Hello all,
After a recent video call session with a client, I thought I would share something that may help people dealing with any kind of painful or unwanted mental/emotional habit that might be coming up…
It might be anxiety, it might be a need to please or impress people, it might be a tight defensiveness, it might be anger and aggression or hostility or hatred. It could be anything, and the same method can always be applied…
Without turning the impulse or thought or sensation into an enemy, let it be there as it is for a moment, and simply see if it is helping. Often our behaviours and reflexes and thought patterns continue to operate, even if we don’t like them, because on some level, we believe they are helping us.
If we believe or assume that they are ultimately helping us to survive or avoid pain, then we will likely keep them. So many of our mental pains can be held on to because we have never questioned how useful they really are. We might have picked them up from other people, assuming that they know what they are doing, or we may have developed them over time, in response to certain stressful situations.
Let’s take the impulse to impress people, the NEED to impress people that leads you to become inauthentic and perhaps a people-pleaser. Sense this energy within yourself. Simulate a time when this compulsion to please might arise. You can invite it in and really simulate it for yourself, feel how it feels to be in the situation.
You may feel different, uncomfortable sensations in the body. It might be a sense of contraction, tightness, or pushing. It might be a shakiness that feels responsible for how someone else feels. Feel this sensation fully, let it be as it is, and then simply ask:
Is it helping me?
See what happens. See what fruit this impulse produces. Is it helping, what does it actually do for you that benefits you?…
Then see as an experiment, how it would feel to be without it. How does it feel? What do you lose by it disappearing for a moment? If it was not there, how would you be at a disadvantage?
Gradually you might see that what was assumed to be in some way helpful, actually is just a habit of the mind and nervous system, and nothing more. If we see that something actually doesn’t have any benefit, if we almost let the energy view itself and its own uselessness, then it can once again return home to its source, and bring about a sense of balance. What is important is to enquire earnestly, honestly, openly - without thinking that we already know the answer…
How is this pain or constriction or thought pattern actually helping me?
Find out, and see what happens.
If you would like some personal guidance in releasing anything that is hindering or disturbing you, check out this page, and book a session with me for a guided introspection and enquiry.