Wafa Faith Hallam
November 18, 2015
Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to achieve true happiness and not just fleeting moments of bliss? Why our most significant relationships are far less than perfect and too often end in disappointment and hurt? Why we keep making the same mistakes over and over again and blaming others and circumstances for our successive failures?
The simple truth is: our own negative feelings are to blame! We are all huge reservoirs of years and years of accumulated negative emotions, attitudes and beliefs. Carl Jung calls that the “Shadow Self,” while Eckhart Tolle calls it the “Pain Body.” Such negativity carries with it and expresses itself in endless thoughts, obsessive, pesky, gloomy thoughts. This is not a harmless process. The accumulation of those thoughts leads to increased stress, serious physical and mental illness and untold misery for us and those around us.
How do we deal with this onslaught of negative thoughts and thought patterns? On a conscious level, we suppress them by deliberately refusing to deal with them. We also escape from them by resorting to all sorts of mechanisms such as too much drinking, socializing, television viewing, working, exercising, and other seemingly acceptable behaviors, which when done in excess become destructive and counter-productive.
Third, we express them, often by venting long and hard and with anyone willing to listen. The endless processes of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, which sometimes go on for years and even decades without a real change in behavior or level of happiness, are a good example of expression without resolution. In fact, the ceaseless re-hashing of our negative emotions explained and justified with even more thoughts and excuses, often serves to strengthen and harden the swelling negativity already in us. The feelings of victimization and powerlessness are only increased and deepened. And then we have even more reasons to blame our parents, spouses, and past or present circumstances.
Besides suppression, expression and escape, which we resort to consciously, we also indulge in an even greater and perhaps more damaging mechanism for dealing with our negative feelings and this one is largely subconscious. We repress our most painful feelings, which frequently are the result of fear and guilt, and we master the art of denial and projection. As we constantly repress and deny the presence of a bad feeling within us, we have no other way of dealing with it but by projecting it onto the world and others. In other words, un-acknowledged and un-recognized negative feelings never just disappear. They morph and become that which we often hate and despise in others. And that is how the blame game originates and spreads. This is how FEAR can take hold of us and rule our lives. And how entire populations can be manipulated and made complicit in some of the worst episodes of human history.
Isn’t it time to stop the blame game and look at the truth in the face? The truth is everything that is causing us pain and preventing us from being happy is within us. We are victims, yes. We are prisoners, yes; but not of anything outside of us. Our own negativity is the main culprit. Our own negative feelings are to blame, they are our jailers. And because, in the course of our daily lives, we keep drowning them with haunting thoughts, they eventually force themselves in the open and turn us into walking time-bombs. Suddenly, a remark or a situation will trigger our anxiety, anger or resentment. And we experience the familiar fight or flight response, which never fails to keep us feeling even more lonely and misunderstood.
So what can be done? If you’re like me, you’ve tried innumerable ways to control your demons and take responsibility for them. You’ve learned to be present and decrease the chatter in your head, to practice meditation and yoga, to eat healthy and sleep well, to seek enlightenment and learn positivity from eminent teachers, and yes, you have seen major improvements in your emotional and spiritual growth. You are healthy, mostly happy and smiling, always kind and grateful for the blessings in your life. But somehow, you still are reacting to triggers. Your buttons are still being pushed by the people you love most or work closely with and by situations over which you have no control.
In my case, my relationship with my only daughter was frequently plagued with hurtful arguments and latent conflict. My five year liaison with my boyfriend was beset with finger pointing and angry fights ending in many breakups and eventual parting of ways. It was obvious that my siblings’ love and affection were far easier to appreciate from a distance than under the same roof. Slowly but surely you build a comfortable life alone and excuse it with the belief that other people are the cause of all that displeases you and therefore to be happy you need to be left alone and only engage with others on your terms. Sounds familiar? This state of affair is all good and well but it is not the pathway to a higher consciousness or to simple lasting happiness and inner peace. Ultimately, like a plant without sun and water, living single and disengaged behind a white picket fence will dwarf a human being into a shriveled and bitter old person.
