Creating change in our lives rests upon the ability to internalize new information and apply it to “self and situation”. This is how humans adapt and grow. We let go of self-limiting stories and old behaviors based on those stories. New behaviors like asserting our truth, saying “no” to requests, giving ourselves care and compassion are social emotional skills we can acquire as adults. When there an underlying unmet need, however, identifying and letting go of that need is a critical first step.
Teacher and healer Louise L. Hay, in her bestseller “Heal Your Body from A-Z” (1982), has this to say about the importance of letting go of the unmet need:
“I have learned that for every condition in our lives, there is a need for it. Otherwise we would not have it. The symptom is only an outer effect…. This is why willpower and discipline don’t work. They are only battling the outer effect. It is like cutting down the weed instead of getting the root out. … work on the WILLINGNESS TO RELEASE THE NEED for the cigarette or the excess weight or whatever. When the need is gone, the outer effect must die. No plant can live if the root is cut away.” pg. xiii.
EXAMPLE: Learning how to say “no” to requests is an important skill, especially for someone who has codependent/caretaking behaviors. If I’m ready to let go of the underlying need to be needed, then I can learn to say “no” by practicing a few simple steps.
If I can’t let go of the underlying need to be needed, then I can’t learn to say ‘no’. I will sabotage my learning because of that deeper unmet need. This invisible internal conflict—between my human right to say “no” vs the fear of abandonment if I disappoint others by saying “no”—presents a challenge to internal homeostasis.
Young children are endlessly making sense of their world as they grow. When they experience too much pain/shame/fear/abuse, they create a story to make sense of their overwhelming experience. If that story is repeated often enough (because the pain/shame/fear/abuse in the child’s environment does not cease) it will become a subconscious driver, a kind of perceptual prison.
When we are triggered, the story is launched. We inhabit the story, and our emotional energy becomes a looping mental boomerang, activating us emotionally by the internal story repetition yet suppressing the release of old emotional pain. The story is the mechanism by which we emotionally abandon ourselves in a mistaken attempt to manage overwhelming feelings states. The story separates us from the emotions of our wounded parts. That is the function of the story, to make sure we don’t feel those feelings. Those feeling states do not go away when we flee into the story. It is a temporary reprieve.
The only way to “get rid of” overwhelming emotions is to identify them and release them. Body-based modalities like deep pressure touch & tapping (see videos on this website), exercise, and moving meditations (https://cmbm.org/thetransformation/resources/) are excellent modalities to facilitate the release of overwhelming emotional states.
STEPS TO REDUCE EMOTIONAL OVERWHELM IN THE MOMENT
- Get to a safe place, preferably alone or with a trusted companion;
- Begin to breathe as deeply and slowly as possible, make your tummy extend as you inhale;
- Identify the emotion if you can, and tell yourself the truth about the feeling “I have a lot of grief” or “I feel really angry” while continuing to slowly and deeply breathe;
- Identify the part of you having those feelings and the part of you noticing and witnessing; let your self-talk be kind and caring;
- Continue breathing deeply, and imagine yourself breathing out those overwhelming feelings, while declaring:
- “I release this shame (pain, fear, confusion). It does not belong to me. I will not carry it anymore”
- Place your hands over your heart and allow the warmth of your hands to flow into your heart, meeting the real need for emotional attunement and care.
These steps can be repeated countless times, every time we are triggered. When we can meet our emotional wounds with kindness and care instead of “the story” AKA self-abandonment, we meet more of our unmet need. The more we meet the unmet need, the more we can affect change in our lives. There is nothing to stand in our way.
Hay, Louise L. (1982) Heal Your Body: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Way to Overcome Them. Hay House: Carlsbad CA.