The relationship between the physical & emotional is nothing new:

Oh Charlie Brown!

If Charles Schulz figured it out in 1960, it's reasonable  to expect science to have filled in some gaps since then. In fact, there is now an entire specialization dedicated to the physiological bases of psychological processes.

It's no surprise that our mind affects our body — how else would we lift our arms or smile? What's more interesting is that the reverse is also true. Our body affects our mind.

Some neat examples:

• Standing up or lying down affects how angry you're likely to get.
• Folding your arms increases perseverance and activates an unconscious desire to succeed.
• Upright or slumped physical positions affect how easy it is to generate positive or negative thoughts.
• Manipulated postures (to look "sad" or "angry") have an effect not only on subjective emotions but also on perception and judgement processes.

There are a LOT of muscles in the face (the exact number varies depending on who you ask & how they measure them). What is interesting is that voluntarily "making a face" can actually cause the associated emotion, not just (as you would expect) the other way around.

As I said, I'm possibly the worst poker player in the world. Why? Because pretty much every thought or feeling I have is reflected in my face. I'm ok with this. I figure bluffing in poker is basically lying, & I'm ok with not developing lying as a core skill. It's a personal choice.

I've recently started paying more attention to what the muscles in my face are doing. If I relax a muscle in my face, I'm also forcing myself to let go of the thought or feeling that's causing it. What's most interesting is that most of the time I'm not even aware of what that thought or feeling even is. What I'm actually releasing is deep, subconscious tension.

The simple act of incrementally relaxing all the muscles in my face relaxes my entire being. It helps me drop all thoughts and feelings.

If this sounds familiar it should, this is what "being in the moment" is all about. No thoughts, no feelings, just awareness.

Obviously there will be other thoughts & emotions we hold in other places in our body — but once your face is completely relaxed, noticing tension in other places (our scalp, back, shoulders etc) is relatively easy — those muscles are much bigger, after all. It's not an accident that noticing & relaxing specific muscles is one of the core activities within Yoga.

pic by chocosaur

It's such a simple thing, but the act of paying attention to & consciously letting go of facial tension is the simplest & fastest way I've found of assessing & improving my deep levels of pure, present beingness.

I have another theory that doing this will also reduce my wrinkles.. but I'll have to get back to you on that.

There are many releasing techniques available. They're relatively similar though, so I'll discuss the two key ones I've found so far.

If you're interested, both of these stem from discoveries made by a guy called Lester Levenson about 40 years ago. Anything he's written is worth reading, & there are many great videos of him on YouTube.

Sedona Method

This is a relatively brain-centred approach. You ask the following question about any issue X.

1. Can you let go of X?
2. Will you let go of X?
3. When?

And, well, that's it. I've met several people for whom this technique works incredibly well. For me, if something is really bothering me, I can find it hard to detach emotionally enough to answer the questions clearly.

I do like the gradual loosening of your attachment to the issue, along with the final "When" question. The implication being, of course, that if you can, and will, why not just let go of it now? A lot of times it's just never occurs that we're the ones in control, & that we always have a choice about whether or not we focus on or attach to something.

RELEASE TECHNIQUE

This is more of a feeling based, rather than mind based approach (ie kinaesthetic, not intellectual):

1. Become aware of the feeling
2. Feel the feeling
3. Identify the feeling
4. Relax into the feeling
5. Release the feeling

By identify, I don't think they mean "oh, that's the pain from being sworn at by my sister when I was 3" (although you may get those kinds of realisations), rather "oh, it's just below my bottom rib, about an inch in."

This method is more or less what I've found useful to do, except I just instinctively stay relaxed, and aware/feel/identify all kinda blend into one smooth "oh, I have a dark blue pain about there" sort of understanding.

It's also helpful that you don't need to even know what the feeling is about. It's just an 'it', so you just let 'it' go. A lot of times our subconscious will protect us by hiding certain details from our conscious mind.

The release technique guys have a couple of other variants too:

1. Take each feeling/issue/thought back to its underlying core: Is it an issue about wanting (or lacking) control, safety or approval/love. Once you know then let go of that wanting/lacking control, safety or approval.

This is super helpful since letting go of wanting (say) approval in one area of your life, you then let go of a little bit of it from every area of your life, so your entire life benefits.

