Episode 42 The Practice of Emotional Freedom: Feeling Without Resistance

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

So often in meditation teachings, the focus is on thoughts and the mind as a primary distraction that we're trying to work with—and learning how to not identify with the mind, not get involved with the mind, how to not know, how to allow the mind to just do what it's doing—and we're not being distracted by it.

I wanted to take a moment and say: strong emotions are another huge part of our human experience that has a more detrimental impact on our ability to see clearly, make good decisions, be a fulfilled, productive member of society, etc. Obviously, emotion and strong feelings, you could argue, have at least as much impact as our conditioned minds.

What Is Emotional Freedom?

So we're just taking some time to turn in that direction and notice. Essentially, emotional freedom in this context really means not being ruled by your feelings, not being a slave to your feelings, not being in reaction to your feelings—being able to feel all of your feelings, fully feel them, without reacting in a knee-jerk way. That's essentially what we're pointing to, and these are practices to help us get to that place.

There are a few different ways we can look at emotional freedom. One is that it's about discovering how to not be in reaction to our feelings—how to fully feel our feelings without being controlled by them.

Another part of this is about sort of breaking the cycle of... well, I believe it was a psychoanalyst who came up with the term the hedonic impulse or the hedonic system, meaning the basic kind of primitive impulse running through our human experience, which is: I want to feel good, and I don't want to feel bad. I want to feel good, I don't want to feel bad—and how that drives so much of our animal behavior, and therefore our behavior.

And we can really see this one in meditation, because we sit there, and we're meditating—often because on some level we want to feel better, even if that's maybe spiritually better. And we want to feel very enlightened, and deepened, and enriched, and in touch with the divine, and the sacred, and the source of love—which isn't all just about feelings, but a lot of it is.

Because of our hedonic system, because of our core impulse to feel good and avoid feeling bad, often our approach to spirituality has an overlay of just: I want to feel very good. I want to have profound, deep, sacred feelings—which is a very reasonable thing to want, and is part of what connects us with Source, with depth, no doubt.

The core Buddhist teaching that life is suffering, and this suffering is driven by a kind of craving or thirst, and we're going to quench, and we're going to break free from the cycle of craving, which will then free us from suffering—even in that, there's a framework that suffering is pain and is bad, and we want to get away from the suffering to a place that's beyond suffering. It still has a little bit of that hedonic overlay—an undergirding of wanting to change how we feel. I'm not saying that the Buddha was lost in that. I'm just saying you can easily see how that can kind of hijack the spiritual path—this desire to feel good and not feel bad—even if it's got somewhat noble origins in our spiritual impulse.

So part of what we're practicing here is this ability to be at ease and content no matter what we're feeling. That means I'm experiencing very painful feelings, and I can just be with it. And it's not messing with me. It's not destabilizing me. It's not taking me out of my center.

Emotional Freedom Is Not Spiritual Bypassing

I just want to draw on one question that was posed to me by Christina. I'm going to spring off of what she asked me, but I know many people will have this kind of reaction when I start talking about this radical contentment. This happened for Christina, where she felt like—well, are you saying that, therefore, the goal of spiritual life is to come to a place where we don't care about what's happening in the world? We don't care about suffering, we don't care about the horrible things that are happening in Gaza, or Ukraine, or in our own election results—whatever? That somehow this is about just coming to this neutral place where none of it matters to you anymore?

I just want to really clarify that and make a deeper distinction. Because I'm not in any way suggesting that that's the goal of spiritual life, or that where we're trying to get to is some place where nothing touches us. I mean, some people are trying to get there. You know, some people who are in a lot of pain, or find the world just too unbearable, pursue spiritual teachings in order to try to transcend it all—to get out of really being disturbed by anything.

And this is what's been labeled as spiritual bypassing, and there's a lot of literature on it. I've given some talks about it—I think some of them might be online somewhere. But spiritual bypassing is trying to use spiritual practices in order to avoid painful things, difficult things. Developmental moves that we need to make, ways we need to mature and grow up, or just painful things about the human condition—we're trying to bypass those, to get to some higher state where we just feel good all the time and feel undisturbed by anything.

Emotional Freedom Helps us Hold Complexity

So that's not at all what I'm pointing to. It's not what these teachings are designed to do, and it's definitely not the result of these sorts of practices. Practicing being content with your experience in meditation—being able to just sit through anything—does not make you someone who then, in your life, doesn't care what happens to other people or doesn't care about what's going on in the world. It tends to have the opposite effect. It's like, because we're able to settle down and get out of our reactivity to things, we're able to have better discernment about what we can do to help, what would really be beneficial, how to navigate complexities.

Are we going to find a better way forward if we're all in reaction to each other, and in reaction to events, and getting triggered all the time? Or are we going to have a better chance of getting down—getting to the deeper roots of what's going on, and what's needed, and what people need, and how to, you know, move all of us forward—if we're out of reactivity, in a centered place, able to feel all the feelings, and take in all the different points of view—the ones that really challenge us, and that we completely disagree with—but understand why someone else sees it that way, and what they might need to be able to see things in a bigger way, or whatever, you know?

So my point is this makes us more discerning. It helps us have a bigger heart, be more present, more able to hold complexity. And it tends to activate our care in a deeper way. Because again, it's hard to care about bigger things when you're in, like, more primitive reactivity yourself. So I just wanted to kind of clarify that, and then make a deeper distinction here around what this deeper contentment is that spiritual awakening brings us into and points to.

