The Formula For Healing Emotions - Class And Practice

In this live class at MNDFL in NYC, Ralph unpacks their formula for healing emotions— guiding us toward finding a warm and compassionate middle path between indulgence and repression. Following this talk is a guided meditation that puts this technique into practice.

Please note: This track was recorded live and may contain background noises.

Transcript

So there's in Tibetan Buddhism there's a saying that everything dissolves under analysis.

Everything dissolves under analysis and this somehow points us to the nature of reality,

How things work.

And if you think about it,

If you've ever spent a long time looking at one word of the English language and then I'm editing a book right now and this is happening to me a lot where all of a sudden like that word just seems so strange and you might even have a moment is like is that really spelt like that?

Oh my god it's just so bizarre.

Like those four letters together make that sound and it just you know after you spend enough time looking at something analyzing something it starts to change.

It starts to come apart in a way.

You know this is true in the world of physics as well where you have Newtonian physics which appears to obey a certain set of laws and that's different from modern physics and within modern physics you know we've got we got down to the point that we could see what we thought was the smallest particle which was the atom at one time.

We were convinced that that was the smallest particle of matter and then we developed microscopes that were powerful enough to see inside an atom and oh they're smaller particles called quarks and oh those quarks don't obey the same laws as you know as atoms do and as molecules do.

They obey a totally different set of laws that we now have come to call quantum physics right.

But under analysis the way things appear to be begins to shift and we also know that from science that just the nature of observation changes that which is being observed.

That's well established as well within the world of physics and that's promising news when it comes to our afflictions when it comes to our traumas which just for the record every negative emotion that we experience every one maybe 99.