2. Instead of pushing the bad feeling etc down, by saying 'no' to it, or avoiding it.. do the opposite! Say yes to it, welcome the bad feeling/thought up, then just let it go as it comes up.

3. If things are crazily overwhelming, just say "not so bad" to the issue, letting it go as you do. This is surprisingly effective at detaching & releasing things.

Of course, this is just a brief overview. There are subtleties to both these variants. The important thing is to find one approach that resonates and works well for you.

amazing pic by just k

How to find a feeling (if it hasn't already popped up)

First, calm yourself down ("not so bad" helps a lot). Try to sit or stand still, and take 3 regular breaths without thinking anything at all.

Next, look downwards (which triggers the kinaesthetic part of the brain & helps you focus on physical feelings). I also find it helpful to tap the karate chop point (ie, the side of your hand between little finger & wrist) with the fingers of the other hand. This helps "tune you in".

Finally, say 3–4 times (for example) "Wanting approval from Pepe". If this is an issue for you, you will often feel unexpected feelings arising. They could be sharp pains in odd places in your body, or a rushing sensation, or, as happened when I did the Vipassana course and was very calm/aware, you'll feel like your head is on fire and your eyeballs are going to explode. Hehe.

The important thing is — it's just a sensation. Don't become attached to it. Don't react to it. It'll pass if you let it go, as all sensations do. The less you react to it, the easier the letting go is. Just try to locate the feeling internally, as accurately as you can. If you don't feel something no matter what you try, either it's not a problem for you, or just keep practising. Like all things, the more you do it, the better you'll get and the more subtle the feelings you'll be able to detect.

The great thing about this is you can then systematically clear every aspect of your life, without having to actually be in that situation. Anything you think you might have an issue with you can think about, feel, bring to the surface & let go.

A great starting point is to look for wanting (or lacking) approval, control, or safety, in any situation or towards every person in your life.

How To Let Go

As well as the Sedona/Releasing approaches above, here are the other methods I've tried:

• Imagining myself detaching from the feeling/problem, and it floating off
• Imagine a tube coming out of your chest or stomach (wherever the feeling is located), & the feeling sucking out into it
• Turning my grounding tube into a vacuum and letting that help me remove it
• Creating a rose (neutral object), grounding that, then sending the feeling/problem to that
• Imagining the feeling/problem in my hand, and dropping it
• Creating a rose around the feeling, sending it out over nearby water, and blowing it up

For a while I struggled a bit with "letting go", or "releasing". A big part of this is, of course, just my brain/ego making things more difficult (after all, our ego feeds on this kind of nonsense). The whole thing, as with life, is only as drawn out & complicated as I choose to make it.

It's really just about practice though. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. After a while, you stop needing any kind of visual imagery, it just becomes "something you do", as simple & easy as dropping something to the floor.

pic by kyle muraca

What it's all about

Given that the mind and body are intrinsically linked, what I'm starting to realise is that by paying close attention to my body, what I'm actually releasing aren't necessarily physical issues at all. They're negative thoughts, behaviours, patterns, reactions. These pains that appear and disappear are my body/mind trying to communicate with me, in the best way it knows how — through feeling.

The great thing about this is you really don't have to rationalise anything or figure out what any underlying cause is. Just being in a situation, feeling the feelings and releasing them will automatically clear out massive amounts of junk. From my own experience, just going to a place with a large number of unpleasant memories, or interacting with people that typically bring about aversive reactions can result in literally hundreds or thousands of these feelings coming up in a single day. All of them you simply drop.

The beauty is, once you starting doing this everywhere, next time you're exposed to similar stimulus you can watch yourself barely reacting, if at all.

An Example

Oh, & if this sounds like a whole load of hokum? Try checking this vid. It's a bit slow to start with (the first 20secs is just intro — but I can't seem to skip it with an embedded vid), but well worth perservering with:

I see so many smaller examples every single day, this doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

Ahh yes.

I've noticed a few patterns in my life recently.

In general, I've spent the last few years on a bit of a spiritual journey. Clearing out, well, pretty much everything.

The downside to this is, as I've got clearer, what remaining crap is there has echoed stronger & more powerfully through my life. Ahh, I wish I'd been told that when I started. Actually, probably best I wasn't.

