Repressed Feelings

Think about your social media photos or postings.  What we reveal to the world is curated, carefully crafted to only highlight our best.  It’s the same in daily life – we seek the validation of others and present only that side of us that we like.  We protect ourselves from whatever we react negatively to, pushing them away, hiding from them, or repressing them.  And an honest look reveals that the perfect image we try to project is incomplete.

To live a true life means accepting the whole of it, to love all of it, imperfections and all.  A good test of this kind of self-love is… are you willing to share it socially?  If not, then clearly there is not full acceptance.

The reaction may be, “but it hurts… those old feelings are painful, I just want a good time… why bring up all that old baggage and mess up my day?”  And the answer is because all that baggage is being stored up in your body as energy contractions.  This can only lead to ill-health.  The best place for a repressed feeling is in your loving awareness.

So how do we resolve these contractions?  The short answer is by releasing them.  There are many ways to do this, but let’s look at an easy daily exercise that just takes 15 or 20 minutes.  Set a timer, maybe an ordinary egg timer or on your smart phone, sit in a quiet and peaceful place, and bring that feeling into your presence.  Maybe it’s embarrassment about something, or fear of something, or repulsion of some sort… start easy, with something lighter.  You can work up to challenging trauma as you get really good at this.  Now simply sit in silence, and really feel out these emotions and feelings in a self-compassionate and fully present way.   There’s a timer, so it’s not forever… just for these few moments.  Can you be with your feelings without resistance?

When pain comes, as it inevitably does, it is not what hurts.  It is the mental resistance to it that hurts.  This may sound glib but consider people who can simply take pain without showing any signs of suffering.  How are they able to do that?  It is because they do not repress, they do not resist.  They simply accept what is at face value, without assigning narratives or weaving stories, or invoking self-pity.

The main thing is acceptance without resistance, sitting like that with what you’ve labeled as negative feelings for a while… doing so every day… you will see that the weight they once carried begins to evaporate.  Just treat one particular feeling like this every day and see what happens.  When you find that it is gone, then bring up another blockage and work with that.  Work with the same psychological contraction every day until it melts away, then begin with another.  Begin with benign and mildly negative discomforts or feelings first.  As you gain confidence and experience, you can address more deep-seated issues, childhood traumas, etc.  Once you are a master at this, you can actually ask your body to tell you where energy blockages are and ask your True Self to reveal what needs resolution.  You will transform yourself.  Let your pure awareness, without mind, touch and heal your wounds.

Love yourself as the Universe loves you and learn to flow without resistance.  In such a space, what can suffering cling to?