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Feeling Fully

Posted November 13th, 2008 by Jerry Sherwood

Feelings and Emotion: There’s a lot of talk these days about the value of acknowledging and expressing our feelings. This is especially so the more science discovers about the link between our mind and body.  In my terminology mind relates to our perception of thoughts, feelings and the subsequent emotions that can arise from their combination.

For almost a hundred years the most common prescription to address the effects of our conditioned reluctance to express our feelings came from psychiatrist and psychologist. Their major concern was to relieve repressed emotions through analysis and/or talk therapy. While this was often successful at exposing repressed material and allowing it to be logically reframed so that it interfered less with our ability to behave in socially acceptable forms it did little to prevent further repression. Nor, did it get to the greater reservoir of stored up feelings that had yet to significantly disrupt our lives.
 
 In the 70’s that began to change. And today there’s a plethora of theories and workshops that involve emotive exercises – engaging in socially acceptable forms of aggression, for example. Or promoting the use of a safe place where we can be free to emote all we wish. But, have these more active reconditioning experiments really been successful?
 
Despite all this emotive activity, or perhaps because of it, our emotions continue to disrupt our relationships and affect our health. The active emotional expression of the feeling of anger still releases stress hormones into our bodies. Even if they are diminished more rapidly through physical activity the frequency of eruptions continue and the cumulative effects are just as great. The same can be said for other stress producing feelings.
 
I would like to suggest that our problem is not the failure to emotionally express our feelings. It is our reliance on emotions as a means to reduce the energetic level of our feelings so that they can be tolerated. It is our failure to fully feel what we are feeling. This is not to diminish the real benefit of emotional expressions. It is merely to point out their limitations.
 
Before I get into the benefits and limitations of emotional expression and what it means to feel fully let me explain what I see to be the difference between feelings and emotion – and why I differentiate the terms.
 
In A User’s Guide to the Brain[1], John J. Ratey, writes about emotional tags. To paraphrase, he says that even before a sensory perception enters conscious awareness it has already been “branded” with raw feeling. It is important to understand that this encoding applies to our thoughts and imaginations as well as all environmental stimuli. For the most part these feelings remain below the threshold of attention.[2] This threshold is not set in stone. It can be raised and lowered according to the focus of attention.[3] But, we have been conditioned to habitually narrow focus as a means to keep this threshold at higher levels. We first shift our attention from the feelings to the thoughts about the feelings. Eventually those thoughts tell us to move on, find a better distraction.
 
Emotions are the product of our habitual resistance to feelings that are intense enough to rise above our threshold of awareness. They are characterized not only by physiological behavior but also by psychological activity. Not only do we feel anger, but we tell stories to our self about our anger; why we are angry, should we be angry, what can we do to stop the anger and so on.
 
The purpose of this emotional expression is ostensibly to quickly resolve the feelings. In reality they only reduce the intensity of the feelings so they subside once again below the threshold of attention. So, you may ask, “What’s the problem with that? The problem is that feelings that are not fully attended do not fully dissipate.
 
Some Background
 
Before I continue I’d like to give you some background on where this theory of feeling things fully originated for me. And, why I have come to accept it and utilize it as part of a coaching practice.
 
I was first exposed to the concept of feeling things fully in 2006, by Tom Stone, of Great Life Technologies. It is one of the central aspects of his “Twelve Core Dynamics of Human Problems™”. However, it was not from Tom that I first learned the value of feeling things fully. I just did not know I had done it.
 
It was 1984 and Ron, my best friend of 15 years, was heavy into cocaine use. I was still occasionally drawn back in to it too, primarily when I was around him. During one such event he had a seizure. When it was over he promptly got up and did some more. I knew then that Ron was in serious danger. I knew also that if I was to be of any help to him I could no longer indulge in what I still saw as my recreational use. (I know now it was addictive behavior)
 
The thing about cocaine is that as you begin to come down there is an enormous pull to do more. The craving is extremely intense. My usual mode of passing through that stage, when I figured I had done enough, was to smoke more pot and drink more beer until the edge finally came off and I could sort of go to sleep.
 