The bad news is, there are parts of my life that still suck. Like you wouldn't believe. Well, ok, I'm human. The good news is, they stand out like nobody's business. Also, it's much easier to see when they're repeating.

So, here I am, looking at my life "Wtf? Didn't that same crappy situation happen 6mo ago? What's going on?"

Then, the other day, it hit me.

They've all been things I hate.

Now, of course, very early on, I went through all the core 'negative' (if there is such a thing) emotions, assessing all the places in my life they affected, healing them etc.

Of course, my life drastically improved. Quelle surprise.

When I looked at hate, I came up blank though. "Huh? I don't hate anyone." My Mum brought me up way to well for that nonsense. I've gotta say, there have been a few people I probably should (according to society) hate for the roles they've played in my life, but I still don't (thanks Mum).

What I realised lately though is — there's a lot of things I hate.

Guess what's recurring?

Situations, behaviours in those around me, limitations, frustrations, ongoing problems.

Yep, no frickin' surprise.

Hate is resistance.

I'm resisting this nonsense, so of course, I'm just drawing it into me. However you want to explain that (law of attraction, reticular activating system, self sabotage) is largely irrelevant.

The empirical evidence is this: Stuff I hate I just see more of in my life.

The big (& incredibly obvious) lesson? STOP IT.

Ok, so I like to keep things vaguely useful/practical around here. Bob has great advice above, but really, how do you stop hating something?

I've shared lots of ways of doing this kind of thing before, so here's a real simple way that's been helping me lately:

1. Give the issue a percentage, 0–100% where 0=Hate It, 100%=I'm 100% ok with this thing happening.
2. Ask yourself, can I increase that percentage? Say "Yes", out loud & as emphatically as possible.

Maybe it's just my analytical math brain, but that really resonates for me. I typically get a number in my head instantly. Uhh, 20%, or 3%. Whatever. It doesn't matter. It's just a starting point.

To work with this, there's a core realisation. You're the boss. You, the real You. Not your physical body, not your mind, not even your ego. The large, spiritual you. The essence of you. Your consciousness.

For example, if you decide to stop thinking about something, who makes that decision? You do. Not your brain. Your brain is just the tool. That's the real you making that decision. The core of your being.

Soooo. Once you realise that you're the boss, then everything is really just a decision. Including the decision to actually be ok with something you used to hate.

How/Why Does It Work?
1. Saying 'yes' puts you in a positive mindframe rather than negative (ie, resistant, hating). Salesmen have known this for eons, of course. Nothing new there.

2. Saying 'yes' releases resistance to the issue. Even just accepting it a little can help shift things, open you up & let go of that hate (or secret shame, as is often the case with deep hatred) and thus resistance. Once the floodgates open, voila, you're on your way.

I know, sounds crazy, but give it a bit of a go, be patient & watch what happens.

Of course, if you feel like using EFT, releasing, reiki, NPA or anything else at the same time, so much the better. Whatever helps.

When you do finally get up to 100% you'll realise. You just don't hate it any more, in fact, you couldn't care less. Know what? You'll stop seeing it in your life too.

For me, I got a piece of paper, on the left wrote "Things I f'n Hate", on the right "% Ok with it" then just made a list. Going down, even just saying "YES, I hate …" it's the craziest thing, but I could feel the hate lifting off & that percentage rising.

Another interesting side effect? All this saying yes. I've had inner tension (that my sensei can feel, but is hard for me to pinpoint) for, well, probably my entire life. With this? I can actually feel it easing. Don't know how, or even what it is, but it's definitely lifting.

Whoever thought being positive would be beneficial? *grin*

Why?

Because our mind/ego has a delightful trait of trying to protect us by hiding things from our consciousness.

This is why people get selective amnesia (in extreme cases of trauma), or just forget things (day to day stuff).

This doesn't stop the hidden issue from royally screwing us over, of course.

So, what the hell to do about it?

Well, I found something cool.

I was reading Noah St John's afformations when it hit me.

Now, before you go on, I highly recommend signing up for his book excerpt. Whether you buy it or not is up to you, but the three chapters you get by throwing him your email address are very worth reading.

