Feelings Aren’t Terrible

If our direct environment was not open, inclusive and permissive in relation to our experience, the result was that our basic emotions got mixed up with external reactions to them, which we gradually internalized. We learned as children to be afraid of and bury or repress our feelings; it didn’t feel safe to show them. […]
COMPASSIONATE DEPROGRAMMING V. “Settling Down From Psychic Projection”

The nature of a repressed emotion is that on some level it becomes psychic (“mindy”). And then we project our repressed psychic fear, anger, hatred, lack, love, etc. onto others. It is because an emotion couldn’t be felt (i.e., couldn’t be processed) during a traumatic experience or relationship that it became a “missing experience.” When […]
COMPASSIONATE DEPROGRAMMING IV. “The Unreality and Unsafety of Victimhood”

It is as if, due to the lack and inability to express ourselves, we’ve become victims of the emotions we’ve been stuck with since childhood (i.e. helplessness, fear, separation, anger). Over time, these stuck emotions become solid (yet unconscious) beliefs about ourselves. They give rise to our deficiency stories or core woundedness: “I am helpless,” […]
COMPASSIONATE DEPROGRAMMING VI. “Don’t Eat the Broccoli If You Don’t Like It!”

Unconscious programming to repress emotions is like a mother trying to get her child to like a certain food that is actually undesirable for her. The mother forces the ‘steamed broccoli’ into her child until she gradually believes that she likes it. At first, it is almost painful for the child to swallow. She might […]
COMPASSIONATE DEPROGRAMMING III. “Recognizing Our Natural State Of Being Through Trauma (Work)”

“Trauma is not what happened to you, but that you couldn’t talk to anyone about it.” – Gábor Máté Were you able to love and have compassion for yourself when something traumatic, difficult, or shocking happened to you? Honestly, I could never do that. I froze, shut down, pretended, or went into self-hate and hardness […]
COMPASSIONATE DEPROGRAMMING II. “Active Presence During Somatic Inquiry”

The key to somatic self-inquiry is presence. And it is not just a passive, non-acting or witnessing presence that observes how feelings, thoughts, events, people and so on appear in the space of awareness. It is a very active presence! With somatic self-inquiry, we bring our presence into everything that hides/sleeps in the unconscious, or […]
COMPASSIONATE DEPROGRAMMING I. “Natural Recovery From Suffering”

Compassionate deprogramming is completely possible, as somatic self-inquiry becomes a natural part of our everyday life, our daily practice, our awareness, and a part of our functioning. This is important because our programming, or behavior, was formed repeatedly over a long time, as we were repeatedly triggered in certain relationships and situations. Because of this, […]