This particular night I somehow knew that if I wanted to stop for good I had to go through that craving without giving in. Second, I knew I could not simply distract myself from the feeling. I had to meet it head on. So, I just sat down and watched my feelings. About an hour later the craving and underlying feelings were all completely gone and I felt better than I ever remembered feeling. Even better than all the drug highs I had experienced. Not in a false energetic or numbed out way; there was just a quiet, penetrating peace and subtle joy. I have not touched cocaine or any other chemical since. (It was a few years later before I gave up smoking pot)
 
Unfortunately, I was too late to help Ron. He died of an accidental overdose about three months later. I am still saddened by his loss. But, it was not in vain. It was a major turning point in my life experience that came to a head six years later. But, I digress.
 
The point is that when I went to Tom for training and was exposed to this concept I knew that this was one of the missing keys I had been looking for over the previous 15 years. As I alluded to earlier, in 1991 I had a profound awakening experience that seemed to come out of the blue. I spent the next years searching. It was not that I was searching for an answer. I was searching for an explanation to how I had arrived at the answer. Otherwise there was no way I could help others find the answer, and I knew I had to do so. In the course of that search my answer deepened and I gathered bits of knowledge here and there that helped me understand why what was happening was happening. Finally, I ended up in that training seminar with Tom.
 
While I knew from personal experience that feeling fully was a genuine mode of resolving residual feeling I was not satisfied with the simple explanation I was given as to how these feelings came to be stored in the body and why we could not usually feel them. Again I searched. This time I read scientific works based on new studies of the brain but written for public consumption. From here and there I found the bits of information I now share that provide, for me, a reasonable basis for the theory of feeling things fully.
 
The Theory of Feeling Fully
 
Earlier I said that “feelings that are not fully attended do not fully dissipate.” If this is not true then the whole theory collapses because it is based on the notion that we resist feeling thing fully and because of this they remain active, even though we are not consciously aware of them. Furthermore, when some event occurs that resonates with the event that first stimulated the feeling it intensifies quite rapidly. It need not be precisely the same event, just similar enough. And, each triggering can add another resonant component so that eventually some of the emotional reactions we have are clearly disproportionate to the actual events. Our very efforts to intellectually resolve these feelings actually add thoughts and images to the new experience and that allow them to be triggered more easily in the future. It’s a maddening cycle.
 
So, there is the theory, in a nutshell. Now, what about the basis for the theory?  In the book, A General Theory of Love, the authors say, “When neural excitation exceeds a shadowy threshold of awareness, what emerges is a feeling – the conscious experience of emotional activations. As neural activity diminishes, feeling intensity decreases, but some residual activity persists in those circuits after a feeling is no longer perceptible.” Later on they note the nature of moods and how they persist through the regular stimulation by similar events, thoughts about the event and imaginings related to the event.[4] So, although they are not speaking specifically about this theory of feeling fully they point to known phenomena that support its feasibility. Additional supporting information can be found in Daniel Goleman’s book, Emotional Intelligence.
 
Aside from what I have experienced in life and read in books there are observations by me and others while doing formal meditation practice. It is something you can easily check out for yourself. Sit quietly and observe the workings of the mind. It doesn’t take long to hear the constant stream of thought. And most of that thought circles around a loop of topics, each of which is related to some thing or some event that arouses some feelings if dwelt upon. Except in meditation this tape loop of self conversation is seldom heard. It just spins on and on just outside our focused attention.
 
And why is our attention focused so that we are not consciously aware of this stream of thought? Because, we have to distract ourselves from these thoughts and the feelings connected to them or they will spring right back up and make us uncomfortable. We resist feeling things fully. This is how we have been brought up. This is how we are conditioned. If it is painful, we move away from it. We avoid it. While this is just sound judgment for physical pain, an instinctual reaction that protects us, it is counter productive when it comes to our emotional well being.
 
What happens when we choose to do just the opposite? What happens when we choose to be with our uncomfortable feelings? How is it that simply attending fully to our feelings can resolve what appears to be a self sustaining cycle? These are intelligent questions to ask. And, although they will only be answered to your full satisfaction if you follow the injunction and the look at the results for yourself I will try to address them.
 
I’d like to use an analogy. In the Southern states hospitality is a very important part of the social fabric. You just aren’t being a good Southerner if you are not a hospitable host. To be a really hospitable host requires that you not only attend to your guest but you must be fully aware of everything that is going on. After all, the unexpected can always be expected. And, a good host must be comfortably alert to meet the needs of the guest when the unexpected does occur. I emphasize comfortably alert because if the host is not comfortable the guest will be uncomfortable. So there is awareness of the task and all that contributes and potentially detracts from the task. And there is attentiveness to the guest.
 
