When I told you about my motorbike ride to the Maras Salt Mines last week, I was thinking.
When I was feeling the bike lean into the corners, I was feeling.
Posting on social media about your last holiday is thinking.
Feeling the warm water lapping at your toes is feeling.
Thinking or telling someone “I’m angry” is thinking.
Feeling your jaw clench and eyes narrow when someone says something that pisses you off is feeling.
When it comes to the nervous system and stored survival stress, feeling is the answer 😁
You can think about why you feel bad… or why you can’t stop thinking… or what happened in childhood to make you the way that you are…
…but thinking doesn’t accomplish much except more thinking.
If you want to work directly with your nervous system (and liberate yourself from the various patterns that bother you), the key is to feel.
As described above, this means literally feeling what’s happening in your body.
Instead of thinking about anxiety, can you feel the tension in your stomach?
What about the knots in your shoulders?
If you’re upset, how do you know? What specific sensation in your body tells you that you’re upset? Thinking about how you’re upset is thinking. Thinking about how you’re angry is thinking.
Saying or thinking “I’m angry” or “I’m upset” is thinking not feeling.
The question is…
What specific sensations tell you that you feel angry?
What is the sensational or felt experience of “angry” or “upset”?
If you simply feel numb, how do you know? What specifically tells you that you feel numb? Do you feel like you don’t exist? Is there literally nothing when you focus on your body?
Feeling your body is essential to moving through the world so it’s unlikely there is no feeling whatsoever. Think about it. If you didn’t feel your body at all, you wouldn’t know when to eat, sleep or go to the bathroom.
So…
Feeling.
Feeling is the answer to so many problems because often, feelings just want to be felt before they dissolve 😇
And yet…
Most people spend very little time feeling (and almost all their time thinking) 🤷♂️
Here’s another hint:
If feeling discomfort ever becomes too much, try feeling somewhere else.
Can you find somewhere else in your body that feels ok?
Or if everywhere is uncomfortable, can you find one place that’s less uncomfortable than another place?
For example, does your big toe feel more or less uncomfortable than the butterflies in your stomach?
This is the Rageheart way.
It’s also a taste of what I teach inside The Rageheart Academy.
How to feel.
It sounds simple and it many ways, it IS simple…
…but it’s also challenging, heartbreaking and endlessly fascinating.
Want to learn more about feeling?
Join me inside The Rageheart Academy:
Cheers,
John Wood
P.S. Got any friends and family who would benefit from learning to think less and feel more?
Refer them to The Daily Growl (this email newsletter) and give them a powerful, new option for liberating themselves from the pain of the past.