SRS Session 25 | The Wisdom Of Feelings

In session 25 we discover that in moving beyond intellectual understanding to feel one's way through the world we open the door to experiencing all that we wish to experience in our mind, body and spirit. This meditation includes an affirmation practice. The Spiritual Recalibration Series is designed to help you expand your awareness into a new, more open, curious and expansive way of being in daily life. This impactful series comprises 33 sessions, each with a short topic (the recalibration) followed by guided meditation. Meditations include affirmations, visualizations, and brief periods of quiet, musical stillness.

Transcript

Okay, Welcome back to the Spiritual Recalibration Series. Thank you for embarking on this series and opening yourself to a new way of being. My name is David, And this is Session 25, Wisdom of Feelings. Find a comfortable seat in a space where you can allow yourself 20 minutes or so, Undistracted, To focus just on you. A quick reminder, To get the most out of this series, Please be sure you've listened to the Welcome Session, Session Zero. Here we go. So emotional intelligence, I don't pretend to have read many books on this subject, But the idea here is about feelings. Feeling our feelings is what I've been chatting about this week. It seems to be going okay, At least the way this comes up in my mind as far as looking at the mind, Body, Spirit aspects of a topic like this. And so with feeling our feelings at the mind level, The three that we don't always love to feel, Fear, Sadness, And anger, It's, I don't know. The idea that it's okay to feel angry, It's okay to feel sad, It's okay to feel fear, That's not always present in our conditioning for various reasons. And I think that, I don't know, Fear is a really good one to use. And with fear, Public speaking is always a nice one because it's so common to have a fear of standing up in front of a group of five people or a hundred people and giving a presentation or saying stuff. I certainly can relate to personal experience of having fear with this. But so what happens is you get, So you get triggered in one way or another, Fear happens, Whether it's public speaking or flying on an airplane or going on elevator or any number of other things that can make us feel fear. And then at the mind level, What we tend to do is go into a story about that fear, Right? We start asking what if this happens or what if that happens? So that's kind of where you get into this loop where you have a feeling, You have a thought and you have a feeling, And then you have more thoughts about that feeling. And in the case of fear, Or really with these, Anything that we push against or resist, Or I think with feelings, The word is repress, Right? We tend to energize it and create and like make it stronger. And that's just really, And so that combined with just kind of this conditioning where it's, Where it's, It's, It's, It's, It's not so okay to feel these things or feelings or even that feelings are irrelevant, Especially when we're engaged in what would otherwise be intellectual or professional or educational or some sort of pursuit. That's about, I don't know, Figuring stuff out, That feelings are irrelevant. So that going back to that fear example, Or even sadness, Like you can be afraid of feeling sad because we love to, In our civilized world, We love to label things and create problems out of things, Create problems out of, I'm feeling anxious, So there must be a problem with anxiety or I'm feeling fear or I'm feeling sadness. So we kind of have fear around those feelings and all that's natural and normal. But moving on to the body level, The thing about my experience with feelings is that, And there is some, I was, I was reading about the commitment in, In conscious leadership again about, About feeling your feelings about that. And this is also from the Hendricks a bit about that feelings are body sensations actually. And then we create these intellectual concepts about them, But really feelings are, Are, Is energy in our body. So I was doing this, I was walking into a group the other day and I noticed a little bit of nervousness, Some nervous energy going in, Which is a very familiar experience for me. And I'm sure, I'm sure you guys can relate. And so I was remembering these, These, These really wonderfully goofy fear melters, Which I may have spoken with you guys about, But it's, It's using your body to kind of move the feelings, Not to like make them go away, But to move them, To allow them and move them. So I was doing this, My favorite one is this one called the sumo where you get, So I was literally in on an alleyway outside. And I was like, So the sumo was kind of like, You get down to like this half squat and you kind of just kind of get really grounded. So I was using my, Using my body. And it's really interesting when you let, When you allow, When you notice a feeling and you allow them, And then maybe you use your body to experience them, A feeling is an experience, Even welcome them. They say in that same chapter, That, That, That