And if dysfunctional relationships are not enough to be the cause of a fair amount of grief and unhappiness in our lives, there are always material circumstances related to long standing issues, which surface again and again to reignite old belief systems with deep-seated unhappiness. For me, the issue of money, or the perceived lack of money, was always the cause of anxiety, fear, and even despair. Ever since I could remember, money was a problem in my family and it never ceased to be even when I had plenty of it. Others have fear of commitment, or fear of people of different races or creeds, fear of losing their jobs, etc. There are a multitude of conscious and unconscious belief systems that are the causes of our negative feelings and certain situations will trigger us.
Fortunately, I am here to reveal an easy method that works miracles to unearth and deal efficiently with our negative feelings. It allows our energy to be cleared and improved on the spot. We feel relieved and free and we become less reactive, more self-assured, more productive, more creative and more loving. It is called the Letting Go Technique and it is the subject of a masterful bestselling work by Dr. David R. Hawkins titled: Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender. “Letting go,” writes Dr Hawkins, “is a natural ability. It is not something new or foreign. It is not an esoteric teaching or somebody else’s idea or a belief system. We are merely utilizing our own inner nature to get freer and happier.”
The technique is surprisingly simple and straight forward. It only requires a strong desire to be a happier person and a commitment to practice it in our daily lives until we are free. Every time, we feel our buttons are being pushed, instead of reacting, we need to pause and take notice of the cause within us. Let’s look at a couple of examples.
Let’s say you’re visiting your grown daughter, and as it happens, as a caring mother, you feel the need to help and give advice. It doesn’t take long before your daughter tells you to back off and not meddle. She is old enough and knows what she is doing. Immediately, the energy thickens and fills with electricity. -- STOP! -- How do you feel? Try hard not to react. Excuse yourself and leave the room. Find a quiet space. Take a deep breath. Ask yourself: How does this situation or remark make me feel? What are the emotions I am feeling right now? This feelings are mine and I’m going to own them fully.
Review them in your head and use your own words: is this hurt, frustration, anger, resentment? Yes, I feel hurt, I feel frustrated, angry, resentful… I can feel the pain. Physically, my stomach is in knots. I am willing to sit with these feelings, sustain the pain and even dig deeper. I feel like I am not appreciated, not validated… my self-esteem is under attack. I feel unloved, unworthy… I feel betrayed… my opinions don’t matter. That remark triggered the feeling that I am irrelevant, stupid and ignorant. This is not about her or what she says; she has her own pain to deal with… This is in me, it’s been festering in me for a very long time and it’s excruciating. I am accepting these feelings and I am allowing them to have their way with me and run their course. I feel raw, exposed, and I surrender to the discomfort. It is what it is. I am present and feeling everything. I will not run again. I will not hide. I feel these painful emotions ooze through my system and come out of my every pore. I am letting go of them right here, right now. Breathe slowly and deeply. Within a few minutes, you will feel real relief and will be able to return to the situation with a much lighter energy.
Conversely, if you are the daughter of a mother who seems to always have an opinion on everything you do and who you feel criticizes you constantly, you too have to look long and hard at your inner feelings and stop pointing the finger at your mother. Ask yourself: Why do her remarks trigger such anxiety in me? What is it I keep hidden inside that has festered to the point of making me always react and even be mean? And why do I feel guilty afterwards? Could it be I feel un-appreciated? I feel like I’m a little girl who’s being reprimanded again. Nothing I do is ever good enough. I feel like a victim when I need to be validated. Why do I have to be validated? I have something to prove to her and others. I care about others’ judgment of me. I feel unworthy, insecure and small. I have deep doubts about my abilities. But I am a free individual and I recognize these feelings to be mine. I own them and allow them to be felt fully right here and now. I will no longer resist this pain and I surrender to it completely. I can feel it is seeping through my body and I breathe the negativity out slowly but surely like the poison that it is. Breathe and let go.
