How do we stay positive in such a crazy place (Earth), with mixed insanity flying around in our hearts and minds?
Many people wonder if there is even such thing as staying positive when you can’t ignore the sadness of the world, when you feel like everything you do isn’t even making a difference. Well, we can’t ignore the intensity of the Earth situation all the time, for many reasons.
Many of us have heard the idea: maybe we really do need to do this thing they talk about called energetic or emotional “release” of some sort. Or maybe you just need to sit with it, letting it be acknowledged and felt. Some of us just need to move on. All of this, yes. But how? When? It sounds intimidating… will it be scary?
On the other side of it, we know that it’s great to be emotionally and energetically “open” to all of the goodness, as the gurus say. We’re “supposed to” let it in and welcome it. It’s also important to project that goodness back outwards into people and things in your daily life. Yeah, that all sounds perfect.
But how can we be so very positive when we’re still operating in emotional overload mode?
We need to take a step back and take a breather, as individuals. Acknowledge and love ourselves for standing strong on life’s journey.
Think of all that you’ve gone through- look at how great you are doing, despite your trials. We haven’t even begun to process the pain, the fear, the heartbreak of our own personal tragedies in life. We also have to deal with the added weight of the tragedies of humanity, the world, and the environment- it’s a hard place to be.
We usually feel like we don’t have time to stop and reflect on a lot of things we hear in the news, or things that happen in our daily lives, and all too often most of that unprocessed stuff just gets stuffed away. Most of us have a back up of this negative charge built up inside. We definitely want to clear it as much as possible, to make more room for the good stuff! It turns out that a lot of this “junk” (totally not junk tho) can get processed through you moving out of thought and instead paying attention to the physical sensations in your body.
Because sometimes we can’t just ignore these intense aspects of life and living as if they don’t exist, even if we want to.
Our unwanted reactions and worry, sad, or anger tendencies won’t go away or integrate unless we process them. Feelings and thoughts about past intense moments/news get into our hearts and our heads. In the end, sometimes the heaviness of them just sits there, in our bodies, “forgotten.”
So we have a backup of this sludgy energy, actual brain and nervous system wiring, and the internal patterns created from these events and situations in our lives. We HAVE to accept ourselves where we’re at and clear the energy/reprogram the brain/regulate the nervous system in order to grow into our desired proactive reactions, inner peace, observer mode, etc.
Many self-help teachings on “thinking positive” often ignore the aspect of acknowledging these realities and physical sensations, and allowing them. Oftentimes, accepting and interacting with the negative energy through your body sensations naturally diffuses it.
Ready? This post is about to turn into a tutorial about locating physical sensations that are attached to negativity in your life!
I’m going to let you in on a million dollar little secret to help process those backups, and deal with more, right as they come up in life! This process can also be used to muster up amazing feelings like joy and love from the past- with a full body experience!
I invite you to try a casual, yet powerful in-body experience.
Try this on for size: acceptance, process, and release of emotions or experiences by moving out of your head space and sitting with whatever physical sensations arise in your body, detached from over thinking.
This method has been working wonders for me for many years. It’s important not to deny the sadness and anger, nor to drown in the actual emotions. The deepest aspect goes far beyond processing and purging. Acknowledging and accepting your drives, emotions and recognizing your energetic/emotional responses to them. Practicing it regularly can change your life!
The basic practice that can move you toward this can be distilled into 4 general steps. The steps are broken down into an example below.
- Take the observation time to recognize your emotions or past energy/memories for what they are. Rate how strong they are on a scale from 1-10.
- Choose to move out of the thought/emotion process and into the physical experience that’s happening in your body.
- Recognize the physical sensations in your body that shows up with the emotion you’re working with. Feel them, Let them be there. It might be intense. Stay with the experience and feel the sensations move around in your body!
Learn how to “release” all of that built up emotional and energetic residue, just by sitting with it. Pay attention to your body’s experience instead of avoiding it with lots of thinking. I like to call this process “offgassing” because that’s what it feels like to me when I get into a deep, natural flowing release state.
Now I’m going to really walk you through it.
Here’s an everyday scenario that you might find yourself in, and how you would process it through paying attention to your body sensations.
