The Feelings Exercise: Embrace And Accept

This is The Feelings Exercise- a powerful practice for transformation. This is an updated recording, something more aligned with our weekly practice rooms. Please join us Live on Tuesday and Thursday to experience this practice in community. Use this recording to deepen your relationship during the week. You will need a pen and a notebook or a piece of paper. Or take notes in a device. Or simply show up as you are. We will be doing another 30 Day Challenge to celebrate the autumn equinox. I look forward to seeing what is possible when we allow our feelings to touch, move, and inspire. AML-Ryn

Transcript

The feelings exercise,

A guided inquiry into what you're really feeling and what it's asking of you.

So let's go ahead and jump right in.

The way that this is created is I'm going to go ahead and lead you through this exercise.

The invitation is to grab a piece of paper and a pen,

Or maybe even a pen in your notebook.

If neither of those work for you,

You can use a phone or another electronic device.

And if none of that works for you,

Fantastic.

I'm glad that you're here.

You're more than welcome to just participate.

So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to identify a situation.

And when I say situation,

I mean,

Look into your life,

Your everyday concerns.

And here's the question.

Please identify a challenging situation that seems to make you feel bad.

Looking into your everyday life,

What is a challenging situation that seems to make you feel bad?

Maybe it's a recurring thing.

Maybe it's a standard Oh,

Man,

This is always a problem.

Once you've identified that situation,

Go ahead and just write it down.

Now,

We're going to get curious about that feeling called bad.

So what I've seen over doing this exercise in the last two and a half months,

Is that bad is usually just a cover.

Maybe see it as a curtain.

So when we think about the challenging situation we just identified,

And we see the emotion bad,

Let's actually see it as a curtain.

And that potentially behind it are some additional feelings for us to get curious about.

So what I want you to do is go ahead and open that curtain and just take a look.

What other emotions are present when you look at this challenging situation?

Take a look and write down what you notice.

So now that we've identified a few more feelings behind this situation,

We're going to ask this question.

How do you usually deal with this situation?

What is your autopilot response?

Do you react?

Do you deflect?

Do you shut down?

What is your go to behavior in regards to this challenging situation and the way it makes you feel?

Just go ahead and notice how you normally or usually deal with it and write it down.

So now what I want you to do is have a look at those feelings that you wrote down.

And again,

If bad is the feeling you have,

Bad is fine.

We can work with bad.

But if you looked a little closer and noticed more,

See if one of them is kind of calling to you more than the others.

One might be jumping up and down raising its hand,

Work with me,

Be with me today.

Got that feeling.

Let's just go ahead and push the rest off to the side.

And we're going to go ahead and discard the situation right now as well.

We don't need to think about it.

We don't need to look at the other feelings and we're not going to look at how we're how we normally deal with it.

We're just going to be with this one feeling that we've identified.

Now,

Remember,

When we use our conditioned mind to come up with answers,

We're actually just identifying what we already think the problem is,

And then searching for the matching solution.

That is how we're trained,

Right?

We use our intellect.

And we learn that in life.

That's what happens in the classroom.

Someone gives us a problem,

And our job is to find an answer as fast as humanly possible,

Right?

And earn those gold stars.

So we try and fix the problem that we're given.

Now,

What happens in this type of inquiry is that we have an idea about what the problem is and what our solution is.

And so what we do is we go into life,

And we try and find the answer that matches what it is that we've already believed.

And that's thinking downstream.

But in this exercise,

This is a little bit of a different space.

I want you to let go of that problem solution paradigm.

Because if you already knew the answer to this,

You would have totally changed your life.

So in this conversation,

We are listening for something new,

Something uncoverable,

Something we haven't seen before.

So let's go ahead and take a deep breath and get present.

So when I do this,

I put a hand on my heart and one on my belly.

Take a deep breath in.

Just really,

Really get present to your body and another.

So there's this feeling that I'm curious about the one that I'm sitting with.

Where is it?

Where is this feeling found in my body?

Is it in my head?

My throat?

Is it in my lungs around my heart?

Is it in my shoulders and my neck?

Is it down my spine or in my low back?

