How To Discover What You Are Not Willing To Feel

What we are not willing to feel will dictate our lives. We will be more driven by fear than by love. Learning how to understand what lies underneath that contraction, those feelings we push away, is important. Let's practice together.

Transcript

Welcome to this day number 7, I think it is, Out of 21 days we're committing to change. It's early morning, I'm getting a bit used to it, But I went to bed like 30 minutes later than I usually do, I can definitely feel it this morning. So it's just a reminder that go to bed at 9 o'clock, 9. 30, The latest. The live is going to start in 46, 45 seconds and it's going to be another day of repetition, Another day of sharing, Another day of opening up for whatever it is that we can commit to and change. So thank you so much for being there, Thank you so much for doing the work and let's go for it. Good morning, Good evening to whomever might be out there. Let's see here, Good morning, Good morning. Let me know if sound and video is fine. If somebody wants to let me know in the comment field if the video and the sound is okay. Good morning Elena. Awesome. That's so nice of you to put it like that, Feels like Christmas. Thank you so much Kate, Hope that you've been doing well. Hello Russell. I guess that for most of you guys it's late, Right? You're probably like six hours later might be evening for you guys. Here, Can you hear the birds? So this is, It's 5. 10 in the morning. So we're going to be meditating on this sound in a little bit. So welcome, This is 21 days of committing to change. This is my day number eight I think, I have lost count. 10, 11 and K-man, Wonderful. So my commitment for these 21 days is getting up at 4. 45. I have a long term goal in 12 years that will, I mean, It means that I will need to get up at four o'clock in the morning by then. I had a, Not a long life dream of going to Kathmandu or to another place with monks, Buddhist monks, But I've experienced many things in my life that keeps on drawing me towards, You know, Experiencing Buddhism from a longer period of time. Becoming a monk in 12 years is like, It's even, It's strange for me even to share it because it's so far away but yet so close. So committing to change for me is so important because I know that if I don't decide to commit to change, Who is going to decide? You know how it goes when somebody tells you to do something, It's so much more difficult, Right? So I'm committing to getting up at 4. 45 and my wife and I, We started talking last night, I came home a bit late so I got a bit like a 10, Fell asleep maybe at 10. 15, 10. 20. I can really feel it right now. It's like, You know, When you get older, You stop drinking alcohol, At least I've done so because the price I pay is just too high. I'm just so hungover maybe two, Three days after. So I can really feel that it's like I'm hungover and I'm not getting too much sleep. And what I know from experience is that it's in these times, You know, Where we need to hold on if there's something that we want to change. When something starts becoming difficult, It's because, You know, Something is working, We're on the right path. And when we stick to it, We'll start experiencing, You know, We'll start experiencing what we call being proud or being strong. And it's very interesting to start looking at what is it that we actually feel, What is it actually that happens in the body when we start experiencing these emotions, What happens in the body, Right? So all of us have a story and that story has experiences from below the line and above the line. Below the line is where it's not that good and above the line is where it's really good. Hello. Have you seen the movie Inside Out? Let me know with a thumbs up or yes or no if you haven't or you have. The movie, The Pixar movie Inside Out, Have you seen that one? Awesome. Let me know if you know that movie. Wonderful movie, Yeah. Exactly. The one about emotions. Yeah. So I'll just write it here. It's called Inside Out. Like that. I would definitely recommend you to watch it. It is a kids movie, But the thing is that most of us inside are connected to kids, Especially if you're in here. It means that you have somewhat of a connection with your emotions, Right? And maybe also that connection means that it's also difficult because you might experience that it's difficult to what we would love to use, The word that we use is the word control, That we would love to control the emotions. And it's weird because exactly we all have this in a child and emotions is something that when we stop, You know, Controlling ourselves, When we stop, You know, Not being who we are, I mean, When we, Sorry, It's the other way around, Right? When we stop being somebody who we are not, You know, By suppressing ourselves, By living up to other people's expectations, By pleasing other people, By being what I thought that I was supposed to be and all that stuff, Then we become a lot more free. To put it in another way, When we become willing to feel everything, Then we are free. And what I mean by that is that we often, As we talked about yesterday, We often live lives where we build our lives up around one core emotion that we are not willing to feel on an unconscious level, Which means that if I'm in my case, Fear of shame and rejection, If I'm afraid of that, Then I will build my life up around being very empathic, Very understanding, Very pleasing, Very, You know, Gentleman-like, Very all of these things, Because I need people to respond to that. So I will not feel that feeling of rejection, Of shame, Not being good enough, All of these things, You know what I'm talking about, Right? But the problem is that it doesn't really work, Right? Because I'll keep on doing stuff in order to avoid stuff. So it becomes like a crazy, Stupid feedback loop. So what we were talking about yesterday and what I've been really fond of, You know, Practicing myself, Committing to change for many, Many, Many years, Is to start noticing what it is that I'm not willing to feel. And yesterday I challenged you guys on finding one thing which you were not willing to feel. And I think there were like eight or ten people that went into Carla's circle, Just to answer your question also, Ali, That