Do Not RUN AWAY!

I had a hard life dilemma to solve, like most of us do from time to time. As I’m a typical human being, one night I woke up scared, terrified and completely overwhelmed by dark scenarios multiplying in my head with the speed of light. I couldn’t move and my body was frozen. I should react in a typical way – calm down! try to relax, just don’t think about it, these are just thoughts…but it doesn’t work, does it?  

This time I did the opposite thing. I implemented a technique we teach in our workshops - DON’T RUN AWAY, FACE IT AND NOTICE IT. Ok, I looked into my fear like a wild man looking into the eyes of a pissed-off elephant on the savannah. I’ve seen it in a program once on the Animal Planet channel. If you run away, an elephant will chase you until it smashes you, but if you stop and avoid panic it actually calms down this giant.

I stopped fleeing, and acknowledged what my feelings were – fear? anger? anxiety? sadness?

Secondly – I observed where I feel these feelings physically in my body – in my stomach? ears? chest? Or legs? What is it exactly – pain? stiffness? hot flush? cold flush?

During this experience I discovered something, a hidden side of my being, my nature. I didn’t know that part of myself, but this time I ALLOWED it to speak up. I agreed to liaise with myself and my emotions. My negative emotions were still quite strong, still very intense - but I changed a perspective, I changed my status from that of a “runner” to being an “observer and listener”. In the beginning I felt like I was at the cinema watching a movie, and after a while I felt like jumping into the movie and participating in the action on the set. The action was taken place inside of me. My emotions, my feelings were like actors playing with me on the stage and it was a completely non-forced, naturally developing process.

I would like to give you a clear picture of that unusual experiment. Imagine you are watching a film about it. Let’s put a whole process in order:

1.       At first feeling overwhelming fear I started breathing deeper and consciously. The goal wasn’t to calm down, the goal was to take control over that which was going on in my mind and my body. Breathing is very often underestimated, which is a shame, because it’s the easiest and one of the most efficient techniques, which works great in achieving inner balance.

2.       Secondly, I named my feelings – precisely and objectively with no judgement about my reaction.

3.       Thirdly, I focused on locating where my emotions were in my body.

When I had a sort of inner map – what I’m dealing with and were it is located in my body - the process began. It was new for me, as I’ve never been so committed to that process before in my life. This time I was open, and I went through it honestly. I started asking questions about information which they were bringing to me – all these “what if”, “what does it give me if I…”

First STOP and observe, and then GO into the process

The thing is, that when you observe it, you focus on your body and the object – your feelings. Your emotions attract most of your attention. The more you observe, the more you understand what you go through. Next, I asked myself what these feelings try to tell me. Are they leading me to any action I should undertake, or to a decision not to do anything about it? If you take your time and let it “speak” to you, all that stress dissolves slowly, it loses the power of an impact. Try it next time, DON’T RUN AWAY.

I encourage you to follow our website and FB and Instagram. There, we share some interesting exercises that you can try. We also run weekend workshops every month about working with emotions.

I keep my fingers crossed for your exploring your own interior so that it will help you, like me, to free yourself from emotional paralysis.

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