Ok, let’s define bodily sensations. Everyone has their own experience, but generally defined, they are “the physical sensations in your body.” When you drop your awareness and experience out of your head and into your physical experience of a moment, you will notice that you have a lot of body sensations. Is it tingling or feeling buzzy anywhere in your body? Maybe you get antsy and want to stand up?
When you practice this, notice any physical sensation at all that arises, no matter how random it may seem, and pay attention to it… and stay with it. Breathe, but focus on your body sensations. That’s all this is.
Great. Now that you can suddenly feel it… FEEL it! Even if it feels foreign, uncomfortable, or all to familiar. Don’t be surprised or freaked if you twitch. Big energy is releasing permanently through that jerky bod, and neurological resets are happening that will help you and your mood/reaction/anxiety in immediate and lasting future!
Let’s say you’re feeling really angsty, etc. out of nowhere for a day… or maybe you have felt it building up, and today it is at its peak. World situation or personal life. It all just adds up sometimes. Or maybe something dramatic/negative happens in your day, and suddenly you need to release it or cope fast emotionally, so it doesn’t ruin your day.
So- whatever it is that makes it hard for you sometimes, you find yourself in “a moment”.
Now stop, and stop paying attention to thoughts. Thoughts won’t always actually stop. This isn’t your typical fight to shut off your brain. Just let them thoughts run around in the background. Refocus on how your body feels, and it’s reaction to the thought instead. Literally tune your consciousness into your body.
Take several deep breaths and find where all those thoughts are actually located in your mind. Where can you feel them coming from in your head? Then pay attention to that sensation, and move it: drop the located “awareness” or “consciousness” from the brain activity, down into your chest or wherever it lands. Then you can feel into what your body feels like.
Then you might suddenly notice that your body feels tired- very heavy and sluggish. Or full of pent up exploding energy! Just stay in touch with that feeling. Your sensation may be anything, anywhere on your body- even as small as a tingling fingertip or an extra swallow. Or a strong or tiny vibration deep inside. Allow it. Trust it and feel it. Observe it.
At this point in your experience, give yourself a five minute break.
Shake it off. Physically shake your body out, stretch a bit, and breathe when you’re done with a round of this (a few minutes is usually enough for on round- you can always do more rounds of feeling and allowing sensations, just shake it out in between each round, and re-assess where you’re at an what has shifted… and go back into sensations from there.
If you need to because you’re in public, excuse yourself to the restroom or outside for some air to do this exercise if you’re finding the need- it’s as simple as that. Then you’re free to rest, process and come back to center!
You can definitely do this in a group whenever you need to also. The process is the same, it just may be filtered more by you because of social expectations (like not to twitch or show too many emotions, haha). But whether you can excuse yourself from the moment or not, your efforts will be wickedly beneficial to you.
The key of this practice is to move your atte
ntion even further away from your mental frustration and annoyance, etc. with the moment. Move all of that awareness to whatever physical sensation comes in your body right then instead. And just stay with it in a loving manner.
Stay absorbed in the physical sensation, largely detached from overthinking and the emotional aspect.
This can be a foreign but beneficial experience for you if released casually, on a regular basis. It’s important to acknowledge and take a moment out of your life to just let some release happen when you realize it has built up.
What this often looks like for me:
When I’m in it, and I have made it to this point in observation through physical sensation, if I stay “in my body”, and fully relaxed into the good/bad body sensation, this built up gunk can actually seep out of my pores like invisible gas without any force. I feel it happen. Sometimes it develops into a big twitch or two, or a different sensation. The key is really to allow and accept any sensation versus expecting it to feel like anything specific.
When I’m finished- usually all of a sudden after a few minutes, I usually get up and skip away as if a thousand pounds have been lifted from my shoulders! Afterwards, it often feels like I have turned up my happiness and focus switches even brighter.
Your experience of emotional release through physical sensation will look unique,
with the benefit of release ultimately being the same. Just give it a try without expectation! Your experience will be unique and perfect for YOU.
Don’t “process” beyond the point of discomfort where your gut tells you to stop. You are wise. Listen to yourself.
As odd as it all may sound, this has been a key to my happiness. Acknowledging and processing body sensations has allowed me to catch up with myself in life, emotions, and sensations, and consistently bring my best self out so that I can do my thing in the world.
Learn to love it, and it will move mountains for you!
