Post by deadendphilosopher on Jun 16, 2008 22:51:40 GMT -5
This is a really long post about an experience and technique that I think really helped me. I’m sorry it’s so long, but I wanted to express what I had to say as completely as possible.
As I have posted elsewhere, I just took a 2 week permaculture course where I experienced being with the same group of people for 12 or more hours every day. This was an intense and somewhat transformative experience for me, (especially because I'm in the process of shadow work) and it led me to discover a technique for throwing yourself in the moment without worrying as much about what others are thinking. Honestly I'm not completely sure it's the best thing to do because it involves an inward focus, but I've found it empowering so I'm going to share it.
I'm not exactly sure how to express what I want to say. Basically fear is the dominant emotion in my life - all other emotions yield to fear - they may be important, but fear runs everything. Well I realized that that's just a habbit - it's like in my mind I believe I need the fear to protect me and keep me safe, so my mind gives full sovereignty to fear. I think doing shadow work may have helped me to become aware of this. Anyway, I am also aware that the fear, while it serves me in some instances is also holding me back and has become far more destructive than constructive. That knowledge along with some situations in my course group that have provided me with emotional angst contrasted with hope and joy has started to allow me to let other emotions take center stage, which is very empowering!
I experienced a few instances of this emotional shift, but I will talk about the most dramatic one. I posted about a guy who has been really flirtatious with me in the relationship section. Due to my insecurity there were many times during the two weeks of the course when I thought he had lost all interest in me only to be proved wrong a little while later, which created some emotional turbulence. After we spent the night together (we didn't have sex) I started to feel more emotionally attached even though I didn't want to, though I'm far from being obsessed with him. The next day I had the belief that he was no longer interested and this caused me to act in a way that I think led him to ignore me the next day. This caused me serious emotional angst, especially since I noticed him paying more attention than usual to another girl there. My first impulse was to suppress the feeling, to tell myself about all the other fish in the sea. However, instead I welcomed the emotion even though it was painful, and I focused on the beauty of it, on the deep, soft grief aspect of it. I'm used to feeling closed and tense, but welcoming the emotional pain was like allowing my heart to open and flow. I focused on the power in the emotion, and let myself feel it as my inner power – it’s hard to say exactly what that kind of power it is – I guess it’s just the power to feel things on a deep level, to connect into a flow that fear always tries to stifle. I let the emotion swell inside me so that I was on the verge of tears, but I didn’t let myself cry. It wasn’t like I was suppressing my tears though, I was just letting them simmer below the surface, welcoming their presence and letting it flow through my heart, but also channeling the flow into a force inside of me. It was kind of like instead of relying on the beauty of a connection outside of myself, I was expressing and experiencing the beauty of emotion in myself, and that made me feel very empowered and almost exhilarated. I focused on keeping that emotional force inside me, close to the surface, and my fear backed off big time. We had to give our final design team presentations, and remarkably when I stepped in front of everyone I barely felt any fear. I didn’t speak well, but it felt like that was out of laziness, habit, and not wanting people to see what I was capable of, and it didn’t really bother me. I tried to keep that force with me for the rest of the afternoon and evening when we had a talent show and celebration. It lessened some and I started to feel more fear, but my softer emotion still dominated and I found myself wanting to sing and dance and talk to people and move out of my comfort zone. I encountered some resistance when presented with the opportunity to do these things, but it was merely the resistance of old habit and I talked myself out of it and participated and felt really happy as a result. It was like my mind was not accepting very much of the negative self talk it feeds itself all the time, and it was just telling itself how much potential and flow it has. It really convinced my fear and inhibition voice to shut up for a while. It was amazing - people seemed more drawn to me. The person who I’d had the least contact with on the course even approached me, started a conversation, and later asked if I wanted to go out drinking with him and some other people. Other people made an effort to talk to me as well, and I don’t think I did that well conversationally but instead of beating myself up about it, the voice in my head was saying, “well you haven’t had much practice, and this is only the beginning. . . you have the potential to let go so much more than this, just keep going, you’re getting there, let the flow take you, life is always flowing” There were moments when fear or emotional pain dominated, but overall I felt like I was beginning to set myself free. I also felt like when I was talking to people it was more from my heart – I wasn’t holding back so much, I was allowing good will and tenderness to radiate from inside me. The guy who had been ignoring me even came up and acknowledged me by squeezing my arm as he went by.
I tried to keep the emotional force with me the next day (the last day) and wasn’t quite as successful maybe because I was tired. But I could still feel it in me, and it may have shown because a couple people made comments about me looking good that day. I have decided that this is something I don’t think I can or should consciously try to maintain all the time, but it is a technique that I think I may be able to call on when needed in some situations. I hope this is helpful for some people, and am curious to know if anyone else has experience the same thing. The more I write about it, the more I’m starting to think it may be a result of attending shadow work sessions. At first I didn’t feel like they did very much, but I’m starting to think they’re pretty powerful!
