Trouble experiencing emotions

[Chase]

I have a tremendous amount of suppressed emotions that have been accumulating over a long period of time.  It has reached a point where it is manifesting itself heavily in my body.  Whenever I try to experience the emotions I usually experience a physical pain that intensifies greatly but won't seem to release. The physical pain is always in the solar plexus area.  I try to just let go and experience it but it seems that after awhile my focus slowly deviates from it. 

I believe this is a conditioned response as years ago when the intense feelings started occurring I would retreat to my head and keep my awareness there.  That eventually became my primary coping mechanism and for a long time now I have basically lived in my head.  This has made me very disconnected from my body.  It is incredibly frustrating as I desperately want to release the emotions but they seem to be hardened and "stuck".  I've thought about using psychedelics to help bring up and deal with the emotions as I feel they are one of the few things that would go deep enough.  I am, however, holding off from that at the moment. 

So I'm really just looking for a way to open up to these emotions.  I try to turn my left brain off and just be there with them but their intensity makes it real hard.  I'm in a constant state of resistance and it is really wearing me down.   

Thanks for your time. 

[John Ruskan]

A good evaluation. The negative feeling energy has been accumulating for life-times and the body armoring resistance has also built up to the point where it obscures feelings. Recognize that it will take time to reverse the tendencies of the past, but also be encouraged that you now are at that pivotal point where you are consciously working on yourself instead of suppressing with left-brain resistance. Make the most of this place - you do not know when it will come again.

Consciously developing the right-brain with appropriate right-brain activities is a place to start. Working on the body level can be of major importance here: Yoga and breath. Yoga works on the body level to break up the armoring and allow feelings to come forward into view. Make a priority of developing a personal yoga / breath practice 5 times per week. Learn to love it. I still do yoga/ breath/ meditate/ process every night before sleep for 1 - 2 hours. This MUST NOT BE the power yoga that you see everywhere. Review what I've written about yoga in the EC Book and on the website: Working On Yourself where I've posted a posture flow. You're to do classical, meditative yoga. Frankly, I cannot live without yoga. It's a big big help in successful processing work.

Then, working with the breath can be equally important. Follow the breath instructions in the EC Book. These practices work on you slowly. You'll see some immediate results, but the major benefit occurs over a period of time - years, during which time your energetic awareness develops. I would also recommend accelerated breath practices. Stan Groff MD worked with LSD when it was legal and then switched to accelerated breath, which he calls Holotropic Breathwork, which he thought produced similar results. I concur. This can break thru the armor.

Since psychedelics are illegal, I can't recommend them. Many of us who were around in the '60's found them to be amazingly life-altering and consider it a blessing to have had experience with them. They do remove the armoring temporarily and induce/ teach the higher consciousness that I refer to as witnessing. The danger is that the material that's exposed can then be overwhelming, which is what results in the bad trip, or 'psychotic reaction.' If you're aware of this possibility, and stay detached, and have someone else to remind you to do this, generally you'll be ok.  I'd be cautious about tripping alone for you. I would prepare with the accelerated breath. If you did 10 acc breath sessions, you'd have major shifting and might not feel a need for psychedelics. 'Rebirthing' is also an acc breath regime. Look for acc breath day-long workshops. Not to plug myself, but I also do acc breath with clients, often long-distance, if that's a possibility for you. Working with an EC Facilitator can help - their energy enables you to go deeper - I see it all the time.

[Chase]

Thanks for the advice.  I really do have to make an effort to do more right- brain activities.  I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to respond.

[Susan]

Hi Chase,
Thank you for your post. You got me thinking....

and wondering what your frustrating of desperately wanting to release your emotions that feel hardened and "stuck" to the point where you have been considering psychedelics feels like? If this is what you are feeling right now (or when you step into processing) I wonder if this in itself could be a really important beginning - utilizing your already here awareness and feeling of  needing to do more, work deeper, or not doing this deeply enough etc.

Then, even as I write, interestingly, I start hesitating, thinking my offering might be too small or irrelevent, and I'm aware I often wonder if I am 'enough' so you have certainly held up an important mirror for me. Feels difficult to put into words, but I think I often think about whether I am doing 'enough' in processing and then wonder if this is my own resistance sneaking up on me. So, now I am working to also be aware of and stay with what is right here now - which for me is also often a feeling of frustration coupled perhaps with a self sabotaging disbelief or wanting something bigger... (perhaps something more certain or dramatic, like faster results or a kind of certainty of completion) which can so easily pull me away from this process.

In addition, it would be easy to question if these here and now seemingly smaller processing steps are a distraction from the 'real, big stuff' of importance itself that I really should be working on, which could so easily justify my not doing the necessary work right here and now. So indecision and fear of commitment come up for me one way or another, as well as wanting only the big and 'important' stuff and not valuing or processing the smaller things which I attract along the way. I hope this makes sense (as I could of course,  right now be avoiding my next big step, by focussing on the smaller one right in front of me - yikes!)...? I think what I'm realising is that everything we process is important - big or small, all part of the whole.

John's reply is so helpful, and full of wisdom, so I hope you don't mind me writing to share in response too, as I feel that even though we are different people, we seem (I think) to have a lot of similarities. For me, I think (believe) John's work is more than enough, and yoga and breath work really are key. Yet I also notice that sometimes part of me does not want to feel that this is enough - and my own doubts and fears and all the stuff I need to work on arrives right here in front of me (which then seems to show me exactly what to work on if I can take the steps to do it). Isn't it interesting how each apparent problem can hold a lamp to light up the next seemingly small step, even while I'm busy looking for a bigger one (and isn't it interesting that the moment I type that, I wonder if I've got it wrong and should just be seeking out my 'big stuff')?

Wishing you health and light whichever way(s) you work.
Thank you.

All Love Susan

[Chase]

Hi Susan,

Your offering certainly isn't irrelevant.  It's interesting you bring this up as I have been coming to similar conclusions myself.  For me, I struggle so hard to access and release the big stuff to the point where I make the present more miserable and I end up not really processing that.  I seem to get stuck in paradoxes and try to get out using my left brain which only strengthens my feelings of helplessness and despair.

Perhaps we could both benefit by stopping all the "trying" and "figuring out" as this is all left brain.  Don't worry where you're at on the path, just go to the right brain and stay there.  Just follow and trust your intuition and you'll get there.  The reason I'm holding off on taking psychedelics at the moment is about three months ago I took a very potent dosage of psilocybin mushrooms.  The trip was terrifying as I was resisting everything, just as I do in my everyday consciousness.  What I learned from the trip, however, is that the only way through the misery is to experience through the heart.

So, in short, don't worry about the steps.  The worry in and of itself may be creating an extra step for you. 

With love,

Chase