Feel your Feelings

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Our life is a lot about our feelings, how we feel. And if we feel a lot of anxiety or stress or irritation, anger, whatever the feeling is, if it gets too much, too intense, of course we don't like it. And so then often we avoid things. We distract ourselves. We try and suppress it. And that doesn't actually work. It just gets worse and worse and worse. And so in today's episode, we're talking about how to manage our feelings, how to manage anything that comes up. Because from my personal experience, after nearly 30 years of meditation, I've realized that the thing I'm most worried about, really, if I'm honest, is negative feelings. Because even events that happen in my life, what am I actually worried about? I'm worried about how I feel about the event more than the event itself. Because if. If something bad happened and I felt great about it, then, like, what's the big deal? And so after many, many years, I've come to realize that learning how to feel my feelings and learning how to release them and learning how to be at peace with whatever comes up is one of the biggest and greatest skills on the spiritual path. And so that's what we're diving into today. Dealing with our feelings, managing overwhelm, managing negative emotions, even managing positive emotions so that we can come to higher and higher states of awareness and not have to be running away, escaping, pushing things away from us, repressing, suppressing, and all those different coping mechanisms. So welcome, welcome, welcome. Shirin, how are you doing? And how do you manage your emotions? [00:01:56] Speaker B: I was actually thinking when you were talking that Michael has come a long way. Remember those days, Michael, when you wouldn't talk about your personal life or your feelings? If I asked you a question, you would be like, oh, cherries are not there in the grocery store. [00:02:15] Speaker A: Cherries are not at the grocery store. It's the worst thing ever. Yeah. [00:02:21] Speaker B: But anyway, I'm really happy we are doing this. So how do I manage my feelings? Maybe. Maybe. I'm not saying this is necessarily true for everyone. For women, I think it's a little easier. Easier to feel. [00:02:39] Speaker A: It's easier to feel your feelings. [00:02:41] Speaker B: Right. I don't ever feel like I'm suppressing something. I'm, like, feeling bad. I'm feeling bad, right? And then I'm like, okay, what can I do about it? And I'm not thinking, oh, let me not feel this feeling. I'm not usually thinking those things. And there are some feelings which you didn't mention. This particular feeling, which I feel is a problem for me. Is boredom. And I have to. And so I'm really embracing boredom. And the last year was really about embracing boredom and being okay with boredom. [00:03:22] Speaker A: Because you got off the other feelings. Stop. Stop scrolling. And because there's the endless means of releasing boredom on the phone, which there's. The whole thing is full of boredom in, like, reducing activities. If you get rid of all that, then you're like, the hell. Like, the wind is moving. All right, okay. [00:03:46] Speaker B: So no, I'm still feeling the boredom, right? Like, that was a real lesson and tapasya in feeling boredom. And recently, to look at our podcast on YouTube, I went on YouTube and I was shocked by the thumbnails, right? Because I haven't seen them in, like, a long time. Like, how colorful they are and how enticing they are. And I'm thinking, no wonder people are not able to get off this, right? You can't go in there and not want to. Oh, look at this, look at this. But anyway, like, this. Like these. Like, I was noticing these short bursts of dopamine just looking at the thumbnails. Yeah, that's a different topic. We won't get into that. The boredom. Boredom. The one emotion you didn't mention was boredom. That the other emotions are much easier for me to feel. Yeah, boredom also. I'm getting a handle on it. Just accepting. I told myself, every time I feel bored, that's very, very good news. I should be feeling bored. I should embrace boredom and invoke boredom. And that's what's been going on. And that's. So far, so good. [00:05:01] Speaker A: So far so good. So far so good. Yeah. So this is. So we're going to get more into exactly how to. How to do this. But let's just discuss, like, what happens normally when there is a feeling. So there's positive and negative emotions, right? Or you can call them feelings. Some people, they get semantics. They say, oh, feelings are all positive and emotions are all negative. And there's people saying. But let's just say. Let's just call everything feelings. And there's a spectrum. You could say at the very lowest level is shame, guilt, apathy. And then