a feeling, If allowed last 90 seconds tops, And it's like, Comes in like waves. So with feelings that we may not necessarily want to be feeling that's comforting. And that, And that has been my, That has been my experience actually, It was the other day. And the last bit on the, On the, On, On the spirit level or on the, The other level, This other that we've spoken about is, Well, In that same chapter, They use this analogy of a hose, A hose where kind of all of these feelings are, It's kind of like, You can't really push one away and expect to feel like you can't push fear away and expect to feel joy. So what would it be like, Who would you be if you allowed yourself to feel everything there is to feel, To experience all of your feelings, Who would we be? So if we want to experience those wonderful feelings of joy and happiness and peace and love, We really, I think the thing is to feel everything. But we don't love to be uncomfortable, None of us really love to be uncomfortable. But I think that there's a, There's a perception there or a perspective of welcoming everything. So thinking about this at, At this particular level, Joy, Peace, Love, These things are not intellectual experiences. These are, These are things that we feel, These are things that we want to feel, It's kind of what we're up to here. So yeah, What would that be like to welcome everything, To welcome everything there is to feel and to maybe, You know, Even see these as some, Some sort of intelligence, Something that's up that, You know, Wants to be known within you. So yeah, We're going to do, So we'll do a short practice here and, And we'll use an, We'll use an affirmation. We'll do this affirmation practice on feeling what there is to feel. Okay. So if, If you're good place, If you're in a chair, Place your feet flat on the ground. If that's, If that works for you and in the seat you're in, Maybe close down the eyes. That's comfortable for you gently place your, Your hands, Either palms up or palms down your choice on your thighs at the juncture of thighs and abdomen, Or a little bit further forward if that's more comfortable for you. Place it with a nice upright spine, Draw the shoulder, Draw the shoulder blades together gently, Check to see that your eyes are soft, Allow your breath to come naturally in and out through your nose and begin to tune in to the words of this affirmation about feeling your feelings. Once you start to memorize it, You can maybe start to say it out loud, The wise can just follow along in your mind as you get used to it. As you tune into the feeling behind the affirmation, I know that there is wisdom in my feelings. So I let myself feel them. I welcome all of my feelings. I trust them. I honor them. I know that there is wisdom in my feelings. So I let myself feel them. I welcome all of my feelings. I trust them. I honor them. I know that there is wisdom in my feelings. So I let myself feel them. I welcome all of my feelings. I trust them. I honor them. I know that there is wisdom in my feelings. So I let myself feel them. I welcome all of my feelings. I trust them. I honor them. Now if you're saying out loud in a quieter voice, I know that there is wisdom in my feelings. So I let myself feel them. I welcome all of my feelings. I trust them. I honor them. Just in a whisper now, I know that there is wisdom in my feelings. So I let myself feel them. I welcome all of my feelings. I trust them. I honor them. Now if you're saying out loud, Just in your mind, I know that there is wisdom in my feelings. So I let myself feel them. I welcome all of my feelings. I trust them. I honor them. And one more time, With focus, I know that there is wisdom in my feelings. So I let myself feel them. I welcome all of my feelings. I trust them. I honor them. Now letting the affirmation statement go, But staying with the feeling behind the statement. That feeling of allowing, Welcoming, And trusting the feelings. The feelings that are here to feel. Just tuning into the breath now for a few moments. Noticing the air passing in the nostrils. Seeing if you can locate the spot in your nostrils where you can feel the air passing. Using the technique for just a minute or two of watching the breath. You chose to be here this morning. Today, There was something that had you choose to be here, To do this, Instead of any number of other things you could have been doing. Let that motivation, Whatever that was that brought you here, That had you give this gift to yourself of being here with yourself this time, Let that motivation be your focus. Be the inspiration that lets you focus on your breath, That brings you back to it. Now take an intentional inhale through your nose, Then exhale through your mouth. You can let the breath go. You don't need to watch it anymore. Allow yourself to stay here for just a few more moments. Good. Now take an intentional inhale through your nose, And then exhale through your mouth. Prepare to come back to the space where you are. When you're ready, You can flutter open your eyes, Or stay like this for as long as you like.