We are perpetually suppressing our feelings – not only unpleasant ones but even the happy and blissful ones. The methods of suppression are subtle and many, and are deeply ingrained. We have become accustomed to denial and postponement of feelings, to temporary consolation, and to escape. Feelings, both bad and good, are perpetually swept under the rug.
It takes conscious, dedicated effort to undo destructive patterns in the mind and become emotionally healthy. The method is straightforward: instead of resisting or avoiding feelings, deliberately allow and accept them. This does not necessarily mean that you must act on your feelings. Rather, the idea is to become consciously aware of what you are feeling, in a receptive way. In fact, most of the time, we act on emotions only in order to suppress them and escape from them, rather than to release them. Consider the difference between someone acting angry at someone else, versus sitting in meditation with the anger, allowing and accepting it without judgment.
Work with an emotion you are acutely experiencing. Sit silently, with your eyes closed. Inquire within yourself and identify the emotion honestly and precisely, describing it to yourself in words. This is a critical step – if you wrongly identify the emotion, or are in denial about it, then the method cannot work properly.
Sense the emotion in your mind and body, and remove all opposition in yourself to it. Don’t condemn the feeling, don’t fight it or deny it or escape from it. Opposition, counterintuitively, closes the pathway for the release of emotions. Instead, allow and accept the feeling in order to unblock it. When this is done right, you will distinctly feel a sense of release and relief as the emotion disperses.
As an example, if you feel anxious, sit quietly and go through the method as follows:
- Confirm to yourself that your feeling actually is anxiety, by describing it to yourself in words. The verbal description should include the context surrounding the emotion – for example, “Such and such may happen and so I am anxious”, or “I feel anxious because something bad will happen”, or “I don’t know what will happen so I feel unsafe”, and so on. Sometimes, you may realize during this step that the dominant feeling is presently something other than what you thought. Is it anger, jealousy, grief, depression?
- Identify the object of your emotion. This could be the reason for it or the target of the emotion. For example, in anxiety, some future negative outcome or condition could be the object. The object can be any concrete or abstract thing: situations, circumstances, a person, a relationship, one’s own fate, life – basically, anything which triggers emotion in you.
- Acknowledge to yourself that the object of this anxiety truly is fearful, threatening, dangerous, and uncertain. For example: “such and such outcome would be a fearful and threatening outcome”.
- Realize that this means your anxiety is perfectly valid and justified; it is the appropriate and natural response to the situation, perfectly acceptable.
- Affirm to yourself that you are allowed to be anxious for this object, that you don’t need anyone’s permission for it. No one can blame you or judge you; nobody can invalidate the feeling. Anyone else in your position would feel exactly the same way. There is no guilt or shame or embarrassment necessary. It is not weak or feminine or wrong, but simply human to feel this exact emotion.
- Trust the feeling and allow it to penetrate your heart. Surrender to it, be vulnerable and naked, drop all defense. Extend an unconditional love towards it.
In this precise sequence of steps, work on allowing and accepting your emotions about any and every situation, relationship, person, and problem. At no point in this method do you need to act on the emotion. All the work is inner.
It does not matter if a feeling seems “irrational” or “wrong” or “immature”. These are external judgments that cloud and confound your perception. The feeling came first, instinctively, pre-cognitively, and then as a reaction to it, came the thoughts, the reasoning, the suppression, the consolation, the judgment of whether it is valid or not, what to do about it. The emotion is in fact the deeper and richer intelligence, and the reasoning mind comes up with explanations for the emotion afterwards. Emotions are to be trusted, not fought. Drop all extraneous layers of evaluation, reasoning, and consolation – just allow the original, raw feeling. The original is beautiful, as it is.
Be one with the emotion, not separate from it. It is a quality of you, not something separate from you. You can only be against something which is not you, but you are the emotion, and the emotion is you, and there is no duality.
When you are happy, be happy, when sad, be sad, when angry, be angry. Whatever the case, a meditative person is authentic and honest, and does not pretend to be something they are not. A meditative person drops all masks and is exactly himself or herself, in each moment, unconditionally. Such a state of being, where you are in absolute acceptance of yourself, is truly a state of meditation.
When this method is implemented properly, the effect is instantaneous, concrete, and tangible. The feeling transforms, with a cathartic sense of release, into a clear, calm, and blissful stillness.
As you practice this method, you will start to notice subtler emotions. For example, there are many distinct emotions which are generalized under the umbrella term “anger”. These include: hatred, dislike, hurt, annoyance, frustration, resentment, repulsion, spite, bitterness, disgust, indifference, vengefulness, rage, and more. These are all related, adjacent to anger, but are distinct, fundamental feelings with unique characteristics (which is why our languages have different words for them). They must each be recognized and allowed individually. Anger-adjacent emotions are chronically suppressed with guilt, especially when they are felt for loved ones, family, friends, coworkers, and other people you want to like and love and get along with. Importantly, these emotions are not only felt towards others but also felt for oneself, and even for other abstract or conceptual objects like your circumstances, the situations you have to deal with, your life, your experiences. In all cases, the method to use is to allow and accept the feeling.
All the commonly known emotions have their subtle, distinct variations. Sadness could be grief, despair, loneliness, seriousness, feeling left out, a feeling of not belonging or aloneness, and so on. Anxiety could be feeling vulnerable, unsafe, overwhelmed, or even bored. The right words are essential in perceiving what is happening to you, and the point is to notice when these distinct emotions occur in you so you can work on allowing and accepting them. Finally, this method can be extremely cathartic and life-changing, but how much it can do depends on your courage to be vulnerable as well as the sincerity and determination of your effort.