there's, you know, fear and lust and greed, pride. And then you could have. And there's a whole bunch of negative emotions. Envy and jealousy and all that nasty business that can. That feels terrible. And then. Then there's courage and acceptance and enthusiasm and love and peace, and all these goes higher and higher. And then ecstasy and infinite joy and infinite bliss at the top, Right? So there's a. Who Spectrum. And some people have got these, I've seen these color like wheels that show different feelings and how they're connected. And so there's. There's so many different feelings. Right. And you can go online and create a list of 500 different feelings. Right. And so normally what happens is when we feel negative feelings, we don't like it most of the time. Right. I'm like, ah. So if I feel angry or irritated or fearful or something like this, or anxious, I only experience anxiety occasionally. But when I do, I'm like, oh my God. [00:06:39] Speaker B: It's just. [00:06:41] Speaker A: And. And I really have so much compassion for something. [00:06:43] Speaker B: Let me binge watch movies. Is that what you think when you experience. [00:06:48] Speaker A: I remember feeling anxiety like for most of half a day or something, or I can't remember when it was, but I was like, I just had so much compassion for people who are anxious every day. I thought, how do they manage? Like, this is so and so. No wonder there's like all these like cannabis products and like gummies and all these things everyone's taking to try and manage it. So when we feel bad, we normally either try and suppress it or I'll push through or repress it. Repressing is where I'm not going to let myself feel it at all. So it's like it's unconsciously suppression or we express it, you know, like if I'm angry and I shout somebody, that'll be expressing it or, you know, we kind of fight, trying to fight it off or we try and escape it and distract ourselves. Right. And I think in our modern society the most common method is escapism because we all have a phone. So it's like, oh, I feel terrible. That's not a problem at all. [00:07:54] Speaker B: It's easy, it's easy to escape. [00:07:56] Speaker A: Escape, escape, escape. In the past you might not have been able to do that because you're sitting there and you're not feeling your feelings and there's nothing you can do about it. You're like in. [00:08:06] Speaker B: But they didn't feel that much either also. Right. Michael? It's just that now it's escapism. Before it was just bottling up. I like the suppression silent type. Yeah, right. You heard, you used to hear that it was like a thing, you know, [00:08:24] Speaker A: people cry and bottling it up and then they become mass killers or something at a certain point and you know. Right. Smash shooters or something. Yeah, like ah, yeah. So. So basically feelings are a huge part of our life because if you think about it, you can know everything about Spiritual stuff and you can know everything about everything. But if you feel depressed, like what doesn't mean anything, you know, So I personally feel that at the end of the day, it's all about the feelings and it's all about states of consciousness and because what. Happiness is not a mental state. It's a. It's an experience, isn't it? Joy is an experience. And when people have had visions of the golden age and higher states, it main thing everyone talks about is their level of joy and happiness and love that they feel. That's the main thing. It's not, oh, there's nice things around. It's the, it's the higher state. So when we have lower feeling states, we try and avoid it. And avoiding. Like for example, let's say I feel bad, I feel stressed or something and I think, what am I going to do? I'm going to watch some nonsense on my phone and then I'm going to go in the kitchen and eat a bunch of crap that's bad for me to try and stuff it down. First of all, it doesn't work. And secondly, I'll end up fat and with a head full of junk. So I've now got two other problems, right? [00:09:56] Speaker B: Right, Absolutely. So many other problems. [00:09:59] Speaker A: Exactly. So I started off with one problem. I don't feel good. Now I've got two other problems, right? And then you could have the third problem. And you think, I'm going to distract myself by talking to this person and I talk and then I'd end up in an argument with someone, Jim. And then there's so it, so this, this one problem of not being able to feel the feelings can lead to endless other problems. And then those problems can cause more feelings, which then cause additional problems. And so if we can learn how to feel our feelings, we've solved a major cause of sorrow and a major cause of stupid stuff that we wouldn't otherwise be doing. You know, like for example, if we all felt