Today I felt my nervous system starting to send me signals of overwhelm at some point.
When that happens for me these days, I don’t experience any huge anxiety, or pain, but just this simple, seemingly ordinary state of tightness, mild annoyance, stress, and tension in different parts of my body.
I say ‘ordinary’ because this state used to be my normal, default state of being.
And now that I experience more joy in my life, it has become a very familiar state, but not the default on most days anymore at all.
As I recognized this energy building up in me, I realized that I needed to stop whatever I was doing, and simply rest in awareness of my body for some time.
I put a timer on my phone for 20 minutes and sat with the sensations building up in my body.
I felt a strong buzzing in my legs, and some fear in my chest.
Suddenly a wave of shame came about something that was triggered today.
Then also a sense of joy, peace, and relaxation.
I allowed myself to relax and be with all of these sensations, and when the timer was done, decided to stay for 10 more minutes with whatever I was feeling.
10 minutes later, and I’m right here writing this post to share this with you (after not having much inspiration to write about anything earlier, but life knows how to keep things real 
).
The point is, that what I did, which allowed me to feel so much more present and so much better, is far from what I would’ve done a few years ago.
A few years ago I would’ve probably pushed through the feelings I was going through and tried to keep doing whatever I was doing anyway, completely ignoring the signals being sent inside, overriding them instead.
Or maybe I would’ve tried to “mentally” resolve them, somehow thinking myself out of whatever I was feeling.
Good luck with that LOL! That never worked and was more of a bandaid.
These days I realize something else – I realize that my emotions are like an internal barometer of whatever is going on inside.
When things don’t feel like they’re good and flowing, it simply means I’m out of alignment and need to take a break and check in to see what’s going on.
It simply means something inside needs to be met, and felt, and that I will receive my insights through FEELING, not through pushing through or thinking.
Being present with what I’m feeling, I get a sense of what’s going on inside me, and as I am present with it, my heart, mind, and body start to come into balance.
How does that happen?
It’s kind of like if I stand on what foot and start to lose my balance.
If I want to regain my balance again, I need to FEEL my foot position on the floor, I need to FEEL its relationship to the floor and the rest of my body and to FEEL the way my body is currently balanced on my leg.
By feeling my foot, body, and leg, my brain can start sending signals to them of how to rebalance itself, and by sheer awareness, my body starts to better balance on one leg again.
Notice that to rebalance myself I didn’t need to “push through” anything and
I also didn’t need to “think” how to rebalance myself(That would probably equate to falling since I would lose my body awareness and my attention would be all in my head).
I simply needed to feel my body, foot, and leg, and by doing that, the rebalancing simply happened on its own.
It’s the same way with our internal barometer of emotions.
Once we connect and align with what’s alive inside us emotionally, that meaning – once we feel what’s alive inside us, it awakens that inner intelligence inside us that knows how to bring us into balance.
In this way, when I connect deeply with my emotional body, it starts to naturally bring itself back into center, without any of my effort.
Simply by being present with it, it transforms, and then so does my life.
So do you have emotions in your life that you’re trying to escape and avoid?
That you try to think your way out of or push through.
Are there any areas in your life that feel unbalanced and unaligned to you?
Here’s your invitation to instead of “push through” or “think your way into resolving them”, to rather:
slow down,
take a deep breath
And connect with how you FEEL about these areas of your life.
And you’ll see that like magic (but magic that actually makes sense), these areas of life will start coming into balance for you.
And that whatever thoughts and actions need tweaking will naturally be tweaked via insights arising from this deeper feeling-understanding and alignment you created by slowing down and being with how you feel in the present moment.
If you want to explore this approach more deeply, you’re welcome to come to my workshop this Tuesday on being present with difficult feelings, where we’ll explore going deeper into this approach for transformation.
Till then, please share with me in a reply: What’s one area in your life that you want to bring deeper into alignment for yourself? I’d love to hear from you.
I will personally read and respond to everything you send.
In LovingKindness, Daniel
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