This seems like there is a lot of thinking going on, and it is indeed challenging to spell out the process without giving out some specifics. The emphasis remains on how one FEELS and not how such feelings came about. The occasional thoughts only serve to anchor the emotions behind them and not to rationalize them. This cannot be emphasized enough.
The mechanism of letting go is the same if it is an event or set of circumstances that triggers the negative impulse. This requires that you be aware of it first and foremost. In other words, you must be present and attuned to your emotions. For me, a situation that involved money would always be accompanied by a wave of anxiety. Fear would swallow me like a giant sinkhole. At the same time, my mood would shift and nobody would be immune from my negative energy at best or my temper at worst. These episodes would then be followed by a sea of guilt and despair. The extraordinary thing was that nothing in my material situation had changed from one moment to the next. It was all in me.
The first time I read Hawkins’s work, I knew I had to address my fear of lack. His words made sense:
“Letting go involves being aware of a feeling, letting it come up, staying with it, and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about it. It means simply to let the feeling be there and to focus on letting out the energy behind it. The first step is to allow yourself to have the feeling without resisting it, venting it, fearing it, condemning it, or moralizing about it. It means to drop judgment and to see that it is just a feeling. The technique is to be with the feeling and surrender all efforts to modify it in any way. Let go of wanting to resist the feeling. It is resistance that keeps the feeling going. When you give up resisting or trying to modify the feeling, it will shift to the next feeling and be accompanied by a lighter sensation. A feeling that is not resisted will disappear as the energy behind it dissipates.”
This seemed too good to be true and I must admit it was not always so effortless. The quote above is pretty much the only full description of the technique he advocates. So it took me a fair amount of trials and errors to master it and make it work for me. And this is the main reason why I decided to take it upon myself to elaborate and describe it for others. I do believe that with practice and full awareness we can each come up with our own way to put it to work for us. Still no matter how imperfect it seems at first, you will be astounded by the speed of the results.
Furthermore, depending on the level of resistance of each negative feeling we have, they will take more or less time to let go of. There were many negative feelings I was able to surrender to very rapidly and almost immediately and even though I used the technique poorly. But then there were others, like my deep fear of lack of money, which required multiple sessions and many adjustments before the negativity began to diminish substantially. Ultimately, the conscious, patient and persistent determination to surrender to everything that causes me grief, to not judge my progress and not allow resistance to take hold in any way resulted in a miraculous transformation.
I must caution, however, that the thoughts are not so easily set aside while one attempts to let go of negative feelings. Despite the insistence to not think, thoughts are omnipresent and keep erupting. So it is necessary to gently push them aside as often as needed and go back to the feelings and emotions whether you may be able to recognize or label them or not. It is not imperative that you label your feelings. In fact, it is often difficult to distinguish from our amalgam of negativity which feeling is which. In addition, it is alright to remind ourselves of the situation that prompted the negativity so long as we take our focus back on the feelings and do not lose track and linger on the thoughts.
In the end, whether you can put your feelings into words or not, whether you can label them or not, whether you need to resort to bringing up the situation that triggered you or not, remember that it is enough to sit still and feel everything in your body – even if all you do is keep repeating, as with a prayer:
I am fully present. I am allowing my feelings to run their course and be felt in my body and I am letting go of them. I stop all resistance and surrender to this moment with everything it contains. This negativity is the darkness that I am pushing out of my system as I breathe in the light of consciousness. I AM FREE!
Sources:
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Dr.
David R. Hawkins, M.D. Ph.D. "Letting Go: The Pathway of
Surrender." Hay House, Inc.; 2nd ed. edition (January 15, 2014)
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Hale
Dwoskin, "The Sedona Method." Sedona Press; First Printing.
edition (February 25, 2015)
Copyright © 2015 by Wafa Faith Hallam
