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How to Release Big and Small Emotions (Release)
This is a beautiful technique that’s as effective as it is simple. That’s because it’s very natural. We knew it as children but have forgotten how to use it.
It works right away with emotions, but once you have some practice with it, you can use if just as well for thoughts and beliefs, and for releasing emotional baggage around desires.
It helps to understand the structure of emotions. If we were fully functioning organisms, a feeling would simply be a transient message about something going on right now, and we would feel it as a quick ripple. That’s a feeling. An emotion, however, is a pattern, and it is remembered and it accumulates energy, leaving a deeper groove each time it is experienced, and it may or may not be about something happening right now. Emotions can come up as a response to circumstances, but more often, they come up as a response to thoughts. An emotion is an energized thought, and it always starts as sensations in the body. This is obvious with strong emotions like anger or anxiety. Anger starts off with muscular contraction, an increase in adrenaline, temperature, heartbeat and blood pressure, and a hotness in the face. Anxiety may start as sensations in the belly. Even the smallest of emotions starts as a sensation, though we may not be sensitive to the sensations. The sensations start up, and they trigger an associated thought-story. With negative emotions, the associated thought-story is usually in voice of the inner critic. The thoughts and sensations then get into a feedback loop, energizing each other, and the emotion gathers up a storm.
You will notice that with negative emotions, the first thing we do is contract. We mentally resist and physically contract our bodies, in anticipation how bad it’s going to feel.
You may also notice the paradox of negative emotions. Emotions promise to hold off the very thing they give us. Fear says I am trying to keep you safe. Anxiety says I am trying to give you the security you need. Anger says you are not liking what is happening. Hurt says you will feel bad if you don’t pay attention to me.
In Asia, they use this clever trick to catch monkeys. There is a circular shackle or a hole through which the monkey puts her hand to grab a banana on the other side. The hole is just big enough to let in an open hand, but not big enough to let out a fisted hand. The monkey cannot get her hand out if she holds on to the banana. This is exactly what we do with emotions. We grasp them. All we have to do is open our hands to release.
Here’s a quick experiment to show how this technique works. Make a fist and squeeze it hard as if you’re holding on to something, and keep squeezing. What does that feel like—a little uncomfortable? Perhaps it feels a little strange, but if you keep squeezing the strangeness goes away. It’s still uncomfortable but secure and automatic. Emotions in the same way are uncomfortable and automatic. And releasing emotions is as easy as opening your hand.
The technique is adapted from the Sedona method’s basic technique. It is a series of questions, which we answer very quickly. The questions in themselves are not important nor are the answers. The questions help us stop, look, and be aware of what’s going on, and they help us re-learn what we have always known: that it is easy and instant to release any emotion. Ask and answer these questions quickly. No matter what the answer is, move on to the next question. Soon they will become non-verbal. With practice the questions disappear and releasing becomes automatic.
When you experience an emotion, big or small:
Can I make a lot of space for this emotion?
Am I able to let it go?
Let it go
It’s easy to remember as space/can I/let go.
What are you feeling right now? You don’t have to label it, and it doesn’t have to be a big emotion.
Can you allow the emotion? See if you can allow the emotion without resistance. Make a lot of space for the emotion in the body. Don’t contract. Don’t resist. Welcome the emotion, allow it, and love it. Then, make even more space for it. If you don’t think you can welcome the emotion, it’s perfectly fine. Move on quickly no matter what happens.
Are you able to let the emotion go? You don’t have to let it go, the question is: are you able to? It’s okay if the answer is no. Just continue.
Are you willing to let it go? Move on, no matter what you answer.
Let it go now. It helps to sigh, or exhale long and easy while letting go.
Instead of questions, you can make them into statements, something similar to:
I am making space for this emotion.
I can let this emotion go.
I am letting it go Now.
With practice the technique becomes non-verbal and natural and technique-less. You will notice a sensation in the body, make space for it by not contracting, and release it.
The mind will immediately question whether this will work. “It’s too simple.” “If I knew how to let go of emotions, I would have done it already.” “How can this work?” “What is the mechanism?” “I can’t use this until I understand more.”