good all the time, we probably wouldn't eat the wrong food when our health would be better. [00:10:43] Speaker B: One thing I was thinking, Michael, is what is the downside of not feeling? Is we are not living to our fullest potential, right? Because I don't want. I'm escaping feelings. I'm doing so many things with my time, which I could be doing other things that actually benefit me and make me grow and feel better and hide better. And also I feel that we are postponing resentment. It's there. Then you'll start resenting yourself and then you'll start resenting everything that's going on and it just starts bottling up. It just compounds and compounds and compounds and it's just inside, right? Just because you're escaping that doesn't mean it's gone anywhere. It's not gone anywhere, right? [00:11:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's just, it's just waiting, you know, like, like I've been in situations in the past where like, I might watch a movie or something, right? I don't feel good. I watch a movie and in that time, because I'm experiencing someone else's experience, I'm having a altered state of mind. And then it ends and now all the feelings come back again. So what good was that? So, yeah, it's not resolving anything. I've been in situations with people who, who don't tell me what's going on with. For them. Working with my work situations for like months and months. Is everything okay? Blah, blah. Yeah, everything's great. And then like one day just completely lose it. And I'm like, how come you didn't tell me this stuff six months ago that you're stressed out about? You know, so we, we need to figure this out. It's really unhealthy, [00:12:33] Speaker B: right? You know, one of my pet peeves is if I tell someone, hey, this is happening, we need to, you know, talk about this, then they come up with like 10 things that are wrong with me, right? And I'm thinking, but why didn't you say this before? Right? Why did it have to wait till I say something? [00:12:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:53] Speaker B: Anyway, that's on the, that's on the side. I want to share something here. On an average, an average person watches, you know, YouTube, right? YouTube a day, a billion hours get watched on YouTube. And 700 million of those hours are the ones where recommended list. So you didn't go into YouTube thinking you want to watch it, but whatever is the recommended list. You watch that. And an average person, like someone who uses any of the social media, right, let's say TikTok or Instagram or YouTube or any of those things, a serious user uses about 2000 hours a year. And guess how many hours it takes to get a degree? 4,000 hours. So in two years that we spend escaping our feelings, which are not working anyway because they're waiting for you at the end anyway, they're not going anywhere. So in two years that you have spent. We have spent in escaping our feelings, we could have gotten a degree. That's how much we are giving up. That's how much we are losing by not feeling Our feelings. [00:14:31] Speaker A: Yeah. That's shocking. And, you know, you could also say you could probably learn like three languages and learn how to play the piano and the guitar and like, you know, all kinds of other things in that amount of time. When you add it all up, you know, it's, it's. Yeah, it's. It's a real. So we. It doesn't work for a start, and we're losing out on massive amounts of other cool things we could be doing. And also, numbing our feelings isn't allowing us to feel our own joy either, you know, because numbing is numbing, you know, so it's. It doesn't just numb one thing, it numbs everything. So for us to deal with this, I mean, I, I've. I would say all of my problems in life, if I look at it really honestly, have come down to not wanting to feel my feelings. Everything that's truth. [00:15:31] Speaker B: No, I'm saying yay. Is finally over here talking about things. [00:15:34] Speaker A: He's finally talking about his feelings at a long last time. I get this. No, it's not that I haven't been aware of my feelings. It's just that I'm just. I've got to the point. [00:15:42] Speaker B: You just didn't want to about it. [00:15:44] Speaker A: I just don't want to talk. You don't always want to talk about your feelings. You know, the men generally have a harder time talking about their feelings, don't they? [00:15:50] Speaker B: Overall, this is why I agree with you, Michael. Actually, this is what I'm thinking when you're stating. Right. It's like women, like, I don't know too many women who don't feel their feelings. Right? [00:16:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:04] Speaker B: But there are some feelings we all escape for sure. Like I escape boredom. There are some feelings we all escape, but