While doing a walking meditation, focusing on the beauty of nature around me–the golden hills dotted with majestic live oak trees and unexpected splashes of color from wildflowers popping out of the brush–it dawned on me that the avoidance I sometimes feel towards my feelings is a truly ineffective defense mechanism! Has anyone else noticed how if you try to ignore or avoid them, they’ll patiently follow you, tapping you on the shoulder until you acknowledge them? Or, if you do successfully stuff them down for the time being, they like to interrupt you later when it’s really, really inconvenient.
What if, instead of avoiding for fear of the pain they might cause, I could choose to be curious and open to the full range of human experience? What if, instead of running from them or trying to ignore them unsuccessfully, I could free myself from them by choosing where I focus my attention? What if I could feel them, call them by name, and let them float in front of me without fixating on them? I believe I am more than a sum of my thoughts and feelings–they do not define me, but they will if I give them more attention than they deserve. On that note, I came up with the acronym FLOW, to help me remember my intentions…
FLOW
Feel it
Label it (without judging)
Open the
Window to let it go
This visual was so freeing to me! I don’t have to be afraid of painful feelings. I can wonder where that thought came from and if I want to keep it. I can watch it flow on by. Or, if I’m in a more cantankerous mood, I can be righteously indignant like a lawyer and cross-examine my thoughts that are not helpful or kind to me. At least that’s a more entertaining way to do Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on myself. 😉
Have you found that when you allow yourself to feel what you momentarily feel without judging it as good or bad that it dissipates more quickly or at least has less power over you? Is that something you would like to practice?