The answer is just to try it a few times. If you feel you are not able to let go of the emotion, don’t worry about it. Try it anyway. Keep trying. My experience first was with the Sedona method of releasing. I tried it with anxiety, several times a day for about two or three weeks. I didn’t think it was really working, and one day I realized I had not felt anxiety for several days. With practice the technique became instant and non-verbal.
Why does this work? Well, first, it is very natural. Second, we are bringing emotions back to their true function of feeling-message by interrupting the association with thought-stories. Also, we naturally develop equanimity with this method. After all, what we are experiencing is just a body sensation. And finally, we are breaking the false identification with the whole pattern of body sensation and thought-story.
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just gets better and better kaush!!! keep it up
Thanks, Ken!!
I find if I add action to thought its more efective.Literaly open up your front door and kick the negative out . Then Say you are not to return.
Hi Cindy,
That sounds like an effective technique. It’s all about fully experiencing the thought and emotion and then releasing it.
The emotion I thought of was sadness. My stray kitty looks at me and cries through the glass doors leading to the lanai. I can’t let her in because she has leukemia and she can’t infect my other kitties.
I really tried to let the emotion go – I know I’m doing the best I can for her – but I kept thinking it wasn’t right to let it go, and that I should feel FOR HER. Like it’s not fair to let the emotion go because it dismisses what she is feeling…
The kitty is lucky to have you as a mother. Grief is wholly natural. You can release the pain of it, and when you do, what’s left is love.
By the way, I totally feel like a celebrity! Thanks for the picture
I love you!! <3
It’s the effervescence! You don’t look much different now, twenty years hence….
Please write in my blog! Just posted two topics on healing~~ Thank you for this wonderful blog! I believe that releasing emotions is very necessary as well as powerful! Namaste, Coach Sarah http://www.raincoaching.com/blog
You’re right…when you let go of grief, love is all that’s left. So this begs the question…are we letting go of ALL emotion? Or just the uncomfortable ones??
My experience is that feelings never go away. Feelings which are body sensations–messages from the mind-body–intuition if you want to call it that. They are transient–short-lived ripples in the body. They turn into ‘emotions’ when the mind takes these feelings and associates them with thought-stories and the past. A feedback pattern is created, so that the mind-story energizes the sensation and sensations energize the mind-story. The whole pattern is remembered so it is stronger with each iteration.
I believe when we let go emotions, we are bringing emotions back to their true function of feeling-message, so that they don’t leave traces.
Love is not an emotion. It’s simply our natural state. When all fear is gone, there is just love.
Your experience may be very different. The point is here is that with this technique, it’s been easy and quick to release anxiety and fear. It’s so very simple, that the mind initially will say this can’t possibly work. But it does!
Hi,
This is very simple even as compared to sedona method. It really works. The beauty of it is simple and uncomplicated.I think if it is consistently applied to deeper emptions , this give a effective release.
Prasad
Thanks, Prasad. Yes, it’s simpler than the Sedona method, and this takes about five seconds to do. For me, it was the end of anxiety forever! Have you tried it?
But how do you deal with the life situation the thought of which originally had given you the anxiety. Now, when the anxiety’s gone, the life’s situation is still remaining to be dealt with.
What I found is that in some cases an anxiety helps me to deal with a life’s situation. For instance, I have to look for a job but I don’t want to and instead I spend my time by enjoying being awakened to a much better extent than it used to be when I was going to job every day. But from time to time I am getting anxiety attacks related to the fear of future that force me to start acting in a way such as sending resumes, making enquiries, etc. The whole process is so unpleasing and the whole perspective of slaving yourself at a job that you hate is so depressing , too, that the only state in which I can force myself to function is the state of anxiety.
It looks like an anxiety is an important part of the existence. At least, as a safety valve to protect us from laziness.
Hi Lac,
What a wonderful question! You’ve given me an idea for an article. I’ll try to address it here as well.