there are some feelings. Women actually just feel them. If they're feeling bad, they're just feeling bad and they want to talk about it. [00:16:20] Speaker A: Exactly. Now women, Women are very overall feeling their feelings and happy to talk about their feelings. It's true. And men generally, they might be feeling the feelings, but not necessarily. But they don't want to talk about it or they don't know how to talk about it. I mean, and I've actually spoke to a few women about this recently because I've been like, we all need to feel our feelings. And, and I've. And a lot of people have said to me that they actually don't know what they're feeling. Right. Because like, let's say right now. [00:16:51] Speaker B: Say that again. They what? [00:16:53] Speaker A: Like there, there are These charts I've been sent. Someone sent me one of these charts, which is a feeling chart. And it has like, has all these slices, like a cake, right? It has like, you know, like grief, you know, resentment, blah, blah. There's all the names of the things all the way around. I can see if we can get a picture of it. And because let's say. Let's say we're going to feel whatever we're feeling right now. Let's just take a moment, right? Just, just for the next one minute, let us just sit here and notice whatever we're feeling, what, whatever it is, it could be bored, it could be numb, it could be happy, anxious, whatever it is, just notice whatever you're feeling. You know, it's an interesting thing what even is the feeling, right? But it's. It's not even clear necessarily what it is that we're feeling because it's an energy, isn't it? Feeling is an energy. So, so one of the first things is not that we have to label everything, but it is useful to know what exactly am I feeling? And, and just what I've noticed is that the key thing is to not resist anything. So instead of saying I don't feel good or I do feel good or whatever it is, and, and now I'm going to do something else just to sit there and say I'm just going to feel and accept whatever is happening as it is. Without doing anything about it. Which actually is not necessarily the easiest thing to do, depending on the feeling. So, so what we're talking about today essentially is, is. Is a process that we can use to, to stop running away from ourselves, basically. Because if we can stop running, then we can stop causing ourselves problems. Of all these secondary effects of avoiding our feelings. [00:19:34] Speaker B: Feeling our feelings is like a paper tiger. It's very ferocious. From a distance, it looks real, it looks really bad. It looks like it's going to swallow you and you'll never come out of it alive again. But we have to keep going closer, right? Like you're saying, keep feeling it. Keep feeling it. Keep going closer to the paper tiger. Keep going closer to the paper tiger. And once we come upon it and once we have felt it enough, I've realized that, that you realize for what it is, it is a paper tiger. You don't need to worry about it because it is a paper tiger and you'll be fine. But the other thing I feel is about feeling feelings is also giving it, right? Giving it, surrendering it. Feeling something different, having good wishes for yourself. Those things, I feel are also very important in the whole process. [00:20:42] Speaker A: So the process we'll go through this step by step is one is, is acknowledge the feelings, whatever they are, just [00:20:49] Speaker B: notice them that it's a paper tiger. [00:20:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And then, and we'll do this slowly, but we'll just go through the steps first. And then the other one is to welcome the feeling. So instead of pushing it away, we actually welcome it. Because that's hand. Breathe into it and just say, okay, it's just a. It's just an energy. It's really all it is. I'm going to welcome it, I'm going to feel it. And then we surrender it up. And it's useful to give it to God or a higher power or, or just give it to the universe or just let it go. But it is useful to think that there is a powerful being who can actually take the burden and the stress and the energy and burn it, can take it away. Right. Because one title for God is God is the remover of sorrow and a bestower of happiness. And so if I'm feeling sorrow, then I can give it to God and actually release it and then we can receive blessings, you know, so because my personal experience with this is that more I let go of something than then there's space for something else to come in. You know, if I've got sadness in my heart and I hand it over, then. Then there's space for happiness to come in. But it. But I have to be willing to get it out, to let it go. So how, so how do we do this, Shirin? So we go through step by step this process in a bit more