Hi Reader

I’ve spoken a lot recently about allowing our body to surface and complete old stored survival energy.

I’ve also spoken about how suppression of emotions can lead to this stuck energy, which later manifests as these horrible symptoms, because they were unable to pass through the body.

I used to think talk of emotions was a bit woo-woo, but when I look at the science, I really no longer think this to be the case.

Emotions are complex psychological states that involve subjective experiences, physiological responses, and behavioural expressions.

They are biological survival signals that arise as physical states + urges, and which can complete if we allow them to.

This is why, for me, brain training techniques did not quite hit the mark fully.

I got immense benefit from some of the tools in some of the programs, like noticing symptoms and thought spirals, and even things like somatic tracking.

But the thesis of noticing, interrupting, and ‘rewiring’ is not in fact what needs to occur in my opinion.

For me, noticing and then ‘stopping’, distracting, or swatting away, became another form of repression and distraction.

It became another way for me to not feel what need to be felt, to not allow my body to complete what it had been trying to do for so long.

Instead I now work with integrating the emotions and sensations that are trying to arise.

I don’t swat them away, I don’t engage in the rumination that they tempt me with.

Instead I sit there with them, I drop into the body, and feel what needs to be felt.

There is no checklist, there is no map I lay down and turn a certain way, there is no card with a mantra I repeat to myself.

I simply notice, drop in, and sit with the discomfort, feeling my awareness gently bleed all around it.

This isn’t easy of course, it takes time, and it’s deeply deeply unpleasant.

There’s no positive visualisation to look forward to at the end of your ‘practice’, no self-soothing mantra (another form of repression by the way).

Just you, the sensation and your awareness.

It sucks.

And just to let you know, it’s going to continue to suck.

For days, months or more it’s going to suck immensely as you drop into the awareness and feel into these horrendous sensations that have bothered you for so long.

But little by little, the survival responses will complete.

Little by little you will be able to sit with the sensation longer.

And little by little you’ll notice changes.

So try to drop in more, feel what needs to be felt, and let whatever comes up, come up.

If it makes you feel the need to scream, scream.

If you need to move, move.

There’s no right way to do it, no need to stick to a script.

This is ancient survival loop’s completing, it’s not meant to be pretty.

I made a free 7 day crash course on how I do this, and some other techniques like bilateral stimulation and somatic movement, to help integrate what’s stuck.

It’s completely free, you just need to sign up to our community, On the Mend 👉here👈.​

Stay healthy.