999% we'll leave a little margin there but we could trace back to some traumatic event and I don't mean traumas like PTSD level traumas necessarily though it certainly can be that obviously but also moments when we just felt unseen moments when the shit hit the fan in a minor way but it really meant something to us moments that where things went horribly wrong that we maybe thought weren't a big deal and like that's in the past now I've moved on and all of that but all of our negative emotions that we experience on the surface in in our own in our present time experience kind of have with the number of breadcrumb trail that goes back to usually early childhood when we were the most tender and the most dependent but dissolving under analysis is the point you know we struggle with our emotional world with regards to the fact that we think like you know only a certain set of emotions are acceptable and everything else I've got to like do away with somehow you know only only these only comfort and happiness and pleasure and you know things in that neighborhood are what I'm willing to hang out with everything else I've either got to repress and hold at bay or it's so seductive that when it comes up like panic like anger like worry that I just go into it and then I'm lost in it into in Tibetan philosophy they would say your mind is stolen right never had your mind stolen by your experience right you just lose yourself and the next thing you know it's the next day and there's a list of apologies to be made or something to clean up and there's a punk rock song that says um breaking things makes it feel okay until you need what you broke that day so the point is when we can stop that dance of repression and indulgence and find kind of a middle path with our emotions we have the opportunity to relate to them and to observe them to be with them to pay attention to them to be in them but not in a mind stolen kind of way but in a conscious awake sort of way and I'm going to give you the formula for that awake sort of way sort of way in which our emotions will be going to disentangle themselves and reveal that there's actually other layers underneath and reveal that it's they're not our enemy everything in our lives has something to show us has something to give us we are an ecosystem all of us unto ourselves you know and in ecosystems there is no part that's out of place you know not not it's not a perfect situation even in nature but for the most part nothing is out of place in an ecosystem even death and predatory behaviors of animals in ecosystems serve you know a function of natural population regulation or leaves falling from a tree and dying are absorbed into the soil which become nutrients for the roots of that very tree the circle of life but um so it is with us that everything in our experience has something to give us it fits into our personal ecosystem in some way and we can discover that when we stop when we drop our habitual relationship to things repression not today and indulgence so here's the formula presence plus warmth times generosity presence plus warmth times generosity so first coming awake to whatever affliction is arising in us just being willing to be there to be in an actively receptive state to it i'm willing to show up for this i'm curious about it perhaps even for once i'm going to stop running from my loneliness feel it in my body and recognize that it's just actually a bunch of sensations in my body that i have a story in my head about but i'm willing to feel it for once willing to be there and then just being willing to be there on its own would actually be a re-traumatization but if we can bring warmth to the situation you know like if you've ever been with a friend who just had their heart broken by somebody you know and there's that natural sense of like i'm feeling into what's going on for you you know or when somebody you love has somebody has has uh lost somebody you know somebody in their lives has died and and you feel that natural automatic sense because you're a decent person right um a warmth like that like the heart breaking open in this really beautiful positive way a heartbreaking open we dropped a mask for a moment and we just forget about ourselves and we let something warm pour out of us can we recognize our own struggle can we recognize our own grief can we recognize our own loss can we recognize how beat up we get in this game called life and can we let our heart break open for ourselves for our own sadness for our own anger for our own whatever so presence times plus warmth times generosity and generosity may look like generosity of how much attention i'm willing to give over to this experience it might look like time duration allowing healing takes work it takes time it's not a one-shot deal and um i mean i can't tell you how many therapy clients i have that show up they're like how long is this going to take i don't fucking know i have no idea what's going on in there you know and where it's all coming from and how deep and wide and intense and real that is for you but what i do know from my own healing journey as a trauma survivor and a depression survivor and a heroin addiction survivor what i do know from making that journey from there to where i am now is this when you are working on a healing journey and making that journey from there to where i am now is this when you are willing for it to be that way forever is when things really start to move along strangely enough when you are willing to just say you know my my my sister died uh this last year of pancreatic cancer and um and i spent the last week of her life next to her her deathbed and um there was so much resistance and so much wanting to fix it and so much you know there's just so much complexity going on in me and i hit this moment on like day three of that week where it was just like oh i'm just gonna let it be exactly like this i'm gonna give in completely and the hurt of this the confusion of this and the you know multi-level emotional response of this might feel like eternity might feel like infinity within me i'm gonna let it be that too and in the moment i did that something shifted in the moment i allowed that analysis to happen it began to dissolve and it became something else it became something beautiful and real and magic and special i was so glad i relaxed out of my resistance to this horrific reality because it allowed something very very meaningful and transformative to transpire making sense you see why this isn't a beginner's class so we're going to do a practice uh based around presence plus warmth times plus warmth times generosity just a caveat or two here things that i sometimes forget to say in this class one is that this practice is going to be shaky for all of us you know our minds are going to wobble we'll drop in we'll find ourselves lost in you know a laundry list or a fantasy and then we'll come back and then we'll you know it's going to be shaky let it be shaky that's fine two is just as long as you're kind like even if you're not getting it or even if you're completely resistant or even if you find yourself as i once was completely numb on the inside completely dead on the inside that's fine too there's no right or wrong to this practice whatever the emotional quality of your experience is in this practice and there's always an emotional quality to your experience 100% of the time whatever that is we're practicing presence and warmth times generosity with that okay so anything is fair game let it be human and messy please all right so please come to sit up nice and tall we'll do a little bit of grounding work before we get into things in earnest let your seat be really heavy feel the effortless support of the earth beneath you legs loosely crossed hands placed on either side of your lap i like mine facing down at mid thigh we want the hands to be a support for the collarbones and the shoulders so you can play with the placement a little bit find where the chest is just balanced not puffing out not sunken in just open just open we want the back of the neck nice and long so we lift the crown of the head lift the top tips of the ears directly up towards the sky and then we want the back of the neck straight as well we'll find that by allowing the forehead to tilt forward just a little and the chin to move in just a little okay so your eyes can gently close your tongue can relax in its socket or rather in its palate you can take a big deep breath come into being here with yourself you come into being here with yourself you let the shoulders relax in fact let's do this i want you to take a big full breath and as you do so i want you to bring your shoulders all the way up to your ears bring them all the way up to your ears and then hold that breath and with the breath held you'll let the shoulders completely just drop and then exhale we're going to do that a few times so breathing in lifting the shoulders hold the breath drop the shoulders exhale okay so one more with both shoulders hold drop let go let go and then let's just do the right shoulder at your own pace now breathing in and then the left shoulder there and one more time for both let the belly relax let the pelvis relax let your hands melt into your thighs and what is it like to be in this body so we'll begin so okay so come into an awareness of your body breathing so the most fundamental level that's what you are a body breathing in and out that's it and i'll ask that you localize your attention in the body on the space of the heart okay you can find the middle of your sternum center of the chest and then trace back into the body and breathing in such a way that you fill up the heart as you breathe in you release the heart as you breathe out so and we'll begin to allow the mind to settle by setting the breath in its natural rhythm and if you're new to working with me what that means is start letting your exhales just flow out effortlessly no pushing and really let go of them let them dissolve into space wait let the inhale come by itself and then you surrender the next exhale you just let it go out and you don't inhale you wait you let the belly soften you let the diaphragm drop and you'll feel when the inhale wants to come and you're guiding it you're helping it you're not taking it you're assisting it the next exhale just goes out and drops out of the body and in that space between breaths if you really let go of the breath things get very quiet so so heart inflating deflating spaces between breaths so you might even notice muscles releasing body softening shoulders space eyes jaw legs so so so Little by little,

Through the magic of the exhale,

We're softening and opening to our experience,

Which may be an experience of busy-mindedness,

And we're open to that too.

