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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…
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….
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.
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