went into my circle and wrote, I commit to seven days of meditating on the feeling of shame, For example, Or I commit to seven days of meditating on the feeling of not being good enough or the feeling of rejection. And then you might say, Why are you asking us to meditate on something that's not very nice, Something that's uncomfortable, Something that might open up for emotions from my past, My traumas? Well, That's the point. The thing is that if we do not deal with these traumas, If we do not deal with this stuff that's difficult, Is it going to go away? I mean, Can we throw our clothing, You know, Our laundry, And then it will go away if we don't wash it? Maybe a stupid example, But I think you know what I mean, Right? So if we don't do anything about it, Nothing is going to change. The repetition will be the change, Right? The uncomfortableness in different situations. And for some people, It will just get worse and worse and worse. I've experienced also that you can not deal with things and you will have a wonderful life. But it will also, In some circumstances, As we talked about yesterday, Be much more driven by fear than by love. Make sense? So let me just see here if there's any. . . Oh, Thank you, Sjöker, You answered straight away. Thanks a lot. Well, Chelsea, You are asking, First off, Namaste. And secondly, You're asking what day are we on? We are on the day number that you are on, Which means that in my case, With this process, I'm on day number seven, As far as I recall. And this is a small dog. He just woke up. And for some, For example, She's on day number one. And if I know myself well enough, I'll probably just prolong it. So the thing is that when we start connecting to. . . Not connecting necessarily, But understanding that the change is inevitable, Whether we want change or not, It's going to be there. You can hear him, Right? Can't you? Yeah. No, It's because we have two cats as well, And he's so eager to play with them. So let me just check out what he's doing here. He's a pichon habanese. Do you know that breed? He probably come around. I'll show you him afterwards. But he lies at the door and then he makes that sound. And you think that he wants to go out, But he's a prince. He's like, We cuddle him way too much. So he's like a very spoiled prince. But we love him. Yeah, I'm going to show him afterwards. Right now I'm going to see if he wants to go out. He's just looking out the window or the door right now. So, Yeah, Exactly. It's wonderful to have these dogs. It's also a lot of work, Right? It's my wife. She trains them very well. She actually trained our. . . We have a golden retriever as well. She trained him to become a. . . What do you call that? It's when you go to hospitals and you go to these. . . Where people. . . Where all people live. What is it that you call that in English? Yes. Yeah, Theribodoc. Theribodoc. And what is it that you call where all people go and live together? It's. . . I don't know the word in English. But you have these places where all the people can live together. Yeah, Nursing home. Yes, Yeah, Nursing home. Retirement facilities. Yeah, Something like that. So she trains dogs and this is her second dog. And she goes there and they actually made this beautiful movie about it. Just a short one. But she's a really good trainer. I mean she can have him do everything from 100 meters and he will just do it. So it's wonderful. So what I was talking about before was that. . . You know, When we start committing to change and we start noticing that something is working. . . Then. . . Then we continue, Right? But the thing is that often we're looking for motivation to do something. And the thing is that motivation is not enough. We need to find, You know, We need to act first. We need to act and then motivation will come and then we will be inspired. And then we will do it more. More action and then we will be inspired and then motivation. Motivation or inspiration will be, You know, Right after the action. So for example for you guys that started yesterday or I know Diane. . . I don't think that Diane is here today, Are you Diane? Well she's committed to 365 days on another process that we're doing which is on a three day method. Which has to do with letting go of addiction. It's called healing trauma through addiction. Just give me a minute, I'll go get him because he's calling for attention. He's craving attention. So he's such a prince that when we pick him up he says no I don't want to. And then he'll just be. . . Okay. So this is Romle. Say hello to the world Romle. Hello world. So I'll sit him down again and let's see what happens. Yeah he's beautiful. Yeah we're actually going to have him checked because it's not normal that a dog makes that sound. Especially not when just being picked up. So we're going to have him checked if there's anything wrong, Right? There might be some pain often they will react if there's some pain. So whomever just came on board this morning or this evening for most of you guys. We're talking about committing to change. We're talking about setting some goals. For example 7 days or 21 days or 60 days or 365 days, Right? You're very welcome. It was a pleasure. You might come around again. So by committing to a certain amount of days we start conditioning ourselves to doing something which we feel is important. And by doing this for ourselves there's also a process of starting the self-love because many of these things that we do are really not healthy for us, Right? So I'm working on these, You know, Getting up early. I had many many many years going to bed like at 12 at least, Maybe 1 o'clock. And maybe sometimes 2 o'clock and getting up like at 7 o'clock. And I was exhausted and I was like, I was eating stuff that, I mean my addiction is food. It's candy. It's just stuffing myself, Numbing myself with that. That's my stress relief. I talk openly about it now because I've come far over the shame part. It's a part of us humans that we tend to go for things that will stress relief us. And mine is that yours might be the secret or joints or working or sex or buying stuff. But for me discovering what I was doing that was self-harming. Self-harming can be many things. You know when we hear about kids or idols that