How to Heal Emotional Wounds – Self-empathy Work

First of all, we must understand the difference between feelings and emotions.

Feelings are what happen in the moment in the body when we experience something. Someone steps on our toe, we feel pain and we might get a brief flash of energy and push the person away (especially if she was wearing heels).

Or we see a car coming straight at us and jump out of the way.

Feelings are very short–not more than 10 seconds. Then they disappear. And they are related directly to the moment.

Emotions, on the other hand, are a whole different ballgame.

Emotions are extended emotional states that stem from (usually unresolved) past experience and result from triggering experiences in the present.

Feelings are a result of physical experiences. Emotions are the result of thinking.

This is hard for some people to believe. They think their anger, their sadness is some “physical thing” anchored in reality and completely separate from their mind.

But think about it. You watch a man kiss a woman passionately. What emotions might come up for you? Perhaps difficult to say…Why? We don’t have enough information too make a mental (mind) judgment. Since we can’t really make a judgment, we don’t have any emotional response.

What if the man is your husband and he is kissing his secretary? Now what emotions are there? All the sudden, there is probably a massive presence of strong emotion. Why? Because the mind has been able to come up with a judgment about this experience relating to some other experience, which occurred in the past (and which was not sufficiently understood or processed).

So, emotion is reminding us of the past, creating worry about the future.

Emotion is the thing that makes a woman leave the man of her dreams right before they decide to take their relationship deeper.

Emotion is what causes the young man to quit right before achieving his dream again and again and again.

Emotion is what makes us do every illogical, unproductive thing that moves us away from our goals and intent.

And simply by thinking of the situation and concentrating on the emotion, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger…which triggers these illogical and counterproductive actions.

So thinking isn’t the way to resolve the problems caused by emotion. In this case, it is like asking the burglar to call the police.

So, how do we get out of  our emotions?

There are a lot of techniques that people use–techniques that encourage the so-called expression of emotions such as forcing yourself to cry or beating pillows to access your anger.

In truth, none of these methods usually expresses or processes anything. They simply give you permission to feel what emotion is inside. After you have given yourself permission to feel these emotions, you are then able to process the emotion in whatever way is necessary, and release the stored energy.

In other words, if you have given yourself permission to act angry, then you probably have given yourself permission to feel angry as well. And if you have done that, and you take space for yourself (which may involve asking someone else to help you as well), you can then process and release this emotion.

So, what is the simplest way to heal emotional wounds?

I call it the Emotional Empathy  Session or the Self-Empathy Mediation

Self-Empathy Meditation

To do this:

1. Lie down flat in a quiet, comfortable space.

2. Allow yourself to feel into your body, breathing gently but in no specific pattern.

3. Put your focus and attention on that which most gets your attention.

All of those little aches and pains which we try to ignore (but which contain voluminous insights for us) will start making themselves known. As you move your attention to them, and even imagine yourself breathing into these places–the information will come out which has been stored in them so long.

Warning: This is probably not going to be, for the most part, a perfectly enjoyable practice.

A lot of what you feel is what has been repressed, thus, it will consist of what many people would consider “negative” emotions. As these things come up, continue to breathe into them and give them presence and space. Your body might move by itself as the muscles and other tissues release energetic tension. Simply stay with the process, being with your body and the feelings and sensations, be they pleasant or unpleasant, which you experience.

I started this mediation with an hour timer next to me and began with once as week and really it felt the hour was used. However, you can take as little as 20 minutes for this, if you do it a few times per week.

I have had massive processing, results, and movement from this exercise as I did it every week.

I am interested to hear about your results with it.

Note: There may be times when you do not feel able to release what needs to be released all alone. It may be that, in practicing this technique, you feel the need of some support of someone else, such as a healer. In that case, take the intent of this Emotional Empathy Session into another type of healing session, where space is held for you.

Q+A

Q: When you feel pockets of energy, stuck areas, etc, expressing themselves… you say to give them space. Does this involve screaming if that’s what happens, or raging, or crying,or beating cushions, or getting up and dancing, etc? Or are you suggesting to stay lying down and somewhat calmer?

A: You don’t need to *do* anything. The body will do what it needs to do…Generally that won’t be something as structured as the actions you are talking about.

But, don’t *stay* calm or still or anything else. Don’t repress the energy.  Don’t identify with the energy either. Just let the energy be.

If you force anything with this meditation–such as banging on cushions or jumping around, what you are doing is avoiding what is here and now by pushing the energy further than it is naturally expressing–this is going into control. You do this because you feel you ‘can’t handle’ what is happening naturally. Just Breathe more! And deeper. As I said above, if you go too deeply into fear, have a Witness watch you so that you will feel protected regardless of what the Body does.

It must be non-”mind” directed. You will have to let go of control. Let the body feel and act on its wisdom.