So I'll walk you through the include,
Include,
Include game.
I call it the game for tough emotions,
But it can actually be used for anything that wants to hog all your attention.
So as with all our games,
Exercises,
And methods,
Just take a nice slow deep breath and see if there's any tension in your body,
Anything that's clutching or holding on.
And first I'll talk a little bit about how and why include,
Include,
Include works,
And then I'll walk you through the steps.
So sometimes these painful emotions,
They wash over you.
They demand your attention.
It's like an alarm clock.
It's like a siren or an alarm clock that won't go off.
They pull your focus in and they narrow your focus down and it's as if they're trying to say,
Deal with me,
Don't think of anything else.
Fix this,
Fix me,
Change this.
So naturally when this happens,
It's sometimes a little tough to shift your focus to the awareness of the emotion because every time you try to shift to awareness,
The thoughts about the emotional situation pull you back.
I sometimes use the image of trying to open a spring loaded trap and you open it and open it and it keeps snapping shut.
So watch out for that.
Notice when that happens to you and when it does,
Try these steps.
Just for a few seconds.
Don't try to fix it.
Don't try to make it go away.
Just acknowledge that it's here.
Allow it to be here just for now.
Then imagine that the emotion is showing up in awareness.
In other words,
There's the emotion and there's awareness of the emotion.
And the next step is to include more.
Ask yourself what else is in awareness other than this unwanted feeling?
Let's see,
There are sounds.
There's the sound of traffic outside or the fan or birds or a voice or your breathing.
If your eyes are open,
There are sights.
There are objects in the room around you that are,
There's light bouncing off them and coming in.
They're appearing in awareness too.
There's bodily sensations.
Right,
What is my body feeling right now?
What sensations are appearing in awareness?
Is the feeling of my body against the chair I'm sitting in or my feet against the floor or the ground?
Maybe a breeze on my skin or rumbling on my stomach or my heartbeat.
These are all body sensations and they're appearing in awareness.
And there are thoughts.
They pop into your head.
They come and go.
So include them.
The thoughts are appearing in awareness.
The sounds are appearing in awareness.
The sights are appearing in awareness.
The body sensations are appearing in awareness.
Include them.
Include even more.
Include,
Include,
Include.
Include awareness until it includes every possible thing.
And just let it grow and include more.
Anything that you can notice,
Anything that you can think of,
Anything you can feel,
Anything you can perceive,
Anything you can know about,
Is happening in the same field of awareness.
So you notice that any feeling isn't the only thing that's going on right now,
Although it wants you to believe it is.
So you don't fight it.
You don't try to change it.
You just include everything else that goes along with it.
And include more.
The more the merrier.
And that's the include,
Include,
Include game.