Ok, so his basic premise is this: Affirmations don't work because our mind rebutts it. "I'm wealthy I'm wealthy" & our mind goes "Uh huh, no you're not." So, it all falls apart. Noah's revelation was that if we phrase affirmations as an open ended question "Why am I so wealthy?" or "How am I so wealthy?" then our mind works for us instead of against us. It starts finding ways to answer the question.

Damn neat idea.

pic by guslight

I got thinking about this in context of healing — of removing those blocks we have, self-sabotages, resistances etc to our success (however you want to define that).

Now, with tapping (EFT), the usual approach is — first we tap out the problem, then we tap in the solution. Negative first, then positive.

Where this falls apart is if we can't see what the hell is going on.. & where open ended questions come to the rescue.

So, rather than tapping, say, "I hate my life" (which isn't great, since it's so general anyway), you tap on "Why do I hate my life?" or "What do I hate about my life?"

Several things happen. First, a lot of times your mind will answer the question — so you then tap on whatever comes up. Just go round a bit until it doesn't really feel like a problem any more. Secondly (& this is far more interesting), stuff will clear out without you ever having any idea what the hell it was that left.

But then, who cares, right? If it's gone, that's all that matters.

I've used this approach a lot over the last few weeks, & I've gotta say, it kicks righteous ass.

So — start with negative questions.. then have a go with the word "still" in there — that'll help clear up any leftovers — eg "Why do I still hate my life?". Then tap in the positive, which in this case would be "Why do I love my life?" or "What do I love about my life?"

I tell yah, works a goddamn treat.

Fundamentally, the only person that has any control over how I feel is me.

I choose how I feel.

So, any time I feel bad due to someone else's actions, I know that's just a pain body reacting. That's just my ego, getting in the way, hurting me, wanting me to feel pain.

Therefore, by releasing that pain when it comes up. Feeling the feeling & letting it go, I'm healing everything I experience, right there & then.

For more disturbing, larger or messier things, giving it a good old bash with EFT has also helped kick this stuff out.

Every time that I've felt less-than-blissful, it's been an opportunity for me to heal — to heal whatever it is inside me that is reacting to external stimulus, & leaving me feeling bad.

Ha! And life being what it is, there's been a lot of chances for that.

As a result? I know I'm in a much, much better place than I have been, simply as a result of doing this.

Now, this journey hasn't always been pleasant at all. I wouldn't wish some aspects of it in anyone. However, I have observed that things that have recurred have bothered me less & less till they haven't bothered me at all.

Know what happens then? They seem to stop happening at all.

pic by ceeceedotca

Why is that?

Well, some people would say that we draw things into our existence because we are a vibrational match for them. Like attracts like, you know, the law of attraction stuff.

Which means is (as unpleasant as it is to hear this) that every miserable thing I experience is there because some part of me wants it there.

Ok, now before we go getting all suicidal here (because that train of thought can get a bit damn depressing if you follow it too long through every bad thing that's ever happened to you), realise this: These things appear so you can learn.

That's why, when you learn the lesson (or heal), they simply stop happening to you.

In my case, I've had several occasions where I healed enough of that pain & the people responsible quite literally disappeared from my life. Moved away. Overnight.

So that's the good news.

The point here is this: Every bad thing that occurs to you is an opportunity to instantly, easily & significantly improve your life.

Every upset is a chance for growth.

By immediately letting go of the negative emotion you're feeling, as you're feeling it, minute by minute your life is getting — even right through the middle of horrific pain & unpleasantness.

For a start, you'll stop feeling bad even while things that used to upset you are still happening.

More interestingly, those (previously) negative external situations will, as if by magic, stop occurring.

Now, don't take my word for it, check it out yourself, by all means.

However, let's say I'm wrong — what does it matter? If you've let go, completely, of your internal reactions to these painful events, then you won't care anyway. You'll just sit there like a Hindu cow, cool as a cucumber while things spiral around you.

I know because this is exactly how I became. Their pain & suffering would be swirling around in a way that I know would previously have upset me enormously, & it didn't bother me in the slightest. The pain body inside me that had been reacting to that particular stimulus had been completely neutralised.

Also, this comes back to our pain bodies discussion. If there's no internal reaction at all from you, then there's nothing for the other person's pain body to push against — so it naturally dissipates — in the quickest, healthiest way possible.