If I am successful in extending my hospitality what is the likely outcome of the visit?
The guest will arrive. We will have the appropriate interaction relative to the nature of the visit. And then, the guest will leave. The community will know that I am a good host and everyone will feel comfortable to engage with me as necessary.
 
But, what could be the outcome if I am not adequately attentive and/or aware? What may happen if I fail to extend hospitality? The guest will arrive and not feel welcomed. The conversation will be awkward and distractions may disrupt the whole affair. The guest will leave either early or late and feel poorly about the experience. Our business may not be concluded. Once outside the guest will pollute the social atmosphere for me and the repercussions will hound me for years.
 
This last outcome is very much like our poorly attended feelings. They are like teams of people standing on our doorstep trying to be heard. They are trying to let us know that our inhospitable nature is harming us, just as much as offending them.
 
What I described as the hospitable host portrays the quality of attention necessary in order to feel things fully. It is open yet alert. It is focused enough to attend to the smallest of details while being fully aware so as to not loose site of the context.
 
I call this attentive awareness. That is the term I coined on my return from training with Tom in California in 2006. Then, in 2007 I saw that a book was being released called, The Open Focus Brain, by Les Fehmi, PhD. I immediately ordered it and before finishing the introduction I knew I had received confirmation from a scientific source about the quality of attention that provides the optimal conditions for good health and prosperity.
 
Dr. Fehmi uses different methods for deprogramming conditioning but I am satisfied that the results are the same. I have seen them at work in my self and in others.

[1] A User’s Guide to the Brain, 2001, Vantage Press, pg 121
[2] A General Theory of Love, pg 44-45; 2000, Thomas Lewis, M.D., Fari Amini, M.D., Richard Lannon, M.D. ; In my opinion it is this threshold of awareness that is the key to resolving all habitual patterns of thinking and behavior. Learning to utilize this key is a principle subject of Discovering Genuine Relationship™
[3] The Open Focus Brain, pg 14; 2007, Les Fehmi, PhD, and Jim Robbins: “…focusing on one or a few important things as the foreground, and dismissing all other stimuli, mak[es] everything else the background.”
[4] A General Theory of Love, pg 44-45; 2000, Thomas Lewis, M.D., Fari Amini, M.D., Richard Lannon, M.D.

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A wonderful contribution to us

Posted November 16th, 2008 by Larry Kiehl

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Jerry,
 
I think this is a very insightful and nicely articulated post on the issue of feelings, emotions and their relationship to each other, among other things. I especially appreciate this new (to me) insight that you share (my underlines added):
 
I would like to suggest that our problem is not the failure to emotionally express our feelings. It is our reliance on emotions as a means to reduce the energetic level of our feelings so that they can be tolerated. It is our failure to fully feel what we are feeling. This is not to diminish the real benefit of emotional expressions. It is merely to point out their limitations.
 
Emotions are the product of our habitual resistance to feelings that are intense enough to rise above our threshold of awareness. They are characterized not only by physiological behavior but also by psychological activity. Not only do we feel anger, but we tell stories to our self about our anger; why we are angry, should we be angry, what can we do to stop the anger and so on.
 
The purpose of this emotional expression is ostensibly to quickly resolve the feelings. In reality they only reduce the intensity of the feelings so they subside once again below the threshold of attention. So, you may ask, “What’s the problem with that? The problem is that feelings that are not fully attended do not fully dissipate.
 
 
I also am grateful that you took the time to make such a poignant contribution for us on this site.  This emotions-expression issue seems integrally relevant to our aspirations to be more Integral (2nd tier functioning by definition) because it supports us in the direction of becoming more authentic with ourselves and each other, and more transparent at least with our own self, if not also eventually others as well. Concomitant with this developmental activity is our learning to become more present in the moment, with ourselves and each other. It naturally includes our learning to become more capable of engaging each other in more healthily and vibrant ways; less repressions and suppressions. This certainly includes becoming more open to our own shadow, and the feelings/emotions that further repress its already repressed nature, and how to presence ourselves to these developmental dynamics, particularly for accepting and more fully experiencing our feelings; and therefore not using our mental processes and emotions to quell or repressively-control those feelings that need to experience the light of day if we want to be personally and interpersonally more healthy and functional, more Integral.
 
