The Valley Of The Shadow: Uncovering Buried Emotions

00:30

25:39

The Valley Of The Shadow: Uncovering Buried Emotions

by Corin Bryant

Rated

5

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

8

This video is for anyone engaged in deep emotional healing and interested in the true healing journey. We suppress our emotions because they were too painful or unsafe to feel when we first encountered them. In this video I explain a little about this mechanism of resistance and avoidance without judgement or accusation, and speak on a gentle approach to re-introduce some of these emotions to feel them now that things have changed, so that we can enjoy better emotional wellbeing and an increased sense of inner peace. Shadow work can be quite triggering so I feel called to make you aware that this type of exploration can give rise to intense emotions. As always it's advisable to seek professional advice if you suspect you have a psychiatric condition. This approach is influenced by Secular Mindfulness, Jungian Psychology, Buddhism and the spiritual Tantric approach to emotion.

Inner Child Healing Titration Practice Parts Dialogue Practice Discharge Awareness Emotional Healing Emotional Wellbeing Inner Peace Shadow Work Emotional Repression Emotional Regulation Emotional Triggers Emotional Awareness Fear Mindfulness Jungian Psychology Buddhism Tantra Inner Child Work

Meet your Teacher

Exmouth, UK

Meet your Teacher

Exmouth, UK

Transcript

One of the reasons it's so hard to uncover buried feelings. And release repressed emotions. Is because on some level we're worried we'll be overwhelmed. There's a background fear. If I open those floodgates. Won't I just be absolutely overrun? Drowned in these intense feelings. Perfectly understandable. To feel that way. We repress emotions in the first place. Because they were too painful or unsafe to feel when we first encountered them. You might not have been taught how to regulate your inner emotional world. You might not have been taught that it's safe to feel this. It's alright, It's okay to feel this emotion. All emotions are safe. Natural. Healthy, Innocent. We might never have been taught that, And instead we got taught that we need to bury. Push down. Our emotions hide them. Lock them up in the body. Not feel them, Not show them. Because they're somehow. . . Dangerous or unacceptable. Or they're inconvenient for others. So we got taught, Sadly and wrongly, To push them down, Not show them and not even feel them. But now we have a wonderful opportunity. To get back in contact. With that inner emotional world, To reconnect with ourselves. To develop a loving Harmonious. Relationship. With our own feelings. And we've been called to do this. We've been called through various experiences in life. Through things that have happened. Or you've just come through your own intuition. To understanding that there's something hidden, There's something buried here. And I need to feel this. You're saying no more. No more avoiding, No more resisting, No more running away. You're sick and tired of the dysfunction in your life. In your health, In your relationships, In your work. In your family. Tired of the dysfunction and you have this intuition, This sense. There might be. Something in the shadow. And the shadow just refers to. The psychological and emotional material. That ordinarily stays just outside the peripheral of our conscious awareness. Nothing more sinister than that. It's just the parts of ourselves we're not currently aware of at all. It's not sinister, It's not bad, It's not wrong. It's just what happened. That's what happened. When we have a direct connection. To all parts of our inner emotional world. And that relationship is. One based on total welcoming, Total allowing, We've really befriended ourselves. We can experience so much benefit. Learning. That it's when emotions are buried. When we're not feeling our feelings. They sort of leak out in very strange ways for example, If we have repressed anger. We might be quite passive-aggressive without even realising it. Or because we've buried our anger and we're refusing to feel our anger, We might not be very good at upholding our boundaries. Because anger is the emotion of boundaries after all. And if we've buried and repressed our fear, Or we're trying to. . . We start to become afraid of fear itself. And this can spiral. Cause. A lot of distress. In the form of severe anxiety. Worry over thinking. Whereas if we can just come into contact with just the, What's the actual emotion here? What's the raw material of this emotion? And come to accept it and just feel it. It's like we're relearning, Retraining ourselves how to feel this emotion. We find that actually fear can be tolerated. It's not a threat. Fear itself is not a threat. Fear implies a threat. But fear itself can just be felt as an energy. And therefore it becomes integrated. This is what I mean by forming a harmonious and healthy relationship with our own emotions. We can't change the emotion itself. But we can change our relationship to it. And when there's no inner conflict. We find that emotions are not actually a problem. None of them are. All emotions are just fine as they are. We're just giving ourselves permission to feel this. There's an old African proverb that says. . . When there is no enemy within. The enemy outside can do us no harm. This is especially true here. When we've even come into contact and uncovered our buried and repressed shame. And resentment. We find that we're not quite so triggered by other people. And we're not afraid of our own triggers once we've developed