The key things to remember are:

The sooner after the upset you can heal, the better. The fresher the emotion is inside you, the easier it is to get to & remove completely. Ideally, heal it immediately. This is where releasing is so helpful, coz you can do it while the person is still abusing/shouting at/crying on you. With EFT, you have to imagine tapping the points (or discreetly finger tap) — which works but is harder to do if you're largely concentrating on someone else. Not impossible, but harder than just releasing anything you're feeling inside yourself.

Be persistent. Don't get discouraged if it seems like the same pain keeps coming up. Humans are very layered, & some times it takes a while to really get to the bottom of something. There may be many emotional reactions to a situation, or many subtle variations on a theme (eg, someone can insult, demean, disrespect, dismiss. ignore, put down, or disregard you — all basically the same, all subtly different). Just keep lettinig it all go, it all helps.

Now, there's a ton of things that fit under the heading of 'stupid', ahh, and by goodness, I've done a lot of them.

What I'd like to talk about today is deliberately creating pain, in ourselves & in those around us. When we feel automatically compelled to do things that increase suffering in the world. Typically this is done verbally, but in more extreme cases it can escalate to physical violence.

Eckhart Tolle has a description for this phenomenon, he calls these internal proclivities "Pain bodies."

It's a useful approach. Metaphorically distancing ourselves, even slightly, can give us power over the behaviour. Seeing it as something separate from ourselves helps us gain control.

Of course, this kind of things fits handily under the heading "Self-sabotage." Whereas a lot of forms of self-sabotage can be happily done alone (eg, procrastination), our pain bodies generally require company.

pic by catb

So what to do about them? Well, Tolle's suggestion is simply to be as present as possible, and this is pretty reasonable advice. If you're in the moment, then these occurrences become quite jarring. The behaviour stands out so starkly You can't help but think (whether it's yourself or another) "Hey, where the hell did that come from?"

To kick Tolle's suggestion up a notch in terms of effectiveness, I'd also recommend releasing whatever feelings come up.

Ever notice how hard it is to fight someone who's not responding at all (except with love)? There's a reason for that. Your pain body is trying to latch onto something, something to feed itself with.. and finding nothing. This is, of course, pure Aikido at work.

The same thing works in reverse. When someone near you behaves in a way that is pretty obviously just spoiling for a fight, by releasing any internal reactions inside you, remaining calm, and adding nothing, the entire situation defuses in the fastest way possible.

I've experimented with this extensively, & there really is nothing good or bad you can say that will calm things down quicker than releasing & saying as little as possible.

pic by ladyinpink_1

Of course, in yourself, the same applies. I lose count of the number of times I've felt something ugly or nasty whelling up inside me. By releasing the thought, noticing it but not attaching it & simply letting it go, I'm weakening those pain bodies inside me. Not once have I looked back & thought "Gosh, I sure wish I'd said that nasty thing." Nope, every single time it's been a variant on "Oh man, that would have really hurt someone I care about."

The more you can release at the time, the weaker the pain body becomes.

In yourself, it's simply a case of letting go of the compulsion to hurt those around you. When someone near you is letting their pain body take control, there's two things to release.

First, your reaction to whatever they're saying. Yes, it's going to be hurtful, painful, ugly. That's the nature of a pain body — to try and provoke as extreme a reaction from you as possible. Sure, that person is fully responsible for anything they say, & they shouldn't say it. But that's not the point. Blaming them, or having other negative feelings towards them is only going to make you feel bad, so let it go. Secondly, & once you've let go of any negative reactions to their behaviour, let go of any internal response you may be feeling. That's only your pain bodies trying to get in on the fight.

You could also use EFT or similar — if you're able to identify a specific motivation or drive behind the pain body so you can tune into it & tap later. Starting tapping in the middle of dealing with someone angry or hurt is likely to just piss them off even further. Not recommended.

Can you think of any people who just seem to bring out the worst in you? One minute things are fine, next there's a flaming row & you really have no idea how it started? That's what happens when two pain bodies get in sync and start feeding each other. If either party is able to take even the slightest amount of control, the whole thing defuses incredibly quickly.

Of course, that doesn't mean I'm suggesting for a second you should stay in a situation where someone is wilfully trying to harm you, whether verbally or otherwise.

This isn't about being a martyr, just a little better than yesterday.