You point out the classic workings of dualism. The mind is dualistic and thinks only in opposites. The mind says, with anxiety I am motivated, so without anxiety I will be completely unproductive!
It hasn’t worked that way in my experience. I have no anxiety at all–no past, no future. I am far more productive than I ever was. There is no worry, no doubt–just intention and action. I don’t know if this can be understood intellectually. It has to be experienced.
I call these fears the second obstacle. It is the ego’s fear of awakening, and it shows up in various ways:
-I will be lazy if I awaken
-I will lose all interest in worldly things
-I will become emotion-less
-How can I possibly get by without thoughts?
-How can I really know happiness if there is no pain in my life?
-What’s the point of living without pain (this is a strange one, but we all have this in us–this peculiar attraction we have to suffering).
It can also show up as a “spiritualized” ego, where the goal is not awakening, but the intellectual or spiritual study of awakening. It can show up as intellectualizing a process that the intellect cannot possibly understand.
Perhaps you or other readers can add to this list.
Can we simply allow these fears, fully experience them, and let them go?
-
I think I have to clarify my comment. When I am present, I realize how pointless it is for me to look for a job in an industry where I have worked for 20 years but at which being present and successful are mutually exclusive states. At the moment of such realization I don’t feel any anxiety or fear; it rather feels good, you are present, you see things for what they are. And you are happy. You don’t feel guilty. You are enjoying of being awakened. It is a wonderful feeling, a bliss.
And the life goes on, and you have to pay the bills. And you have to start acting, otherwise…
What I found, the only real stick that can make me moving is the fear of future that manifests itself as an anxiety. Otherwise I will not be acting. But then, the whole result acting is becoming spoiled because I acted out of anxiety.
What a vicious circle!
Hi Lac,
I understand. I don’t have an answer that satisfies intellectually. While awakening, I have gone through emotional turmoil and anxiety, and when I discovered how to release these, instantly, what was left was apathy and detachment. I think old drivers and motivation fall away, but natural intention has not yet surfaced. It does, and then action comes about very naturally.
Wow thank you for this. I have been dealing with anxiety on and off for most of my life. During the times when I am anxiety free I am completely in sync and functioning. When I am anxious though I become hyper aware of my body and begin to fill my head with very pessimistic thoughts. I become a prisoner of my body and my feelings. And I become annoyed by existence itself. A feeling like I just want to stay in bed and stop.
I came up with something similar to the sedona method…embracing the feeling and then moving on. I got this from various websites but this website really puts everything into wonderful perspective.
I have been meditating a lot and have been realizing that I really need to love myself. My anxiety is trying to protect me from myself but it is actually imprisoning me.
What I would like to know….this is a habit I have…when I am feeling wonderful I have a habit of saying to myself…”wait a minute…how can i be feeling this good when just a few days ago i was feeling like hell? how did my anxiety go away so fast. There’s no way i can be cured. Last time it took this many days to overcome. Theres no way…” and so I start to check to see if its there. And if its not there…i tend to focus and focus…like picking at a scab or scar…until I feel it again. THen i go through the entire cycle of trying to conquer it again.
I am trying to learn how, once i have conquered my anxiety, how to keep myself from “second guessing” myself and rechecking and rehashing the same anxiety. How do i stop this cycle of anxiety, curing the anxiety, checking to see if its still there, recreating it and then fighting it all over again? It’s so exhausting.
I am meditating and learning about the flow of love. Loving myself. But i want to learn how to….keep my mind from revisiting old wounds and always constantly doubting my well being.
Hi Brando,
Yes, anxiety is debilitating. When I had anxiety, I would usually experience it in the mornings intensely for an hour or so, and then at a little less intensely at various periods in the day.
This method, and the Sedona Method and other release techniques work in the same way: you completely allow what you are feeling and you let it go. We are not able to see that we can let these emotions go easily and completely because we are too busy resisting them.
The habit of saying “wait a minute…how is the even possible that I can let go of anxiety…”–this is a common feeling. The intellectual mind and the ego want to understand. I think it may be that it is hard for us to accept that anxiety and other stored emotions don’t have any reality except the one we give them. How is it that something that has caused me so much misery never actually existed?
