Have you ever come across something, an idea, a technique, a practice, that when you truly engaged with it changed your whole experience? One of the most beneficial for me, was learning the practice of experiencing rather than labelling.
One of my spiritual teachers was the first to teach me this when I was going through a really rough time in my life and felt completely overwhelmed by despair and anger and confusion and fear and probably a whole bunch of other emotions. Whenever we would talk, a barrage of words would explode from me, all of my stories about what had happened, what was going on for me now, trying to make sense of it all, trying to find reasons for it all, trying to work out what to do next, trying to work out how to own and take responsibility for myself, and on and on it went. I’m sure you can relate to the kind of thing I’m talking about, a space where the more words come out the more emotion gets drudged up with them, and the more emotion that gets drudged up the more words come out.
Finally after beautifully and patiently holding space for me, he one day said “could we just try something for a moment?” I was willing to try anything that might help ease this suffering so I listened intently as he took me through the process of first dropping my stories or questions or considerations about what I was feeling, and just name the feeling e.g. anger. Just sit with anger. How does anger feel in your body? After a few moments had passed he asked me “now what are you feeling?” Sadness. “Ok, just sit with sadness. What does sadness feel like in your body?” Then he took me further by saying “OK, now let go of even the label sadness, and just feel how it is in your body. Then, even let go of the words about how it is in your body, and just feel.” Such a powerful practice!
It can be really important and beneficial to tell your story and feel heard, but when you’ve been heard and you still feel stuck in your head and in a place of overwhelm, I highly recommend you try this beautiful practice of just experiencing rather than labelling and see what may happen for you.