cut themselves we, It's terrible and it is terrible. But it's a way, It's such a self-hurting way that's very difficult to understand. But the core of it is no more different than overeating or drinking too much. It's still self-harm. So what I'm getting at is let's identify what is difficult. Right? Let's identify what is difficult. And that's why we yesterday and also in many of the earlier sessions that I've done, We practice understanding what is the core emotion that I'm not willing to feel. Because by being willing to feel that we will start, You know, Letting go. We'll start opening into something which is freedom. I'm just looking for him because he doesn't have a leech and he might go outside. So while I check where he is, You can get ready to do some meditation. You can reflect a bit on what the emotion is that you're not willing to feel. And if you're new to this, You just came in or if yesterday you didn't write what it is that you are not willing to feel, Please write it in the comment field. And I'll be back just in one minute or two minutes. This is our other dog. This is Lou. So, OK, This that's Lou. That's the service dog, The therby dog. So what am I not willing to feel? So when I want to find out what I'm not willing to feel, I close my eyes. And you can do that also. So let's just go into a meditation doing this. So when I want to feel out, Find out what I'm not willing to feel, I close my eyes. And I start noticing my breathing and also relaxing my eyes. For me, It's very important because I've noticed how much contraction I make in my eyes. It's like also the eyebrows, But really noticing how I can relax that. And I start noticing my breath and I take in a couple of deep breaths, So let's take in a couple of deep breaths. And I make a very small smile just so I can notice that I'm smiling. And this is a way for me to prepare to consciously and willingly start investigating something that might feel uncomfortable. So I'm the decision maker. I'm the one deciding to do this, Not somebody else. Usually uncomfortable feelings comes from influence from outside or unconscious part from inside. So if in this now there is nothing arising, There are no emotions that pop up as being something that I'm not willing to feel. What I will then do is that I will go back to the day yesterday or before yesterday and look for experiences that happened that made me feel something that I contracted around. It might have been a remark from somebody. It might have been something in traffic. It might have been something in my relationship, My wife or kids or something like that. Just looking for something useful for me to use as a door into understanding what emotions I'm not willing to feel. Remembering to breathe calmly. Remembering to relax my eyes. Shoulders. And now inside of me and maybe also inside of you an experience. Arised. A rose I think it's when I said something pops up. And I can feel I start contracting in my chest. And this is where I say yes, It's OK. I want to practice being willing to feel this and understand what it is. And I can feel my jaws also contracting. I'm starting to get tighter. So this is just a symptom that is related to the emotion that I'm not willing to feel. This is what we usually do when we want to move away from something which is uncomfortable, Something that is vulnerable. So continuing the calm breathing, Open heart. Relaxed eyes, Small smile, Reminding ourselves that we're just practicing. We're just practicing being willing to feel anything. And in this very moment just being practicing how to explore what it is that we're not willing to feel. It is for some people very difficult for others it's quite easy. It doesn't matter whether it's the one or the other, We're just practicing. So I can feel that my contraction had to do with the way that this person spoke to me. And I can feel that it's like the layer below the contraction. I can almost feel the emotion start rising and the tears start coming up. And I feel like almost uncomfortable, Soft. And almost it's a feeling of feeling helpless. And it becomes a bit overwhelming now it's like a big wave. And then remind myself, Yes, I'm willing to practice this. I'm willing to practice being willing to feel everything. It's me making that decision. And I breathe calmly, Lovingly into my heart, Relaxed shoulders, Small smile. The small smile is the small Buddha smile, Right? It's the knowing that we are here for ourselves with love, With compassion, With understanding. Softening everything, Just noticing the vulnerability, The helplessness. It's a very sorrow-like feeling, It's very difficult to describe. And I can ask myself a question which is, Am I willing to feel this? And the answer is, Yes, I am willing to feel this. And by doing so, Breathing into it, Energy is released in my body. My whole system starts like illuminating from inside. It's like energy flow throughout my whole body. I'm willing to feel this. And it becomes a mix of joy and it becomes a mix of sorrow. And the flow then, The flow keeps on continuing throughout my whole body, It's like an energy rush. And then there's also something inside my system that says, It's okay for now. You can start finishing. So I connect to my breathing again. A couple of deep breaths. Relax shoulders. Stretching a bit. Small smile. And also a gesture inwards to thank myself for being brave enough to do this. For being self-loving enough to act on this. And being open enough to show this. So a couple of other deep breaths and getting ready to turn my attention out once again. Let me know if there's any questions or if this makes sense to you. I can share words, I can share what I just did, But eventually it's you doing the same thing inside of you. And you also having your experience, So please do feel free to ask whatever questions there might be or share whatever you experienced. So for me, This practice is so, So very important because throughout my whole life until I turned 30, Where, You know, Almost like textbook material, I had my identities.

Reviews

Thank you Carlos. I love the way you integrate your own process in the recordings. It gives me the feeling like we are all equals, and I think that'll be helpfull in my process. Thank you for uploading this!