Is it in my core,

Down in the root and the sacrum?

Is it in my hips?

How about my arms or into my wrists?

Is it in my legs?

Is it in my belly or in my chest?

Where can I find this feeling that I've identified?

Please write that down.

So in this exercise,

We're actually creating a new relationship with feeling.

Maybe as a possibility,

We've misunderstood our feelings this whole time.

Maybe we didn't know what they were for.

They felt confusing or overwhelming.

So we push them away.

We deflected,

We reacted.

That makes sense.

We don't know what we don't know.

That's not a criticism.

It's just a noticing.

And what I want you to do is I want you to greet this feeling as a friend invited in like you would a good friend,

An old friend,

A trustworthy friend.

Because what I know is that this feeling has always been trying to take care of you.

There was a time when this made sense.

Your response made sense.

It was logical.

It was rational.

But maybe it just doesn't make sense anymore.

So instead of dominating or pushing aside,

Ignoring or drinking through our feelings,

Trying to intellectualize or bypass,

We're going to feel them and see what they have to say.

So invite this friend and wherever it is in your body.

Say welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you for taking care of me.

Thank you for loving me.

And if that brings up some emotion,

Notice it.

That's part of it too.

So now that you're sitting with this feeling,

Ask yourself,

How does this feeling feel in my body?

You've located where it is in your body.

But how does it feel in your body?

Is it constricted,

Heavy,

Irritating,

Painful?

Just notice and write that down.

So now we're going to give our feelings an opportunity to share with us.

So we've invited them in,

We thank them for the service that they've provided for us.

Now we're going to open up the space and we're going to ask a question.

And the question is,

What is it about this challenging situation that makes you feel this way?

What is it about this challenging situation that brings up this feeling?

This is a safe space,

Right?

There's no judgment,

There's no criticism,

This isn't an opportunity to fix or change.

We are letting the feeling guide us.

Let it tell you what it has to say.

So just take a moment and notice.

So after you've written down what your feeling has shared,

Please thank it.

Even if it didn't say much this time,

That's okay.

This is a practice and practice is repetition.

You can always come back and do this again.

That is how we excel at the art of living.

Now ask your friend,

What do you need from me right now?

How can I serve you?

How can I take care of you?

Go ahead and just wait.

Maybe it's an image,

A word,

A memory or a new emotion.

Whatever it is,

Just receive it.

And if you're feeling asked for something,

Give it to them.

If it asks for an emotion,

Don't offer just a tiny drop.

Immerse yourself in the emotion that's being asked.

Let it wash through every cell of your being like a waterfall from the crown of your head,

Over your face,

Down your neck,

Across your shoulders to your chest and your back,

Your belly and your spine,

Your hips and your thighs,

Your knees,

Your calves,

Your ankles down to your feet,

All the way down.

Just let it in.

Let it nourish,

Let it cleanse.

Let it go as deep as your soul.

Now one final question for this feeling.

What's a new way we can deal with this?

A new way that we can show up to life.

So when we look at this challenging situation that seems to make us feel bad in the future,

How are we going to deal with it?

How are we going to respond?

Just listen,

See what it offers to and be willing to receive it.

Now you may notice tonight or even tomorrow,

You might even wake up in the middle of the night.

And you're feeling that feeling that we worked with today.

If that happened,

That's okay.

It's not a setback.

That's just your friend showing up again.

So when it does,

Just continue to give it what it asked for.

Right?

So if it was an image,

Or if it was a thing,

Just go ahead and offer it again.

And if it was an emotion,

Just keep saturating yourself in it.

There's no such thing as too much.

You cannot overdo this.

Just notice it again.

Oh,

There you are.

It's pointing to something,

A misunderstanding that you're ready to transform.

Allow it to unfold.

Reviews

Ty bless you for this rich and transformative offering 🙏💗

A helpful inquiry to help me see how l can feel my feelings and find a new way of dealing with them

Helpful

Continue to practice💗

Day 1, interesting - revealed some of the judgments I have about myself.
Thank you for the clear instructions
❤️

Thank you for pulling together this practice. I can't wait to start and see what happens. ❤️🙏🏼 Namesta