detail. [00:22:20] Speaker B: Sure. Let's do a practice. Right? Why don't you walk us through a practice? But a couple of things, Michael, we need to. You mentioned this and it's a very important step is am I willing to live with this feeling forever, Something like that. Or let's say I have sadness. Am I willing to live with sadness or am I willing to give it up? Am I willing to never live with, never have sadness? Right. Something like that. What was it that you were talking about? [00:23:06] Speaker A: So what normally happens, right, is we feel feelings, we don't like them, we try and run away from them in various ways. Right. That's what normally happens. So what we're doing is we're saying the feeling comes up. Let me welcome the feeling. Am I. Am I willing to welcome this feeling as best I can, whatever it is right now? So let's just take a moment just to just to notice the feeling is just a feeling. So paper tiger. And by the way, underneath negative feelings is I call a golden pot of bubbling joy. I feel we have a golden pot of bubbling joy in our heart and it's got a lid on the top of these negative feelings. If we let it go, then the bubbling joy comes up naturally. So underneath is a golden pot of bubbling joy. So which is great news. Everyone has their big pot of bubbling joy. And so am I willing to feel the welcome. The feelings that I'm having, whatever they are as best. And then there's actually a method called the Sedona method, which I'm in Sedona. So it's good method where they say, you know, welcome to feeling. And then they say could you, could you let this feeling go? Just theoretically, could you let it go? Would you let it go. When. You can always do it next year I'll do. Yeah. I'm afraid in a few years time when I'm ready. So. But we. That you can ask those, those questions are quite useful just to clear it out step by step. But on a deeper level, what we're saying is can I welcome the feeling? Am I willing to release it? Am I willing to surrender it up? And, and if you're not willing to, another way is. Is to invert it where. Because if you say this the other way around, what it. What we'd be saying is am I willing to resist my own happiness? Because that's actually what's happening on Am I willing to resist my golden pot bubbling joy? And am I. Am I willing to hold on to negative feelings that I don't like? And for how long do I want to hold on to these negative feelings I don't enjoy how long? Because that's actually what's happening. If you think of it from the other way around, I'm going to resist my happiness and I'm going to feel all these bad feelings for as long as I possibly can. Right? That, that's, that's when I think of it that way around actually it feels easier to release funnily enough, because it then I'm really. I'm holding on to these feelings. And the reason I'm holding on to it is because the ego juices negativity. The ego is addicted to negative feelings. It wants as much as it can get. And so I need to say, all right, do I really want to hold on to anger and resentment or whatever it is for the rest of the day? [00:27:03] Speaker B: One thing in your method is that there is a. You could Say, a working assumption, like in any experiment, right. They are always working assumptions and a premise. The word I wanted was a premise. So there is a premise. The premise is that underneath everything there is a pot of golden joy. Bubbling joy. Right. That is the premise. And so most people have not gone deep enough to see that joy. So they're just, you know, surface up. And most of us. Right, that's how it's going. And so we need to understand that that is a premise. And we can only test that premise for ourselves. You can say, oh, there's a golden pot of bubbling joy. But I will only accept it if underneath, somewhere deep inside, I actually go inside and look and see. Oh, yes, there is. Right. And so it has to come from personal experience. And so I. I was thinking your method is very, very important because we need to test that. Right? So use the method and test it and see if there is a part of bubbling joy underneath. [00:28:35] Speaker A: Exactly. I mean, I can say from my own experience, many, many times, I've spent a long time doing this over the years, and more recently, a lot of the time, and it's just, let go, let go, let go, let go. And it does lead to an ecstatic state, actually, because. Because all this heavy stuff, because it's all very heavy, heavy energy, it clears out. And I think one thing that helps get rid of it is, is I can either be right or I can be happy. Because I've noticed a lot of my negative feelings come down to wanting to be right about something. Think I. I would rather. I would rather that I have my opinion than be happy. Basically, that's kind of what's going on. So if I'm