Even reducing your pain bodies by the tiniest amount results in exponentially more love in the world. Every interaction with every person for the rest of your life will be just that little bit better. Totally worth the effort.

So how do you go about becoming more confident?

Well, there's a bunch of physical attributes: head up, shoulders back, firm eye contact, firm handshake, steady voice. None of this is new or complicated. You can read more about it here & here.

Changing your posture does change your emotional state, so by all means do the physical stuff as well (it'll help how you feel), but I'm going to talk about working directly on the non-physical stuff.

Let's start with the easy side of things — how we're perceived externally. Other than posture, how do other people assess how confident we are?

By our speech. What we say, how we say it, the words we use.

I got to thinking about this when reading Jeannette Maw's excellent Good Vibe Blog. She was talking about wiping out wimpy words. Words that disempower us, make us sound wishy washy, limit us.

These are all words & phrases that will make us seems significantly less confident than we may actually be.

pic by nnn27

What are some examples?

• Hopefully
• Probably
• Should
• I suppose

So, my hypothesis is, if we stop using these kinds of words, we'll appear (externally) more confident.

Well, that sounds worth doing, but wait up a second. Before we rush into this, let's think a little.

Who do we talk to the most, out of all of the people in our lives?

Ourselves, of course.

For every time we say something out loud that makes us sound insecure, we're going to be saying the exact same thing to ourselves dozens if not hundreds of times.

Removing these words from our vocab will not only make us more confident to others, but will also make us notably more confident internally, when talking to ourselves.

As within, so without — maybe it's not quite so much of a surprise after all.

Of course, a healthy goal is to remove that nagging inner voice entirely (through meditation, releasing etc), but until we reach that noble pinnacle of enlightenment & inner peace, we still have to contend with our ego. Why not push things in our favour in the meantime?

What's a good way of removing (or at the very least drastically minimising) specific words & phrases from our vocabulary? Well, the tool I've found best for this task is EFT. It's super simple to use and ridiculously quick.

If you haven't used EFT before, I've put a quick intro up here. The basic gist is to tap (just like tapping a keyboard, but with a coupla fingers at once) on various points around the body, while thinking or saying whatever-it-is you want to fix. The tapping loosens up energy blocks in the body, your energy starts flowing properly again and you automatically heal (since our natural state is to be 100% healthy).

So how to remove a word from your vocab? Just tap the karate chop point (side of hand) while saying something like "Even though I say 'hopefully' I love & accept myself", or "Even though I use the phrase 'I guess' I love & accept myself." Really, the words don't matter too much, just say whatever pops in your head & feels right for you. Once you've said that a few times while tapping your karate chop point, work your way around the points on the body (pic here), saying "I say 'hopefully" or "I use the word 'hopefully'" etc & tapping each point 5–10 times.

Once you've done a couple of full rounds, & if you want to be really thorough, you can do a couple more rounds, saying something like "I still say 'hopefully'." This will clear out any remants that might be left over.

It really is that simple. Total time? 2–3 minutes a word, if that.

pic by pixietart

Here's the list I cleared out yesterday:

• hopefully
• probably
• should
• try
• pretty sure
• I'll figure it out
• doubt
• can't
• want (since want is synonymous with 'lack', why not clear that too?)
• I guess
• I suppose
• I need to
• I'm not sure
• I don't think
• kinda

Of course, everyone uses different words & phrases, so your own list will likely be quite different, but these might help you get started. Just see what resonates for you.

The funny thing is, as you start to clear them out, other commonly used limiting phrases will start to become more obvious & bubble to the surface. I also felt the way I was thinking changing. Sounds insane but it's true. I could feel myself using different phrasing internally, & as I did, my body became more sure of itself. Not quite sure (ha! I'll add that to my list) how that works, but a definite example of the mind/body connection at play.

The net result of all this mucking about? More confident thought patterns, more confident speech & a significantly more confident persona. Total time taken? A little over half an hour.

I Love You
Paying yourself compliments is a good way to start, particularly if you're feeling down on yourself, but the single most powerful thing to say is simply "I love you."

This heals incredibly deeply. Even if you don't believe it, say it anyway. Of course, the more feeling & energy you can put into it, the better. Shout it out loud if you like, it all helps.

pic by prozac74

Imagine It's Someone Else
So how do you say "I love you" if you're struggling to actually love yourself (like so many of us do)? Well, everyone has someone they're comfortable saying (& meaning) I love you to.

