Dealing With Painful Emotions

In this informative talk Rick discusses the many obscurations and blockages that contribute to our physical and emotional suffering and how we can become aware of them. We are then guided into a gentle practice where we learn how to relax and release.

Transcript

Fat,

Stupid,

And ugly.

That's how she saw herself.

So,

Quite some time ago,

I was working with a lady that was probably,

Well not probably,

She was one of the most physically beautiful women that I've ever known.

And she was also bright,

Witty,

Great sense of humor.

And yet,

In her internal world,

In her reality,

She saw herself as fat,

Stupid,

And ugly.

So,

I was working her,

Working with her one day at New Light Counseling,

Which was a practice I had in Rio Rancho,

New Mexico,

More than two decades ago.

And at the time,

I had a clinical supervisor.

His name was Jeff Hamilton.

And he was supervising me,

And he often observed our sessions behind a one-way mirror.

And on this particular day,

I had a supervision session with Jeff,

And I was talking to her,

We were talking to him about this woman,

And described that she believed she was fat,

Stupid,

And ugly.

And that I believed that she was beautiful,

Bright,

And just a delightful person.

And Jeff stared at me for a second,

And then he said the following words,

She's right,

And you're wrong.

She's right,

And you're wrong.

And then he left.

Jeff often did this sort of thing,

Speaking to me in riddles and Coens.

So,

Left me to sort of contemplate and reflect on what he had said.

And then after some time,

I realized,

You know,

It doesn't really matter what I think.

If she sees herself that way,

If that's the worldview that exists in her heart,

Then that's what she's going to experience.

So,

All suffering,

According to some of the ancient texts,

Is the result of wrong view.

Let me say that again,

All suffering is the result of wrong view.

What is wrong view?

Well,

In modern therapy circles,

We could call that false beliefs.

Wrong view are simply false beliefs that we hold.

And when we hold these beliefs deep inside,

Sometimes they're conscious,

Sometimes they're unconscious.

But if we're hurting,

If we're really hurting,

It's so helpful to get to the root of that suffering.

And so many times when we do,

We'll find that there's a deep wrong view there.

And we'll often experience that through our symptoms,

Whether those symptoms be anxiety,

Lack of joy,

Depression,

Anger,

Critical sort of nature,

All of these kind of things.

So,

As I'm working with this person or with anybody,

It's so important to understand the story you're telling yourself,

Or what are you believing?

And is that belief system aligned with the reality of things as they are,

With the truth of things as they are?

And so often,

Our emotional structures or emotional struggles will often have their basis in the body.

You may experience some tightness in the back or neck,

Chronic neck pain,

Knee pain,

All sorts of things.

I'm not saying this is always the case that physical pain is a result of psychological problems,

But the mind and the body are deeply interconnected.

And as we hold these wrong views,

Something else that's profoundly interesting and a bit tragic is that they become obscurations.

They become like filters.

And so,

Let's return to our story of my patient.

Well,

She believed that she was fat,

Ugly and stupid.

And so,

Because of that,

Anything that showed up in her life,

Whether it be a TV show with a beautiful actress,

Or anybody who said the slightest criticism to her,

That would trigger these kinds of feelings.

And because they supported who she was in her mind.

But anything that came out that was in opposition to those views,

Like you're pretty smart,

Whatever,

She simply could not allow to sink in.

So many of us have a hard time receiving compliments.

Why?

That's a great question.

What is it in my thinking that does not allow me to accept a compliment?

So,

As we hold these wrong views deep inside of us,

They create these filters,

They create these obscurations that only allow us to see the world in accordance with what we believe.

So,

If what we believe is right and wholesome and true and pure,

Then that's what we're going to experience a lot of in the world.

If we hold these beliefs that are opposing to that,

That are dark,

Sinister,

Just hard on ourselves,

Then that's what we're going to experience in our external reality and the people we interact with and the way we see nature,

Anything.

So,

Let's say that you have a lot of personal struggles,

Like we all do,

And you're not experiencing a level of joy that you would like to,

Which is probably true of all of us.

At the end of the day,

We all want to be happy.

It comes down to what are we doing to be happy?

What habits do we have?

What belief systems do we have that are either contributing to or taking away from our happiness?

So,

As a critical step,

I think it's always so important to identify an obscuration or a blockage.

And you may not at first be able to identify the underlying belief,

But you can start to identify areas in your body,

In your physical body,

That may be experiencing some level of distress.

You may notice,

For example,

Your shoulders are tight.

Well,

That's a great start,

Just recognizing anything in the body that's contracted,

Because the body and the mind are meant to flow naturally.

