
key. Then express each one of the listed emotions approximately 30 times. The
emotion tends to build up gradually for several minutes and then reach a
plateau before easing off again. Follow exactly the order as listed, starting
with anger and finishing with reverence.
The emotional build-up is strongest, if there is a certain time
interval between individual actions. This interval is different for each
emotion. For anger it is 4.8 seconds, for hate 5.3, grief 8.2, love 7.4, sex
4.9, joy 5.2 and reverence 9.8 seconds. There may be timing tapes commercially
available, otherwise you may initially experiment with the timing and develop a
feeling for it.
Later on, when you feel that you are free of the desire to express
negative emotions or that you do not derive any more benefits from it, you may
just continue with those exercises that you like to experience. Sentic exercises may be combined with other feeling
exercises. Such exercises can show you that it is not necessary to be a victim
of unpleasant feelings. We do not need to wait for positive outside influences
to produce pleasant feelings within us. Instead, with continued practice you
can choose how you want to feel at any given moment, how you want to respond
emotionally in any situation.
COMING
ALIVE
When we are conscious only in the head without being permeated with
feelings, it is almost as if the body is not really alive. It is then
more like a machine, a mechanical device operated by the brain. Because this
has been the lifelong condition of most of us, we do not really know what we
are missing until the body gradually awakens, vibrating with life-giving
feelings and not just with pain.
We can even grow further, learning to choose our feelings, not just
during an exercise, but during our daily activities. In order to feel good, to
feel love or joy, we do not need to wait for the rare occasions when others or
circumstances temporarily ignite such uplifting feelings within us. We are not
our feelings and emotions, instead these are just energies that we can learn to
use and enjoy according to our needs and preferences.
The various exercises described in the following can gradually be
extended in a way that the generated feelings more and more become habits in
our daily lives instead of just isolated instances of feeling good at specific
times.
If you do not already feel alive and vibrating before starting a
feeling exercise, it is helpful to energize the body for a few minutes with
deep breathing and following shaking, especially of the arms and head. The use
of mirrors, music and dancing are three valuable tools to further enhance our
feeling capacity.
Mirror
Sit or stand in front of a big mirror and smile at yourself. Look
lovingly into your eyes and talk to your mirror image in a soft voice. You may
say something endearing, such as: "I see love shining out of your eyes, it
comes from your heart, your heart is filled with love, it
shines out of your eyes."
Repeat it over and over again, slowly, with all the feeling that you
are able to express. Pause, and just smile at yourself; smile with your eyes, a
gentle, loving smile. While continuing with the mirror exercise, you may also
use sentic hand pressure to increase the feeling in
your heart center. Also try how it feels to make passes with your hands around
your head and body, slowly moving downwards with palms facing the body.
Instead of addressing the mirror image as another person, as your Inner
Self, you may also use 'my' instead of 'your' during your endearments. Just
experiment to see what feels best.
When you have the opportunity, practice eye
contact and smiling at each other with a partner or friend. Take turns lovingly praising each other.
Music
Music is excellent for inducing feelings. For heart feelings, use soft
music with an uplifting, melting quality. This may accompany any of the other
feeling exercises. You may also use it during heart-feeling meditations while
being quiet or during repetitive activities. At other times select stirring or
uplifting music according to the feeling that you want to amplify.
Jazz may be useful for raising the energies, especially in the morning
and during shaking exercises. Some blues are also good for inducing tender
feelings. Rock music, on the other hand, is usually weakening to all muscle
systems and should be avoided. This applies also to any music that conveys
chaos and disharmony instead of harmony.
There is now a wide range of New Age music available. Most of it is
designed simply for relaxation with the inclusion of sounds of waves and
running brooks. Some is also suitable to generate an atmosphere of reverence
and general emotional uplifting. In most instances, however, it provides just a
pleasant, unobtrusive background for meditation and feeling exercises. It would
be excellent if a series of tapes could be obtained for inducing various defined
states of feeling.
Dance
Dancing is a moving
expression of our feelings. We may even dance without music if we want to
express a feeling. However, in order to generate feelings, it is preferable to
dance to suitable music. You do not need to move your legs when dancing; you
may dance with your head and body, but mainly with your arms, even while
sitting. Most expressive are the hands.
Dance vigorously to lively rhythms in the morning to stimulate the
energy flow. In the evening, as a prelude to meditation,
dance softly to uplifting melodies. Dance often, simply to feel and
express the joy of being alive. Try to express the various feelings through
dancing, such as anger, sadness, compassion, joy, love, ecstasy, and so forth.
For further information see Mind Tools and
Healing Social Relationships.