So, look at yourself, but get yourself in a loving state by imagining (initially) that you're saying it to that person. This'll get you started with really feeling it. The more you say it to yourself, the easier it'll get. The more strongly you can feel what you're saying, the more powerful.

Smile
Remember how you act when you meet someone you really like. You smile, right? If you genuinely love them, you'll smile even more. So definitely smile at yourself.

It sounds ridiculous, but there's a definite physiological feedback loop. If you genuinely smile, you will cheer yourself up emotionally too (ie, the energy you're pouring into yourself will increase). Ie, physical state affects emotional state. As nutty as it sounds, this is well recognised. See? Here's proof:

One thing to note with smiles. Humans are very good at assessing the truthfulness of a smile. In other words, telling a fake smile from a real smile. What it comes down to is the very small muscles around the eyes (the orbicularis oculi). So, try to smile so it looks genuine to you. Even if you're not feeling it internally to start with, do it anyway. Yes, you will feel like a crazy person, but it's just you & the mirror, so who cares, right? If nothing else, laughing at how nutty you look trying to fake a real smile might set you off into genuine smiling. If so, great!

Tap While You Do It
Using EFT while you say "I love you" will do a hell of a lot of good. Don't panic too much about the details, just tap on the various points around the body, saying "I love you" on each point. If you feel like something is shifting, feel free to stay on that one point, saying "I love you" over & over until it shifts. If not, no biggie.

I guarantee you, a few loops around your body & you'll start to feeling significantly better about yourself.

Use Your Name
This will help you connect with yourself.

Even better than this, use a name or nickname you commonly used when you were younger. An awful lot of pain in our lives starts very young. Connecting with & loving our younger selves helps bring up, heal & remove this pain in the simplest, least painful way possible. You'll feel it.

All these things help amp up the basic exercise. Simply use any (or all!) of them that resonate with you. I've been doing this every morning recently (my shower has a mirror opposite, so I get to tap & wash at the same time), & it gets each day off to a brilliant start.

It's a good question.

An easy answer would be "because bad stuff happens to us", but what for one person would be a disaster, someone else might barely notice.

So what's actually going on here?

In a nutshell?

We beat ourselves up.

That little voice in our heads giving us shit. Yep, it's our ego.

No big surprise there then. So what can we do about it?

Well, stop complaining is certainly a good start, but there's more to it than just that.

For example, how many different ways are there of beating ourselves up?

Regrets, disappointments, undesirable events, worrying about the future, things we dislike about ourselves, or (even sillier) things we dislike about others ("Why oh why did I choose a husband like this?") That's the craziest of all. Resentment about someone else is like drinking poison & expecting the other person to get sick.

Notice that all of these things are either in the past or in the future? Yep, that's not a surprise. More on that later.

A good rule of thumb though? Any time we say something to ourselves that makes us feel worse, that's beating ourselves up, in one way or another.

Ok, so we've mapped out the field, how to deal to this behaviour? How to stop it?

The Reductionist Method
Here's one method that has worked wonders for me.

Every morning I sat down & brainstormed a few lists "Things I disapprove about myself", "Regrets", "Disappointments", "Worries" etc. (You can use any phrasing that resonates). Next, I just worked my way down each list I'd made, healing each item in turn. The whole thing would take, 10 maybe 15 minutes tops.

pic by gwilmore

What I noticed was, each day the lists got shorter, & the items I'd healed didn't come back (or they looked like they came back, but were actually subtly different — i.e. different sub-aspects of a larger issue).

After a few days, I couldn't think of anything for any of the lists. Oh, & I also wasn't thinking any of those crappy thoughts about myself any more.

The fewer negative thoughts you have, the better you'll feel. It's not rocket science.

Of course, when you're making these lists, the things that come up first will be the things you're thinking most often. Those at the top of the list will be the loudest complaints. As you clear those out, you'll naturally work deeper & quieter, till eventually you're clearing out more & more subtle negativity. It's a great, natural way to clear through internal noise in a way that gets you the greatest benefits immediately, but gets more deeply powerful the longer you continue.

It's also good just to do it a little bit each day. Often we need a good night's sleep to fully process & clear things out of our systems.