Everything in nature is designed to flow naturally.

I love watching babies,

Because when something's hurting them,

They're hungry,

They're scared,

They're frustrated.

The emotions are immediately there.

And they make those emotions known.

Now,

We can't always just express emotions like a baby,

Right?

But they flow through the child.

And then as the mother,

As the father,

As the grandmother,

As the people meet that baby's needs,

The emotion is gone like it never happened.

The second that bottle hits their mouth,

Or whatever it is,

The diapers changed,

That emotion is just flowed through naturally.

But as adults,

So often those,

Those emotions get blocked.

And those blockages create,

Like all blockages,

Just a lack of flow.

And with a lack of flow,

Just like in a river,

Wherever a river is blocked,

There's usually,

Or often a lot of disease or just unhealthy ecosystem that comes from that.

And since we are nature,

We're not separated from nature,

We are a part of nature.

And since we are a part of nature,

We're meant to flow.

So like the blockage in the stream that's often caused by a rock slide or a tree that's fallen,

When we can simply move that tree,

Move that blockage,

Then things start flowing and we get immediate relief.

So let's just say you've identified something in your shoulders that's tight,

Or even the muscles in your face.

We can begin by simply identifying that there's tightness there and setting a very gentle intent to relax.

Just set the intent to relax.

And then whatever's there,

Allow that to be there.

Sometimes awareness and being able to tolerate discomfort are awesome first starts.

You don't have to make every little discomfort go away.

And so often when we do that,

We turn to all of these distractions to try to make the slightest discomfort go away,

Whether it be food,

TV,

Cell phones,

Video games,

Sex,

Drugs,

Rock and roll,

Although I am a proponent of rock and roll.

And those other things I've mentioned,

I've certainly used all of them at times.

But ultimately,

Is what we're turning to going to serve us another as well?

Or is it ultimately just going to lead to an increase of this blockage,

An increase of the emotional pain?

So we begin by identifying where in the body do I feel contracted?

Do I feel blocked?

We set the gentle intention to relax,

To relax and let it go.

We allow that to be there,

Whatever it is,

We sort of sit with it,

We stay with it.

And then I like to breathe into that area.

Literally breathe right into the shoulders,

Breathe right into the heart.

If you feel hurt or heaviness in the heart,

Breathe right into that.

So we can do that right now.

Maybe you can identify anything that's a little tight.

Having identified an area of tightness,

Let's just simply for a few moments breathe into that area.

I'm just going to breathe right into my heart.

Setting the gentle intention to relax,

Just setting a gentle intention to relax.

And now staying with whatever it is that's arising,

Staying with it to the degree you can.

This should not be overwhelming.

If it's overwhelming,

We can always go to a distraction.

We should want to be pushing a little bit,

But gently over time,

Not trying to remove all these obscurations,

All of these false beliefs,

All this stuff at once.

There's a gentleness,

A patience,

And a sense of humor that are so important in all of this.

These things may have been a part of you for years,

For decades,

For generations,

For millennia.

This may be a core pain that's experienced from all of your generations right back to the beginning.

They may have began with somebody being,

I don't know,

Falling off a cliff in the middle of the Serengeti into a lava flow.

Who knows,

Man?

That would certainly rattle a person pretty well.

So gentleness,

Patience,

Sense of humor.

As we learn to quiet our bodies,

Practicing like this,

Breathing in and breathing out,

I calm my body.

Breathing out,

Letting go,

I calm my body.

Breathing in,

Breathing out,

I calm my body.

And staying with whatever arises.

As we breathe into that area,

That is bringing mindfulness to the point of suffering.

And the very act of bringing that mindfulness to the point of suffering is taking very good care of that suffering.

Now sometimes that alone will bring you immediate relief,

And whatever it is will just fade.

Now ultimately it'll all fade because everything changes,

Constantly changes,

Is completely impermanent.

But that's not really the point.

The point is in doing this process,

You're learning to take better care of yourself.

You're showing yourself a level of kindness by simply bringing the mindfulness to the point of pain.

If you're not feeling tightness in the body,

It might be emotions that you're feeling.

The same thing with emotions.

You're aware of the emotion.

Anger,

Anxiety,

Hurt,

Anything that's difficult for you.

You breathe right into that emotion.

And that way there's the difficulty there,

But there's also this energy of loving kindness,

Of mindfulness that's there at the same time.

And you stay with it.

I don't know if you can hear right now,

But a bunch of Canadian geese have decided to join us.

And with them flying alongside them is a hawk.

Isn't that interesting?

Yeah,

Right now there's a flock of geese flying over and a hawk was cruising along with them.

