Allow all within you to be.

The way of effortless experience will set you free.

I coached a woman on Friday.

She had difficulty allowing herself to feel love.

That’s because she had difficulty allowing herself to feel pain.

Our exploration revealed that the avoidance, or suppression of love, was a protective strategy to avoid and suppress the pain that seemed inevitably tied to it.

The extent to which we allow ourselves to feel love is the extent to which we allow ourselves to feel pain.

Upon this realization, sadness arose within her, as if to welcome this new truth and mourn the love that never got to be expressed.

The tears came.

I asked her where the sadness was in her body.

She instinctively knew.

She said the belly.

I said put your hand on your belly.

I said breathe into that spot.

I said feel it fully.

Feel it without judgment.

Feel it without resistance.

Feel it without mental interference.

This was a new experience for her, just allowing herself to feel.

It only took a minute or two before the emotion moved through her.

And she was a bit freer because of it.

A bit lighter.

I bit softer in the eyes.

Softer in the face.

She felt better.

She said it, although she didn’t have to.

It was clear that a new way of being was unlocked for her.

A pathway from the head to the heart.

It’s a pathway I’m learning to walk.

The mirror of coaching is real.

This weekend I had turbulent emotions arise within me.

They surfaced last night. They shaped my dreams.

I woke up with them stirring within.

I took a yoga class. Even more emotional dust was kicked up.

I was agitated. Angry. Tense. Bothered. Annoyed.

I was sad.

I caught myself reacting.

I wanted to complain.

I wanted to fix.

I wanted to escape.

I wanted to act out.

I wanted to rationalize this emotional experience.

Instead, I felt it all.

Because, above all else, I wanted to set it free.

I felt it in my chest.

I put my hand there.

I’m learning to follow my own guidance.

I breathed into it. I felt.

I breathed into it. I released.

I returned to this practice throughout the day, as more and more surfaced.

I recognized each resurfacing as an opportunity to integrate.

To become a bit freer.

A bit lighter.

A bit softer in the eyes.

Softer in the face.

To feel better.

The answer was not in analyzing my emotional experience.

My master’s degree taught me to do that well, and I can tell you that you could undergo all the psychoanalysis available and have it turned into a book about why you feel the way you feel… and it would not help.

This sort of mental indulgence is an unnecessary distraction that can never take the place of that which only the intelligence of the body can do.

The solution was not to look for a solution, for no emotion is a problem.

Emotions are vibrational experiences to be felt, not problems to be solved.

The only problems arise when we resist the emotional experience we are having.

You can think of emotions as energetic currents.

Allow them to flow.

Resistance causes buildup.

Resistance causes blockage.

Resistance causes friction.

Friction causes heat.

That’s why emotions born out of resistance feel hot.

Resistance also causes persistance.

With nowhere to go, suppressed emotions remain trapped within, waiting to surface.

Emotions do not appear out of nowhere, they surface out of the emotional charges you carry within.

Emotions don’t enter into you from anything external, they simply arise when they’re activated.

They’re activated when your perception energetically aligns with the perception of their genesis.

Do not swim against these energetic currents.

Like swimming against a rip tide, you will just grow tired and increase your risk of drowning.

Don’t make them into a problem.

Do not resist them.

To do so is to resist what is.

They are here.

Allow them to flow through you.

Be with them unconditionally.

Feel them fully.

Breathe into them.

Allow the experience you are having.

Allow the innate intelligence within you to lead the way.

And do not fall for the mind’s games.

The ego wants to protect you, but you do not need to be protected from any emotion.

Such protection only interferes with the process of your liberation.

The goal is not to feel better, it’s to get better at feeling.

And it just so happens that feeling better is the quickest and most sustainable pathway to feeling better.