When you feel that way, allow it. What you may be feeling with it, is some fear that this may come back, and in that case, completely allow the fear and let it go.
Yes, sometimes it is exhausting. Awakening is like that–it ebbs and flows, and sometimes the ebbs seem like real downers. As you have said: Love yourself, allow, be patient, continue to be aware (meditate), continue to release.
love and peace,
k
Kaushick I thank you so much
I am definitely coming to this website often. Everything I have gone through I have gone through before. But sometimes rather than remember that it all goes away i focus on the struggle. and feel like i cannot control my mind. I have been modifying my habit to check and looking at it as something trying to protect me. I thank it and then tell it I no longer need it. I am fine with my spirit protecting me. I do not need the ego to protect me.
Brando, that’s a wonderful way to handle it. Thanks for sharing the tip–it can help others.
love and peace,
k
Hi Kaushik,
Wonderful website, I have been using your techniques, and it has helped a lot.
I am worried about one thing, I still don’t know what I want, mostly professionally. I would like to work with passion, but I think I have been doing what I had to do for so long that I can’t hear myself anymore.
Maybe you could do this your next article
Thank you, Iana. It is always nice to get feedback on the techniques.
It’s interesting you ask about passion. We want passion, purpose, positive thinking and all their cousins for the same reason. With purpose, life seems more fun, closer to Truth, more energetic, more purposeful, and making decisions is easier and of course we get a lot of validation.
The trouble is that most of our thoughts are in service to the ego, which is the thoughts and feelings we take ourselves to be. Passion, positive thinking, and even spiritual advancement are stories of the ego–stories driven by desires and fear and conditioning. So we strive and chase passion and positive thinking, and we need our stories to go in certain ways.
In my experience, as I release, and develop awareness, there is an inner peace and acceptance, in which passion is sometimes invited.
You’re right, I will write more about this in an article.
I hope you are doing well!
love and peace,
k
This article is wonderful. I have found that I have developed intense anxiety, living in my own thoughts and self-judgment, as i grow up. I am beginning to try “awakening” techniques that bring me back to the simple enjoyments of adolescence and childhood, when you didn’t question everything, you just let it flow, you let love in without being afraid of it. It’s very hard… But seem to slowly be working! Thank you.
I just had a question about this technique though. It works well when anxiety is only related to YOURSELF. What about when the anxiety you experience is a product of pain from SOMEONE ELSE, a relationship past that has not been settled in real life, so how can it be settled within yourself? I am able to release my PERSONAL feeling of pain, but then there is still something unresolved attached to this other person that begins the anxiety cycle all over again. so once you rid of the feeling, how to deal with the real life problem causing it.
xo:)
Hi Vera,
Thanks for the wonderful comment, and you ask a very important question.
Relationships seem to be the ego’s favorite playground and many of us find resistance there. In the type of scenario you describe, there can be unresolved pain which can last quite some time. There is longing, a need to be heard, a wish to forget, compulsive thinking, obsessive stories running in the head, and so on.
See it as an opportunity. As the Dalai Lama says, when you don’t get what you want, it’s sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
I have written here about how to deal with the pain of ended relationships.
The Sedona method can be helpful. It asks to see that much of our conditioned suffering comes from the need for approval, the need for security, the need for control, and the need to awaken.
Other resources I can suggest: The Sedona Method, EFT, Eckhart Tolle, greatfreedom.org, Byron Katie…(see External Resources page).
Any amount of pain is simply resistance. Anxiety is anxiety whether it is about “me” or someone else–it is all body-sensations connected to thought-stories. We can learn to let go, and releasing gets easier and easier and easier…
love and peace,
k
i dont know if this will sound a little silly but i will try and express as well as possible. I am aware that i emotion is there…usually is the form of anxiety, unease, etc and with this tends to be obsessive thoughts that bring on anxiety etc….and so on a certain level practicing awareness and meditation i have learnt that when my thoughts are not as active/ thinking of certain situations i am not ‘feeling; the emotion….however..at the same time, i am still somewhat aware and this brings double anxiety, that all i have to do is have this or that thought and the emotion/feelings will return and i will once again be there again….so for me its like they are always there, even when they are not (hope this is making sense).