 
One of the things I've been endeavoring to advance on this site is our willingness and ability to be more 2nd tier, especially less Green with its comfort-mongering ways, in how we engage each other (including how we engage our own self). This essentially includes our learning to face and be with "the perceived experience" of conflict, which is inherent, inevitable, and necessary to the healing process of these dynamics. And to realize that these aren't "bad" things, even though they might not feel so good to notice, let alone fully experience, at least for awhile until we make some progress in this ability.
 
 
The more I think about it the more I'm realizing what a potentially empowering contribution you're offering us here and how it sets up wonderful opportunity for emergent breakthroughs in capability of consciousness and interaction for us. 
 
 
That said, my big concern is that we're, as a species, so enculturated and mutually-entrained in fear about seeing ourselves (and each other) truly, genuinely seeing "what's there" (i.e., shadow and its contents), that this built-in resistance will keep many of us from being able to do anything with this vital and crucial information.  That is, not only do we have a fear of looking, but we have a fear of that fear (if not another layer of fear on top of that as our elaborate self's self-protection mechanism), compounding our accessibility to our authentic self.  I'm not about being negative or creating self-fulfilling prophesies in saying this, just wanting to highlight where our next steps might need to be focused to be able to have a better chance of accessing and applying this information to our mutual benefit as aspiring Integralists.
 
 
I salute you.
 
High regards,
Larry
 

Perhaps more than what we focus on in Integral, it's about where we focus from.

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The Praxis of Feeling Fully

Posted November 19th, 2008 by Jerry Sherwood
Since conditioning has already occurred you may be asking, “what value is all of this?” “Hasn’t the harm already been done? Aren’t you asking me to close the barn door after the horse has run off?” It would be sad indeed if that was the case. Fortunately, it is not.
 
Just as the inhospitable host or hostess can make amends to the insulted parties with a little loving attention and can set thing’s right with the community at large by extending hospitality and hearing them out. So too, can we resolve the conflicts within us to support and encourage a peaceful mind. It only takes a little trust, willingness and attentive awareness.[1]
 
Honestly review the past day or so. Has there been a prevailing mood? Maybe you’ve been feeling a little down, or angry, or anxious for no apparent reason. Or, perhaps you experienced a running theme of events that tended to provoke emotional reactions out of proportion to what you thought was their cause.
 
Once you have come up with a feeling to work with you will know it. You will be able to feel it. It may or may not assert its fullest intensity. If it doesn't that's alright, it is not necessary to “amp it up” in order to do this work. It only requires that you know that the feeling is presently activated.
 
Now that you have selected a candidate to work with take a few moments to actually locate the feeling in your body. You may not have realized the physical sensation before because you were more involved with the talk in your mind about the feeling – what caused it, what you name it and so forth. But, now I want you to just pay attention to your body and find out where in the body you actually “feel” the “feeling.”
 
Once you have located the feeling in your body (in could be anywhere in the body) then gently, without losing awareness of the feeling, see if there is tightness around the eyes (there probably is). Open up your visual field until you feel the tightness drop away. All the while, to whatever degree you can, remaining aware of the feeling in the body.
 
You will probably notice how this creates a bit of space around the feeling. It actually makes for a sharper contrast and more clearly defines the feelings boundaries.
 
Now, let the bulk of your attention go directly to the feeling in the body. Locate the most intense area of the feeling and allow your attention to move in closer. Remember this is not a looking with your eyes; it is awareness attending to the feeling in your body. The most intense point of feeling is the area that most wants your attention so just let that occur. If you reactively pull back just gently return.
 
Stay with the feeling and see what occurs. You are not trying to get rid of the feeling you are attending to it as it is: be open, be curios and be attentive.
 
If the feeling begins to diminish in size or moves to another location just get in closer with it or let attention move with it. Stay with feeling until there is nothing left to feel. But remember, the intent is not to get rid of it. The intention is to allow the feeling to be, to change or to go. There is just allowing the space and attention for this feeling to fully express itself in your body.
 
That is all.

[1] Some of our unresolved feelings have become entangled in personal identities. These will require a radical change in perspective to deal with. We will explore that in the next session, “Open Space: Discovering Genuine Security” for now I will see if I can help direct you to some feelings that can be resolved through Feeling Fully alone.

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It is in the clarity of Conscious Awareness that Truth is revealed.