How to heal this negative self-talk? Well, you can use whatever tool appeals to you. Some of the things that came up I used EFT on, some I used the release technique (aka the Sedona Method), & some I used Reiki. I just trusted my intuition & used what felt right (mostly releasing).

Our ego has a thousand ways of making us feel bad. Constantly nattering at us, trying to bring us down. This is just a good, time effective way I've found to proactively clear out a huge chunk of that crap. Each day getting clearer, lighter & happier.

The Holistic Method
Ok, so, remember how all this negative self talk was either in the future, or in the past? Well, that's not an accident.

Remember Eckhart Tolle? Well, he's way ahead of me on this one. See, if you're the kind of person for whom a methodical approach is just not for you, well, here's what he recommends.

Get yourself completely "in the present." Just be here now.

It's that simple. Let go of all the noise in your head. Stop thinking your thoughts. If they come up, simply let them go.


pic by savannahgrandfather

The important thing to remember is — you are not your thoughts. It's your mind thinking them, not you. Which means you have a choice, seriously, whether you want to keep thinking them or not. As with all things, you always have a choice.

Same thing with any feelings that come up. Just observe them, but let them go too.

This way, you stay 100% in the present moment. You can still be going about your day, doing whatever, but any thoughts & feelings that come up from the past or about the future, just let them drift off.

Now, there's a couple of interesting things about this. Firstly, if you genuinely do welcome up (without attachment) any thoughts or feelings you have, & let go of them fully, they won't come back. (Very loosely, this is how you release).

Be gentle with yourself though, because one large issue can often have a ton of little sub-issues to it that may all need to be cleared. It may seem like you're making no progress, but just keep letting go, keep letting go. Pretty soon you'll start to see the difference.

Secondly, the more you can hold yourself in that present moment, the more junk will naturally come up. Why? Because being in that state holds you in a very specific (very powerful) state of vibration. Much like shaking a dirty glass of water, anything counter to that vibration will float to the top. Of course, the important thing is just to keep letting go of everything that comes up. You feel bad? Great! Let it go. Nasty thoughts or memories? Wonderful! Let those go too. They're only coming up because they're not in accordance with the person you're becoming, with that powerful "Now" vibration that you're holding.

It's all good stuff.

Plus, if you're truly present? Well, it's feels great. Best feeling in the world. So that's a nice bonus too.

Oh, & there's nothing saying you can't use both methods — making lists and being present. Every little bit helps. As Buddha said, "There are many fingers pointing at the moon, but only one moon."

Well, actually it never sucks, but that's a whole other story.

Sometimes it feels like life just sucks.

Everything seems to be going wrong. We're in a terrible mood. We ate some bad clams & the neighbour just ran over our poodle.

In these situations, despite everything we know (in our brains), it can be super hard to even motivate ourselves to do the simple things that will help. Meditate, EFT, go for a run, you name it.

So, here's a simple trick I learned. Enough to kick you out of a slump & get you calm enough to bring your other tools into play.

Just say "I love myself for hating this."

That's it. You don't even have to believe it, just say it. Keep saying it. You'll feel yourself calm down super quick.

Like so many of these things, the more energy you put into it the better it will work, of course.

If you've got the space, hell, scream it.

Why not? & besides, a good scream now & then can be cathartic. Just don't scare the cat.

Why does it work? Well, firstly it takes your focus (ie your energy) away from "it" — the thing you're hating, angry about, upset by or whatever, & brings it onto yourself.

Secondly, you're giving yourself love, approval, acceptance. Even just saying the words "I love myself" with zero energy behind it is helpful, if you're in a really negative space. If you can say it & mean it, well, so much the better.

What's this all about? Well, self-love, self-approval, self-acceptance are the corner stone of any deep healing.

& what better time to heal than when you're pissed off about something? Maximum emotional connectivity, so maximum effectiveness.

Oh, & feel free to change the words around to suit your situation. "I love myself for being upset", "I love myself for throwing up", "I love myself for dancing badly." It's your life, you make the rules.

One thing I've been learning in spades recently is that life can always be easier, if we just get the hell out of the way & let it be.

Oh, & here's another awesome technique I found that helps too. Super simple, takes about 2 seconds. It's all great stuff!