like, look, let me just accept everything exactly as it is, and I'm not going to try and be. [00:29:33] Speaker B: Wow, Michael, we are really getting into this today. [00:29:37] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's a subtle thing, isn't it? It's just. It's very subtle. [00:29:40] Speaker B: But it's like I am celebrating your honesty. [00:29:44] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate that. Yeah. So let go, let go, let go. Because I'd. Because I'd rather be happy than be right. Really. And honestly, because what's the point, you know? And. And also, I can't change any. I can't change anything, really. I mean, if you take it to the extreme in, in certain spiritual teachings in Raja, it says the. Everything is predestined, right? So in a way, you've got no control over anything at all. And everything that happens is perfect. So there's no point being right about anything, because what can you do about it. And yeah, so just let go, let go, let go, let go. And, and, and also the interesting thing is that even if we're feeling good feelings, we can let them go as well. Because underneath a good feeling is the better feeling, you know, So I might be feeling happy, but that doesn't mean I'm experiencing ecstatic bliss. So then I can let go of the limited happiness. And there's another level. And really what it is is I'm letting go of any. Trying to control things, trying to stress out about things, trying to force things, trying to have it my way, trying to get security from things. There's a whole this is very complicated mess going on here. So it's just like let go, let go, let go, let go. And then it's like, ah. Because on a spiritual level we learn that we don't own anything and we haven't got anything. So. So really letting go is just letting go of false things that don't aren't ours in the first place, really. Because I haven't got anything anyway. So we're not. All we're doing is giving up, you know, something that isn't real. [00:31:34] Speaker B: Another premise in our method is that you go closer to the feeling. You realize it's not as ferocious, it's not as consuming as you think, or it's not going to swallow you and kill you. Is again, you have to test it, right? We, each of us has to test that. And what I've noticed is the more you do it, the more like boredom, for example, the more I embraced it, the easier it became. It wasn't such a big thing. I had to escape, right? It was like, oh, okay, no big deal. But before I would be like, so I don't want to feel bored, I'm so bored. This and that. Oh, no big deal. And each of us has to come to that conclusion ourselves. [00:32:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's worse at the beginning, isn't it? And that's why they say with like an addictions and cravings, the. It does pass, but it takes a certain amount of time just to let go, let go, let go. And, and we have to have the tolerance to suck it up for as long as it needs to be. But it, it does like let some of the steam. So I think of it as a stack of papers, like a big stack of papers. And every time we release, we're letting go of one page, you know, one. But there's a big stack. So it doesn't look like much is happening until you've got through loads of it. And then you're like, oh, I feel so much better. But in the moment, it's only one little piece and it doesn't seem to be doing anything. So we have to have a bit of patience with ourselves and not freak out and. And go, ah, give me my phone. This is too much. So that's the practice. Let go. Am I willing to welcome it? Am I willing to release it, give it to God and just keep letting go, letting go, letting go, letting go. Ten thousand times a day. Which, that's our standard, isn't insurance. Ten thousand times a day. If anything's worth doing, it has to be done 10,000 times a day or, you know, at least 100 times. All right, so we have a blessing. [00:33:54] Speaker B: Appreciation. This is God's blessing for you. Appreciation. Discovering the positive in other people and situations has become a part of who you are and has changed you. Uncovering your essence of kindness. You feel a sense of contentment from this simple yet powerful practice. [00:34:23] Speaker A: Ah, yes, yes, yes. So have fun with it. We have meditations on various types of letting go, and. But realistically, it's a very simple thing. Like most things in. In spiritual teachings, they're simple, but they only work if you do them thousands of times. So we have to start with one moment, and then we add, keep going until eventually there's nothing left but bubbling joy. Any final thoughts? Shreem. [00:34:56] Speaker B: Happy letting go. [00:34:57] Speaker A: Happy letting go. So have a beautiful day. Thank you for your presence, and we'll talk to you in the next session.