Now when you say feel/ accept the emotion i feel scared…thinking, well i dont want to feel it again, i want it to go….and i=how do i JUST feel it without all my painful thoughts attaching to it? can i feel the emotion without the thoughts? if so how?
Thank you and i hope i am clear enough for you to offer some help x
nichola
HI Nichola,
I do understand. For years, I had on and off episodes of depression and anxiety. During the times that I felt ‘normal’ there was always an underlying anxiety that this will not last. The fear is that at any time, because of some life event or interruption in schedule or perhaps no reason at all, the whole thing will collapse. And of course this is re-enforced, because it seems that the fear does come true.
If you notice in yourself, what you are doing is suppressing thoughts and emotions you have about your anxiety. You are suppressing the anxiety about having anxiety again. This is normal and common.
Accept that the underlying fear exists. It is no different from higher-level anxiety you have. You can work on releasing this anxiety in the same way.
It’s helpful to remember that anxiety–any emotion in fact–is an association between thought and body-sensations. When the thought is very subtle, we feel this as an emotion. When the body-sensations are very subtle, we feel this as emotional thoughts. So the anxiety you about having anxiety is also an association of some thoughts and some body-sensations. Nothing more. You can be present to it, watch it, and ask yourself to let it go.
I hope this helps.
Thanks for bringing up a very important point.
light and peace,
k
Stumbled onto your website this morn, looking for “awareness exercise” to implement today.
The time (hours) spent here has been useful. I appreicate your work and I have book marked the site and I shall return. I am so grateful for your “return” and prescence, what a treasure you are.
Thanks, Tiah. I look forward to hearing more from you.
Hello Kaushik:
Namaste.
i have a lot of anxiety and fear. Recently unemployed and not much chance of finding a job with benefits in this economy I have great fear, worry and anxiety. Shifting attention seems frustratingly hard and produces no relief. Can we create our own worldly experiences or maya? Then how could I have created unemployment and lack of financial security. Is it karma,? If so, then by shifting my attention to free myself, then am I not merely sweeping the dust under the carpet?
Love to hear from you.
Namaste Girish,
Maya and karma are spiritual concepts. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant.
The way I see it now is that we all have a very basic fear in us, a confusion, a resistance. The first thing to do in life is to get rid of this, because anything else we do or feel or think or say is completely uncertain as long as we have this basic fear.
After four years of searching and learning and practicing awareness and release I was in a very peaceful state. Life was easy, I released depression and anxiety, and I had much more clarity. Still do.
And yet, this very basic fear of life persists.
Once I recognized this, I recognized that really the first order of business is to be rid of this fear. And the way to do that is to look at yourself.
At this point, I am not sure that this will work, but the insights I’ve had so far are consistent with this, and I am putting some trust in Nisargadatta and Ramana and John Sherman and Jed Mckenna. And in a few weeks of looking at the sense of “I AM”, enough has happened that I want to continue.
The only other thing I suggest to people now is to release. Because releasing has worked for me, and it’s worked for others, judging from the letters I get.
No, shifting attention to yourself is not shifting the dust under the carpet. We take on some strange ideas about this stuff, and one of the strange ideas we take on is that freeing oneself is a mystical, other-world kind of thing. It isn’t. This is the most practical, matter-of-fact, down-to-earth thing I can do. It’s the first order of business.
I hope this helps.
k
This is fantastic. It really resonates with The Power of Now too.. thank you.
Fred Tracy´s last [type] ..Why People Are Selfish (and Why They Shouldn’t Be)
Hi, thank you for the website and the techniques!