As I have posted elsewhere, I just took a 2 week permaculture course where I experienced being with the same group of people for 12 or more hours every day. This was an intense and somewhat transformative experience for me, (especially because I'm in the process of shadow work) and it led me to discover a technique for throwing yourself in the moment without worrying as much about what others are thinking. Honestly I'm not completely sure it's the best thing to do because it involves an inward focus, but I've found it empowering so I'm going to share it.
I'm not exactly sure how to express what I want to say. Basically fear is the dominant emotion in my life - all other emotions yield to fear - they may be important, but fear runs everything. Well I realized that that's just a habbit - it's like in my mind I believe I need the fear to protect me and keep me safe, so my mind gives full sovereignty to fear. I think doing shadow work may have helped me to become aware of this. Anyway, I am also aware that the fear, while it serves me in some instances is also holding me back and has become far more destructive than constructive. That knowledge along with some situations in my course group that have provided me with emotional angst contrasted with hope and joy has started to allow me to let other emotions take center stage, which is very empowering!
I experienced a few instances of this emotional shift, but I will talk about the most dramatic one. I posted about a guy who has been really flirtatious with me in the relationship section. Due to my insecurity there were many times during the two weeks of the course when I thought he had lost all interest in me only to be proved wrong a little while later, which created some emotional turbulence. After we spent the night together (we didn't have sex) I started to feel more emotionally attached even though I didn't want to, though I'm far from being obsessed with him. The next day I had the belief that he was no longer interested and this caused me to act in a way that I think led him to ignore me the next day. This caused me serious emotional angst, especially since I noticed him paying more attention than usual to another girl there. My first impulse was to suppress the feeling, to tell myself about all the other fish in the sea. However, instead I welcomed the emotion even though it was painful, and I focused on the beauty of it, on the deep, soft grief aspect of it. I'm used to feeling closed and tense, but welcoming the emotional pain was like allowing my heart to open and flow. I focused on the power in the emotion, and let myself feel it as my inner power – it’s hard to say exactly what that kind of power it is – I guess it’s just the power to feel things on a deep level, to connect into a flow that fear always tries to stifle. I let the emotion swell inside me so that I was on the verge of tears, but I didn’t let myself cry. It wasn’t like I was suppressing my tears though, I was just letting them simmer below the surface, welcoming their presence and letting it flow through my heart, but also channeling the flow into a force inside of me. It was kind of like instead of relying on the beauty of a connection outside of myself, I was expressing and experiencing the beauty of emotion in myself, and that made me feel very empowered and almost exhilarated. I focused on keeping that emotional force inside me, close to the surface, and my fear backed off big time. We had to give our final design team presentations, and remarkably when I stepped in front of everyone I barely felt any fear. I didn’t speak well, but it felt like that was out of laziness, habit, and not wanting people to see what I was capable of, and it didn’t really bother me. I tried to keep that force with me for the rest of the afternoon and evening when we had a talent show and celebration. It lessened some and I started to feel more fear, but my softer emotion still dominated and I found myself wanting to sing and dance and talk to people and move out of my comfort zone. I encountered some resistance when presented with the opportunity to do these things, but it was merely the resistance of old habit and I talked myself out of it and participated and felt really happy as a result. It was like my mind was not accepting very much of the negative self talk it feeds itself all the time, and it was just telling itself how much potential and flow it has. It really convinced my fear and inhibition voice to shut up for a while. It was amazing - people seemed more drawn to me. The person who I’d had the least contact with on the course even approached me, started a conversation, and later asked if I wanted to go out drinking with him and some other people. Other people made an effort to talk to me as well, and I don’t think I did that well conversationally but instead of beating myself up about it, the voice in my head was saying, “well you haven’t had much practice, and this is only the beginning. . . you have the potential to let go so much more than this, just keep going, you’re getting there, let the flow take you, life is always flowing” There were moments when fear or emotional pain dominated, but overall I felt like I was beginning to set myself free. I also felt like when I was talking to people it was more from my heart – I wasn’t holding back so much, I was allowing good will and tenderness to radiate from inside me. The guy who had been ignoring me even came up and acknowledged me by squeezing my arm as he went by.
I tried to keep the emotional force with me the next day (the last day) and wasn’t quite as successful maybe because I was tired. But I could still feel it in me, and it may have shown because a couple people made comments about me looking good that day. I have decided that this is something I don’t think I can or should consciously try to maintain all the time, but it is a technique that I think I may be able to call on when needed in some situations. I hope this is helpful for some people, and am curious to know if anyone else has experience the same thing. The more I write about it, the more I’m starting to think it may be a result of attending shadow work sessions. At first I didn’t feel like they did very much, but I’m starting to think they’re pretty powerful!
