“I Don’t Like This Feeling!”
Focusing is a process of awareness. We become aware… and perhaps become aware of feelings, emotions, and sensations that we had not been aware of before.
Unfortunately, with awareness often comes evaluation. We have a deeply ingrained habit of evaluating what we are aware of. “I like it.” “I don’t like it.” “It’s good.” “It’s bad.”
If you’ve just seen a movie with a friend, perhaps evaluation makes sense. “I sort of liked it” opens up a discussion that could lead to getting to know each other better — and to decisions about whether to recommend the movie to other friends. But in the inner world, evaluation makes no sense at all!
Why? Because feelings can’t be changed by judgments of liking or not liking. If I like a restaurant, I will go back to it… but I can’t choose whether or not to have certain feelings. I can only choose how to be with them and whether to act on them.
And the biggest problem of all is that by evaluating feelings, we block or delay the process that actually DOES allow them to change: gentle inner listening.
The Magic Five-Letter Word
The easiest way to not evaluate feelings is to do something else instead: say hello.
“Hello” is the magic 5-letter word that makes all the difference in how you relate to your own inner experiences. And how you relate to your inner experiences makes all the difference in how those experiences evolve and change.
Saying “hello” to what we experience and feel helps the whole process start off on the right foot, so to speak. When we say “hello,” we’re not evaluating, not judging, good or bad, right or wrong. It’s simply here.
Pain? I’m saying hello to something in me in pain. Constriction? Hello to something in me feeling constricted. Tired of it all? OK, I’m saying hello to something in me feeling tired of it all.
Almost always, a breath comes right there, a little easing already of that inner struggle. The quality of contact that “hello” brings is the perfect starting place for the rest of Focusing. I’ve stepped past the struggle about whether it’s OK to feel what I feel. I do feel what I feel. Now, I’m going to be with it, and get to know it better.
Hello.