My practice partner is telling me about her relationship to her mother. She is struggling as her mother feels unavailable to her and she can’t get into emotional connection with her. She is sad and angry.

I ask her to stop the story for a moment and drop into the body. To just sense and feel what is happening. She cries a bit and tells me about the sensations that are rising and falling in her system. We sit in silence for a while. Present to what is.

I ask her to reflect on the situation with her mother, now that she has (maybe) connected a bit more with the feelings underlying the struggle. She tells me that she still feels sad, but it has more of a flavour of compassion – seeing the struggle that her mother must be in – and a wish to support her.

I am at a workshop named “Developing Emotional Maturity & Liberating Lifeforce”. My partner Rósanna has been a student of the Zen teacher Diane Hamilton for years and she’s invited her to host a workshop while she is visiting Stockholm.

The core teaching of the workshop is that we can learn to relate to our feelings and emotions in ways that will lead to less suffering for ourselves and others. In some way it is simple. Relate with the emotion fully – really feel it. Then disidentify from it and let it go. Emotional maturity is just this – allowing emotion to blossom and dissolve.

But it takes practice. A lot of practice.

I have gotten a lot better at trusting and welcoming my experience over the last 10 years, but I am also a ruminator and can easily get stuck in moods where I hold on to the sense of frustration or anxiety that I am experiencing. It has gotten a lot better though –  these days my moods tend to last for hours rather than days or weeks. 

From temporary states to permanent traits

We were introduced to the following five layers from which we can relate to our emotional experience.

Sensation
A sensation is an experience in the body. It can for example be a clenching sensation in the stomach, an ache in the chest, a tensing of the shoulders and arms. 

Feeling
A feeling is a named or labeled sensation. Clenching in the stomach we would often label anxiety, aching in the chest could be grief and tensing in the upper body is often related to anger. So when we talk about feelings in this context we are talking about the label we put on a sensation.

Emotion
An emotion is the story we tell about the feeling we are having. It’s the reasoning or explanation for the experience. I am anxious because I am at a party where I don’t know anyone. I am angry at my girlfriend for bringing me here. I am sad because I don’t feel like I belong here.

Mood
A mood is a semi-permanent emotional state. This is where we often forget what we were reacting to in the first place, but still experience the consequences of it. We have forgotten the “why”, but without having felt and released what we experienced. We are thus stuck in an emotional state that we often struggle to get out of. 

Trait
Trait in this context means we are identified with a feeling as if it is a central aspect of our personality. It is when we start to believe that we are something rather than have it – “I am a sad person”. It is easy to forget that we all travel through many different emotional states during a day.  

These 5 steps can be seen as a movement from states to traits. From relating to feelings as something that arises and dissolves to viewing them as something I am trapped by, that has permanence in my life. The challenge is to allow our sensing/feeling systems to inform our being in the world, without starting to identify too much with them. In other words to allow ourselves to feel what needs to be felt — and then let go.

Practice: Detaching the story from the sensation/feeling

The core practice we worked with in the workshop was all about detaching the story from the sensation/feeling. We did this in three steps: 

1) Vent.
Tell a story about something that you have strong feelings about. It could be a conversation you had with your partner recently or a relationship that has become painful to be in over the last couple of years. Allow yourself to be gripped by the storytelling and let whatever wants to come through, come through. 

2) Press pause.
Feel the impact in your body. Breathe. Notice what is arising — which doesn’t have to make sense or come in a logical sequence. Name the sensations and feelings as they are arising. Stay at the level of sensation/feeling and go back if you stray back into storytelling. Allow space and silence around the experience.

3) Press play.
Reflect on the situation/emotion again. Notice that you may relate to it a bit differently after having been more in touch with the layer of sensation/feeling. 

My own experience of doing the practice was that there was quite a difference to the way I related to my emotions before and after having welcomed and spent time in the sensation/feeling layer. 

Paradoxically it seems that taking the feeling on, rather than holding it at arms length, makes it easier to let it go. The beautiful experience I had with my practice partner described in the beginning of this article was a powerful example of what can happen when we allow ourselves to really feel and relate to what we are experiencing.

Diane spoke to this as the potential of transmuting emotions to their liberated pairings during the workshop. That the emotions we often struggle with – when they are welcomed and felt – can become great capacities for being with ourselves and others and for acting in the world. The liberated aspect of the emotion arises when we let go of identification.
– Grief becomes care and compassion.
– Anger becomes clarity and direction.
– Fear becomes raw, present awareness.
– Anxiety becomes surrender and spaciousness.

While writing this I found this interesting article, that goes into some of the same subject matter:
https://unsuihealing.com/meditation/working-with-emotion/transmuting-emotion

In the workshop we did the practice with a partner and while a lot can be gained from doing this on your own, having someone else present and actively listening while being in this exploration can be a great support. I recommend trying it at home!

Emotional Maturity in connection

During the workshop Diane gave many examples from her work as a mediator in different arenas. The main point that I took away from these stories was the importance of being able to hold multiple perspectives – even when there might be an emotional trigger. And that it is relatively rare that people are able to do this – even though they might think that they are.

It is hard to accept that we don’t know what to do. And that we may see things in  fundamentally different ways. And to still stay in connection with each other.

The move presented was something like letting go of problem solving and instead focus on what is in me (self responsibility) and what’s in you (listening). A good example is when we are talking to someone who is really angry. In such a situation it might be better to simply recognize that something seems to be really important for them (this requires listening capacity) rather than reacting to their tone or getting into an argument. 

Diane speaks to the potential of creating sameness by finding the things we do agree on or where we are similar to deescalate and support coherence rather than creating more difference by offering another perspective. Sameness soothes.

On the other hand, sometimes it can be constructive to address the difference between us to increase the energy and vitality of the situation.

If I were to look at the workshop through the lens of the practices I have spent most of my time in (Tai Chi, Authentic Relating, Circling & Surrendered Leadership) there seems to be significant overlap with what Diane was presenting. When we in Circling & Surrendered leadership work with “staying at the level of sensation” we want to get closer to the raw sensation/feeling in the present moment, rather than focusing on the story about why the feeling is there. When we work with “owning experience” we want to take more self responsibility and thus make it easier for the other to listen to us.

The core of the practices I deeply care about is to show up fully and listen to the other – at the same time. A simultaneous willingness to bring myself forth, share my experience, listen deeply and welcome what the other is bringing.

I found that Diane’s framework at this workshop was useful for seeing more clearly what happens when we get stuck in our emotional lives. I really appreciated Diane’s teaching at this workshop and how it overlapped and integrated with what I am already practicing.

A stand for kindness

When I opened my computer at home after the workshop I was flooded with the news that the USA had attacked Venezuela and kidnapped president Maduro.

I had a lot of feelings come up as I scrolled through various media platforms. While the removal of Maduro in itself is a good I mostly felt desperation and anger and sadness. I don’t trust that this intervention will lead to better lives for the people in Venezuela. And I fear what it will do to the idea of a rule-based world order. I wanted to scream at the horrible, corrupt people who are in power in the United States these days and the people who support them. And it continued into the day after, when I am writing this.

When I now try Diane’s method on my feelings and really allow myself to feel the powerlessness and desperation that is in me I feel small and scared. I am afraid of the people in the world who believes that might makes right and it is painful to witness. But interestingly what comes online when I allow the feelings is a sense of wanting to support the people around me who might feel similar things. A lot of care and softness. A stand for kindness.