a more peaceful relationship with our own anger and with our own fear. Because our triggers are based on all of the emergency responses in the system. Fight, Flight, Fawn, Freeze. So when we have a harmonious relationship with anger and fear This emergency system doesn't activate as severely, So even our triggers, They smooth out, They neutralize. It takes a while, I'll say, You know, None of this is like a magic quick fix. It's just, You know, In my experience, I'm speaking from experience here, Triggers are the worst. Oh, Man. They can be debilitating I really. . . Catch you on the blind side. Knock you for six, They really do. So in doing your emotional healing and taking a look inwards and doing your spiritual practice and perhaps seeing therapists and counsellors. You might have come across this idea of feeling your feelings, Feel it to heal it. There's something about it. It's funny, It's curious, Because. . . There's something about that that feels so inviting. Intuitively we say, I get it. Oh, I can just start giving myself permission to just feel these feelings and then we start becoming very open. To, What if there are some old feelings, Something buried deep, Maybe deep in the body? What about that old ancient feeling that's just been sitting on the peripheral of my consciousness for so long? I've always felt like it's there, Like waiting in the wings. Oh, Maybe now I'm being called to come back in contact with that. We feel, Ah, There's, You know, It's quite a nice feeling to that. It's quite, It's almost exciting in a way. It feels like an adventure is about to start. And it is, That's right. But we also have this fear barrier. As you edge closer to the shadow. You get a sense of just how much is there. Oh yeah. Oh. I mean, For me, In my experience, It really was like, Oh yeah, I think I've probably got, There's probably a few little, You know, Little buried emotions here and there, Like maybe I'll just take a look into that. And then uncovered R. R. O. Yeah. Broke open the old hurt locker. And uh. . . Yeah. Oh dear. But ultimately. . . It just felt very daunting at the start. It's not that there was a lot of material, It's just that. . . I wasn't accustomed. To approaching my emotions in this way. Previously I had quite a adversarial relationship with my inner emotional world. I avoided it. And I resisted it. I buried, Pushed away, Did anything other than feel my feelings. Anything other than that. Constant distraction. Constant avoidance. Constant repression. So to turn and face the emotions It was new, And everything's harder at the start. So it was new to me, And that's why it feels so daunting. And so there's a bit of a fear barrier. That can come in the form of, Well, If I start to open this floodgate. . . Won't there just be a torrent, Won't there just be a deluge of these buried emotions that will just completely sweep me away? Won't I be in. . . There's that feeling that if i start i'll never stop it's like that feeling of if i start crying i'll never stop crying if i let this in it will overwhelm me and i will feel awful for the rest of my days That's the fear barrier. It's not true. It's not true. Paradoxically, We find the more we accept something, The quicker it's going to pass. It really is like what we resist persists. The more we resist it, The worse it gets. But the more we accept and allow it. . . Oh, It's not so much of a problem. We come to learn the emotion itself isn't the problem. It's our resistance to it. It's the psychological mechanisms. That habitually try to resist or avoid the emotion, That's the suffering, That's the psychological suffering. But if we just feel it. And feeling is the medium by which emotion is perceived. So if we just feel it, The light of conscious awareness is upon it and it's no longer in the shadow. It can't be shadow because the light's on it. But in order to get the light onto it we have to feel it. Because feeling is the medium by which emotion is perceived, So to perceive it We have to feel it, That's why we're doing this. But to feel it. . . We have to come back into contact with something that we buried. And we buried it because it was too painful or unsafe to feel when we first encountered it. So all of that conditioning, Which is here in the form of the belief, It's not safe to feel this. It's dangerous to feel this. It's agonizing to feel this. Those are beliefs. They were true at the time. They were true when you first encountered this emotion. But now, Remember, Things are different now. Things are different now. You're an adult now. You're an adult now. With all of the power. Strength, The physical size, The resources. The connections. The new knowledge, The new inspiration, The new wisdom that you've gained over the years. Now all of that's in place and that's why you're now being called to come back into contact with the shadow. Because now is the time. You have the space for this now. It's safe to do this now. Things are different now. So this fair. This fear of feeling the emotion, Can realise, Oh that fear, It kept me safe at some point. So it's not wrong to feel that it worked at some point. And in a sense we need to ask our inner child to stand down. Poor little thing. It's still fighting a war. Let alone a child still fighting and it doesn't need to fight anymore. I sometimes use the analogy of the Japanese soldiers after World War II that carried on fighting. Even when the war was over. And on certain islands around Japan they refused to stop fighting. That was the level, Their ferocity, Their discipline and their honour. They refused to surrender. When