But as you breathe quietly into the space of the heart,

Can you remember a time in your life,

Maybe you thought of it during the talk,

Wherein you felt genuine warmth for another being?

When you felt real empathy,

Real compassion,

Not pity,

Warmth.

What is it like to feel caring for someone else?

What is it like in the body?

Can you remember?

Can you remember in the body what that's like?

So breathe with that body memory as close as you can get to it.

And then take a picture with the mind,

Take a little screenshot of what that's like.

What is it like to love someone else,

To care for someone else?

Okay.

And then when that fades,

Just come back to the breath for a moment.

And begin asking your body,

Begin asking your system,

Begin asking your heart,

Is there some emotional reality in me that's longing to come forward into this space?

Is there something maybe I've been running from?

Please don't go there with like a trauma,

Like a true trauma,

Or something more intense than you can handle right now,

But just is there some sadness?

Is there some longing?

Is there some frustration in me that wants to come forward,

That wants to be felt,

That wants to be seen?

Just stay in your body,

Breathing with that question and see what happens.

So and whatever emotional tone is starting to be present in your experience,

Again,

Even if it's resistance,

Even if it's the feeling of I'm not getting this,

I don't understand.

Allow it,

Welcome it.

If for no other reason than it's real,

It's true.

Give in.

And notice the shift,

The shift in your awareness and the shift in the body.

Even with numbness,

There is a shift in the body,

There's sensation somewhere.

What is it?

Is it heavy?

Is it tight?

Is it sharp?

Is it dull?

Is it empty and hollow?

Or is it burning hot?

Tight.

Is it sharp?

Is it dull?

Is it empty and hollow?

Or is it burning hot?

Okay.

And can you just breathe with this feeling?

Breathe into these sensations.

Can you start to recognize that this is a part of you,

It's not the real you.

And that this part of you is so much like another person who's suffering in your presence,

Who's struggling,

Who's confused,

Who's hemmed in and claustrophobic.

And can you let your heart break for this emotion inside of you?

Can you let the warmth pour out?

Can you let the caring and we had,

We contacted an experience of this.

So can you pull that up on your hard drive now?

What's it like to feel caring for another?

Can you feel that for this part of you that is struggling as you breathe with it?

So so it's like you're holding this part of you with your attention.

And this part of you may be screaming at you,

Might be throwing a tantrum.

It might not trust you or want anything to do with this process.

Or maybe it's changed into something else.

Stay there and stay warm.

The generosity piece is no matter what,

But I'm gonna stay here and stay kind.

You can even talk to this part of you.

You can ask this part of you if there's a story it needs to tell,

If there's something it wants you to know.

Finally ready to hear your message.

What is it?

What is it?

Just listen.

Okay.

Okay.

You can even let this part know,

I'm here,

I'm with you,

You're not alone.

And if there's something that it seems like this part needs and you can offer it,

Offer it.

We're just gonna be here another minute or two.

You're almost there.

Okay.

And then we're gonna begin soothing ourselves with the breath.

So we'll do that very simply by taking big deep breaths down to the belly.

And then exhaling long and slow through the mouth.

And then another deep breath down beneath the navel but above the pubic bone.

And long slow through the mouth.

You can purse your lips to elongate that exhale.

And breathing in.

We're gonna do this for about two and a half minutes.

So keep going at your own pace.

This is going to induce the relaxation response,

The parasympathetic nervous system.

While you're breathing with this part of you,

You're soothing it,

You're calming it down.

Keep going,

Don't be lazy.

Just another minute here.

Okay.

And this time let's take a big deep breath together.

Breathing in.

And this time hold.

And then let it go.

We're gonna do two more just like that that we're done.

So breathing in.

Hold.

Let it go.

And then final one.

Okay.

Final instruction is just to let the two corners of the mouth grow apart from one another.

This little ridiculous brain hack that resets the nervous system for us.

Hold that for 10 more seconds.

Ah.

Reviews

Powerful formula for healing ❤️‍🩹. Thank you for sharing your experience with grief.