Previously, we practiced a staying exercise to help shift our emotional experience when we’re triggered in order to make space for introspection and learning. Today, we will explore another “stay” technique that helps us attend to the parts of ourselves that can get activated when we’re triggered.
The techniques we’re learning in this newsletter series help you to Stop, Drop, and Stay – a highly practical and useful method that I cover in detail in Chapter 4 of my latest book, Loving Like You Mean It, to help you act skillfully, and with authenticity, when faced with a triggering emotional experience.
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Learning to Stay Present – Exercise 2
Recall a recent relationship experience that was triggering and still feels charged to you when you think about it. You might return to the experience you used in the previous exercise or work with something else. Get a mental image of what happened that was distressing for you. Then, close your eyes and go inside, locate where you’re feeling activated in your body.
Focus on your physical experience and give it a lot of room. Notice what happens when you do. Sense into your emotional experience. See if you can identify and name what you’re feeling. Are there any images that come with the feelings? Are there any thoughts that arise? Do you notice any negative beliefs (for instance, “I’m a bad person; I’m in trouble; I can’t trust anyone; I’ll be hurt,” etc.)? Just stay open to your experience and see what arises.
Then, while focusing on your felt experience along with whatever images and beliefs arose, trace the whole experience back in time. Not intellectually. You’re not trying to figure it out with your head. Just let your mind open up and follow the constellation of feelings, images, and beliefs as far back as it goes. As you do, just notice whatever comes into your awareness. You might ask yourself; “Where is this coming from? How far back does it go? How young does it feel?” And then see what comes.
Look deeply into the core of your emotional experience and see what you discover. Can you locate it in time? Can you see the child who has been holding all these feelings? What’s going on for him or her? What is she contending with? What is making him feel afraid, sad, vulnerable, or unloved? What’s causing her to feel ashamed, angry, or upset? How do you feel as you see and witness this child’s experience, as you honor his or her feelings?
Notice what happens for you emotionally. Stay open to whatever comes. Let yourself feel. Let the child inside you feel. Give the feelings a lot of room to be felt, to move through you, to be processed. Stay with it as long as you can, as long as it needs.
What Are You Feeling?
While there are many words used to describe how we feel, in actuality, there are only a few core emotions.
Everything else is a variation on a theme. Our main feelings are anger, sadness, fear, joy, interest (which includes love), surprise, shame, and disgust. Although any emotion can be troubling for us, the ones that we most often have a difficult time with in our relationships are fear, sadness, shame, and anger along with their related needs for safety, security, comfort, reassurance, understanding, empathy, support, respect, etc.
In addition, some of us learned to suppress our natural vitality so feelings like joy and love, along with their related needs for appreciation, delight, and acceptance, etc., can cause us conflict as well.
In the next blog, we’ll explore a way of “parenting ourselves” that helps us to work through unprocessed emotional experiences from our past.