their allies were telling them the war is over. They didn't believe them. They kept fighting. It's a little bit like that, But in our inner world. So we know, It's like, But I know it's safe to feel this now. I know I can, I can, I'm so strong in so many areas of my life. Have you ever noticed that? You realise I'm so strong in so many areas of my life. Got so much confidence with certain things, I've got so much power in certain areas. Got so much efficacy. Competence. In certain areas but when it comes to this I just. . . I cannot seem to get in contact with these feelings. Something happens. That's what's happening. It's because the. . . We need to get the adult you feeling these things. So. . . Here's what I would recommend. Don't try and take in the entire shadow all at once. We don't have to go all the way to the bottom of the well straight away. It just. . . Why? Why? It doesn't have to be like that. Instead you just become a little more open. And be more gentle about this, Take things real slow. As slow as you feel safe. To do so. As slow as necessary. Just a gradual gentle softening. Of the barriers. That prevent you from feeling. Open the aperture. Just a little, Not the whole way. Just a little. Slowly. Gradually. Gently. And to do this. . . You might just sit in meditation give yourself some time and space to do this or you can even do this just whilst you're out walking out in nature is a really good time to do this any time actually, That you just have a few minutes of quiet reflection, Contemplation. And recognise your shadow's not going anywhere. No. You only had one childhood. Right, So it's all there and you could consider it to just all be there. It's just outside the. . . Peripheral of your conscious awareness currently. And you could say to yourself. . . I'm just going to take in and integrate 1%. Of that huge dark mass of repressed emotion. And the key is to just be open to receive, To receive whatever. You're not looking for certain answers. You're not looking for certain emotions. You need to let emotion guide you. Let emotion be the teacher. So you just start to ask. What do I not want to feel? And you're just becoming willing to feel 1% of that. You're not trying to take the whole thing on at once. We're not just like. . . Wrenching open the floodgate. It doesn't work like that, It's just a percent. But remember, Even that one percent will feel like a lot. Even that 1% will feel like a lot. Trust me, From experience. This is why we take it 1% at a time. Sips. Shadow Sips. One sip at a time. You're just, You're forming a gentle agreement with yourself. You won't be overwhelmed. Your own system wouldn't do that to you, Why would it? Your body and mind, It's been protecting you this whole time, And it's gonna continue to do so it won't, Why would it, Why would it overwhelm you? You just have a gentle agreement with yourself now. It's just a single percent of this. I'm willing to do this. I'm willing to feel it. And I know it's going to suck. I know it's a lot. Just let me see what I don't want to see. Let me feel what I don't want to feel. Let me go where I don't want to go. And you're not looking for the whole thing again. It's just 1%. Just let me feel 1% of this. What's that ancient pain? That I've been running from. I'm using a few different prompts here, Just pick the one that works for you. What's the ancient pain? What's the old thing? What's the awful, Awful feeling that I just felt? I feel like I'm glad I left it behind a long time ago. We're just double checking, Did we leave it behind or did we push it down? And if you get that sinking feeling, That dread of oh no, Not that. Yeah well then you've got your answer which is a good thing. Just give yourself 1% of that now. Oh, Really? That feeling? Yes. That old terror, That old horror. The old shame. The old rage. We're feeling it now as an emotion. Just raw, Vibrant, Intense. But it's just that. And it's just 1%, Remember. Once you've had that sip, You've had that taste, We can. . . Pretty. Release, Let go, And if you choose to, You go and get on with something else. Don't have to spend hours doing this. Unless you feel called to. For me, Once I started having a taste of this, I started saying actually, I wanna. . . I want to get to the root of the root. So I did start to spend longer and longer periods of time doing this. But there's other times when actually I'll just want to. . . If something particularly fierce and intense comes through. There's no harm in just, OK, I'm going to give myself five minutes of just feeling and integrating, Allowing, Accepting. And then I might go for a walk or something just to discharge some of that energy that's being released. So you might ask. What am I avoiding? What am I resisting? What do I not want to feel? What did I forget? And you can talk to your inner emotional world. So you tell me. You guide me, You let me know. Talking, You're turning your attention inwards, Very attentive to your inner world you tell me. You guide me. You tell me what I'm avoiding. What am I not feeling? What have I been resisting? What do I keep pushing down? And it will take you by the hand and gently walk you to the shadow. And you just have to, It takes a lot of heart and a lot of courage, But now is the time to do it. We know the benefit of doing this. Because in order to enjoy true emotional well-being, We have to be in contact and aware of the entirety of our emotional spectrum, Not just the parts we like. That's everything for today team. Thank you so much for listening. Hope some of that helps. Let me know. Take care. Be well. Stay present.