The last time my crisis hit me ( anxiety, distress,memories, pretty much fear at its most) I did not deal with it, it was during a winter break before my birthday. (lasted for about 2 weeks.)
instead i just buried it deep inside and developed thought patterns to suppress it and hoped it would go away in that manner
my crisis came back after having a panic attack a bit over a year later, where i engulfed more emotions since a year ago. and at first it was being dealt with the same way as the first time, and it lasted a lot longer too, over 2 months..
after a phew months the emotions weren’t running as wild as before so i decided I should inform myself about my emotions, i became aware of them being there and how they can attach to thought patterns and the past events to create a viscous circle. ( past relationships, past actions etc. )
i want to face all my unanswered fear based emotions that are are still inside my body scattered before i enter adulthood.
i don`t know how to find them, and once found how can i release them for GOOD, and forget the thought patterns that i strongly associated with them?
radiance´s last [type] ..The Relief
Hi Radiance,
It hasn’t been my experience that I can release anxiety and depression for good with the release technique. They come up and release them. I like the release technique and I still whole-heartedly recommend it. It helps release painful emotions and it helps us see the nature of emotions. It provides psychological comfort during distress. It provides pain relief–not a cure.
The cure is to look at you. (see The Relief).
And while you’re looking at you, it can help if you understand the original problem. The problem is fear, which comes about in our very early years, the first effect of the fear is a detachment from life. We feel separated from our own lives. And after that, nothing can be certain.
I hope this helps.
k
“And after that, nothing can be certain.”, if nothing can be certain than that technique is just choosing the easy way out of the whole process no?
its just not resisting those emotions/thoughts. imagine being a fishermen ( questioner) standing in the river (life) attempting to catch fish ( answers) but each time you feel a fish hooked ( think you got your answer) it eats your bait and leaves ( negative emotions arise once more) and is a continuous process.
what you are telling me is you have simply decided to just stand in the river and let the fish swim by you your entire life? that it wont really get the job done, but it relieves you from the pain followed by not catching the fish?
what i am looking for is not a temporary relief strategy, i want to truly understand why my brain is automatically thinking so much from the second i wake up from slumber it begins to re-think the past and try to make a sensible story outline of it. during this process i used to feel extreme fear based emotions in the morning.. now its less extreme but is still there. =/ doctors tried giving me pills but i never took em never will i don’t believe i have anything wrong with me i am just in a weird delusion of reality sometimes and of who i am idk how to act based on “me” sometimes.
radiance´s last [type] ..The Relief
Forget about rivers and fish. The actual thing is much more powerful than any metaphor.
We have a fear in us. The fear causes a detachment from life itself. We feel we are at stake, that life must be protected, feared, defended. The effects of this are highly individual. I felt the effects ultimately as anxiety, depression, addictions, confusion. You are feeling the effects as automatic thinking and fear-based emotions.
Do the looking. Look at you. The sense of you is very ordinary and it’s right up here on the surface. You don’t have to dig down deep. Bring your attention to the sense of you. Do this whenever you remember.
You don’t have to believe what I say about fear and detachment. If you understand that, it may help; if you don’t, the looking still works.
This website reallyy seems helpful. I’ve been dealing with obsessive thoughts about my sexual orientation. This girl was calling me gay. Its affected me for a few months now. I know in my heart that I’m not gay but its made me replay thoughts in my head about my past and I just wanna let it go. I’ve never worried about it before now. I’m naturally an optimistic person so it hurts me a lot. But I know that I can move on from this. Hopefully with these techniques.
Hi Bob,
Yes this technique will help you.
Also, perhaps you can talk about this with a counselor or someone you trust.
k
I have talked to a counselor before but I don’t feel that it helped much. There are days when I don’t have any thoughts then I get scared that I don’t get them and it starts up again. I want to break that cycle without having to resort to pills. I know there was life before unwanted thoughts and there’s life after. I know I’m a strong person.
Good for you! I am going to try this technique too! I am hoping for good results! I have been struggling with obsessive thoughts and anxiety for years, and I wanted to find something to help without medication. I like what you said Bob, there was life before unwanted thoughts, and there is life after unwanted thoughts.
) That made me smile. I feel the same way. Good luck to you!!!