Boy,

I bet that didn't help them relax too much.

I wonder if they're doing the same thing we're trying to do.

Breathe again.

I know there's a hawk next to me.

Breathe it out of try not to panic,

Try not to freak out.

Okay,

Where were we?

All right,

So we're breathing into this point.

We're identifying the contraction,

Identifying the obscuration in the body and the emotions,

Maybe even in the thoughts.

We're setting the gentle,

Relaxed intention for that to relax.

We can breathe gently into that area.

And I suggest you do that for a few minutes.

Allow some space.

You're really sort of breathing into the pain,

Ventilating,

Bringing air,

Bringing flow into the area of difficulty.

And from there,

You're sort of staying with it.

And as we practice like this,

There will come at some point an insight,

An understanding of the exact nature of the suffering and exact nature of the difficulty.

And it may be in that deep held belief,

Like I'm stupid,

I'm ugly,

I'm fat.

Man,

If that's your view,

If that's your belief system,

You are guaranteed to suffer.

But you can't just tell somebody,

Hey,

That's not true.

Think differently.

But you can start to take better care of the internal world.

Even recognize you believe things like that,

Or I'm not good enough.

Some way I'm just not what I need to be.

I wish I was her.

I wish I was him.

Well,

When we do that,

We're saying there's that reveals an underlying belief that there's something not right about me.

Okay.

That's what I'm thinking right now.

I'm going to breathe into that idea of there's just something not right,

Something not good enough.

I'm going to set the general intention to relax it.

As you do that over time,

There may be memories,

There may be things,

Events that come in that show you where that began.

That may happen,

It may not.

But as you create space,

As you allow these feelings,

These contractions to emerge,

You set the general intention to relax them,

You allow them to be there,

You bring your mindfulness and your kindness,

The gentleness,

The patience,

The sense of humor to that pain,

You stay with it,

Setting the intention to stay with it for a while.

If it's too much,

Back away,

Do something else,

Talk to somebody,

Whatever.

But as you stay with it,

Create space,

Ventilating that issue,

Then the insights will emerge.

And those insights will often just help things melt away.

Now,

We don't always need insights for things to change.

We can get relief right here and right now in so many ways.

But this is sort of the process that I often use working with myself,

Working with others,

That is a wonderful way to identify blockages,

Identify obscurations,

And find some relief now,

Find some relief long term,

And start reprogramming those parts of you that are blocked,

That are obscured,

That are hurting.

So I hope you find this incredibly helpful.

Practice,

Practice,

Practice,

Patience,

Gentleness,

Sense of humor.

Reviews

💙

That was very helpful, thank you

This was great! I loved your story ❤

This was Awesome!! Loved the geese!!!

Wonderful! I absolutely loved this talk/meditation for it’s simple effectiveness & magnificent sense of humour. That chuckle! 😊 Listened & practised with a smile on my face which is always good. Namaste 🙏😊🌞

WONDERFUL... So needed today and very helpful .... recommend closing your eyes and really focusing on the body as you do this.

EXCELLENT Talk❗️So much Wisdom packed into a relatively short time❣️ I have someone very near and dear to me that I will be sharing this with. 😊 🙏🏻💕

Very informative and insightful! Great humor with the geese! Thank you!

So helpful, thank you 🙏

Wonderful. Funny. Mood changing. Insightful. The geese bit made me chuckle - a much needed infusion of humour for me in this moment. I’m still smiling. Thank you.

Rick, that was phenomenal! Your deep voice is very soothing & your message was excellent. I loved the impromptu moment when the Canadian geese flew by (yay Canada) & you talked about the hawk potentially causing stress in the geese. lol Great moment! I’m going to listen to this again. Thank-you!!

I loved it 🥰 it was the perfect talk for how I feel now

Fabulous! Just what I needed.

Just what I needed to hear. A reminder not to run away from painful feelings. Let the breathing and the being with do the healing. Thank youq

Simple yet effective techniques to manage and elevate stress, worry and anxiety in the moment. Thank you, 🌅🙏Namaste

That was absolutely amazing! Bookmarked! 💖

Thank you for having a sense of humor during this meditation. I had to laugh at your goose impression. Lol.
Great meditation on point of view, because our beliefs DO become our point of view of ourselves & the world.
🙏🏼 thank you
🌷🌸🌺🙏🏽💖🙏🏼💐🦋🌹🎶✨🌟🦆🦅

Thank you very much. Insightful, soothing and empowering along with a sense of fun. A fabulous combination.

Sounds simple.. and it is.. thank you Rick for making it clear..