Relative vs Absolute Happiness

There's this distinction I want to make between relative happiness and absolute happiness—or unconditional happiness. Because spiritual awakening does bring us to a place of radical peace with what is. Because we are awakening to a dimension of ourselves and of reality that is really... that is always fundamentally good, and always fundamentally wholesome, and fundamentally beautiful and profound and sacred, and full of and rich with meaning and depth.

And we're discovering that that exists, and then we're discovering that that's our own nature, and that that's what all of this is made of, and that that's the higher potential of this whole human experiment— for humans to rise up into this kind of sacred higher potential. There's a kind of utopian sense there, where we realize, wow, all of this—this whole life on Earth—could become glorious and beautiful if we all realized who and what we are, and what this is made of, and we began to live from there.

So because we are discovering this dimension that is fundamentally wholesome, beautiful, and good beyond measure, that makes us kind of unconditionally happy in a fundamental sense—because we now know something about reality that is just so rich and good, and we become rooted in that.

So there's a way—yes, you do become, you can become—absolutely, unconditionally happy and content in the face of everything. Not because we like everything that's happening in the world, but because we know the essence of things to be this profound, beautiful thing.

Unconditional Happiness Doesn’t Override Our Full Human Experience

So then, does that mean that overrides all other feelings? No. We still will experience relative happiness and unhappiness, relative contentment or frustration in relation to what's going on in the world. Meaning, you're a human being. You're going to get really... you're going to feel, you know, a lot of empathy for people who are suffering and want to help them. You're going to feel disturbed when there's a lot of ignorance ruling the day, and you're going to feel frustrated, and, you know, a lot of passion to want to change things.

So yes, we'll still have ups and downs all the time in our own feeling states. And that's information that we want to act on, in a discerning way, to help things move forward and upward. But all that can be happening from a place that's really rooted in this fundamental happiness and contentment with reality as a whole—not with the details.

Taking Up The Radical Practice of No Preference

So one way that we can practice this is to take up a meditation practice where we are simply practicing having no preference for one feeling over another feeling, or one thought over another thought, or one experience over another experience. It's the radical practice of no preference. Again, not because we want to live our lives without a preference—we're going to always have lots of preferences—but because of what this can get us connected to on a deeper level.

Guided Meditation: No Preference

So I want to invite you into your meditation posture.

And just allow yourself to practice having no preference for one feeling state over another feeling state.

When we sit down to meditate, often we would prefer to feel very peaceful. Or we would like to feel joyful or blissful or easeful, content, unbothered. But maybe that's not how we feel right now. Maybe we feel upset, confused, sad, frightened, anxious. What if it was all the same to you? What if it was all just feelings arising in consciousness, and you were just fine with whatever you're feeling?

This no preference practice is just a practice of “it's all the same to me.” It's just feelings arising. It's all the same to me. It's fine if I'm feeling great and wonderful and happy. It's also fine if I'm feeling upset or tense or disturbed.

To put it simply, we're practicing not caring how we feel. Now, preferences will arise within this practice—you can't control that. We're not trying to suppress the existence of a preference. We're just taking a stand in a deeper place that's really fine with all feelings. Because they're just feelings. They're just transitory emotions coming and going. It's really fine with us. We really don't mind.

Take a moment now to look within, and see if you can notice the existence of a subtle preference for what you might see as a meditative state—a meditative experience. A subtle preference for a certain feeling of calm, or a certain kind of spaciousness, or a certain steadiness. See, often these preferences for certain states are very subtle. So you might just notice it as, like, “I like this feeling, I like this part of the meditation, this part that feels very easeful and relaxed and content.” And you're just sort of holding on to that experience—okay, this is good.

See, and it can even kind of happen when your practice is one of no preference, that you then set up an inner goal that is a feeling of no preference. Meaning, you kind of, in your mind, go, “Okay, so we're practicing not having a preference, and that would probably feel really content, and feel really peaceful and neutral. So I'm going to try to find that inner feeling of no preference, where I'm just really relaxed and chilled out.” And so we're still having a preference for a certain idea of what we think it is to have no preference—a certain feeling that we imagine would accompany this place of equanimity.

Just see if you can notice that—or its opposite, which would be a subtle aversion to certain feelings of discontent, certain feelings of disturbance or tension or anxiousness. There's a subtle way we're kind of trying to get away from those feelings and welcome other feelings, or reach toward other feelings. Just notice what's happening at that level, and then see if you can have no preference for the presence or absence of anything—any feeling.

Allow yourself now to gently let go of the meditation.

We Don’t Always Know Our Feelings

Another pathway to emotional freedom is realizing that we don't really know what our feelings mean. We often don't really know why we're feeling this or that way at a given moment. And a lot of the reactivity to our feelings is rooted in an attempt to make meaning out of them. If you think about what drives us to make errors in judgment driven by strong emotions, it's not just the feeling itself—it's how we interpret the feeling, the meaning we make out of the feeling.

You can see that in life. There's the belief that, “Well, I'm having these strong feelings, so therefore there's an imperative to follow them. I must act on them because they have meaning. I'm feeling this way, so it means I should do something.” So we make the meaning that there's a certain action that should come from those feelings, and then we act.

Or we feel fear—and again, it's just raw energy, it's just a feeling—but then we conclude... you know, we're afraid to... there's something we want to really say, we feel like we need to say to be true to ourselves, but then we feel all this fear, so we draw the conclusion, “Oh well, I shouldn't say it. I feel all this fear, and fear means I'm in danger. I shouldn't do this, I shouldn't say this,” etc.

I don't need to go into all that. But in meditation, simply—what would it mean to have no idea what our feelings mean, where they came from, why they're here, what they're telling us? And again, in life, the goal isn't to have no idea what your feelings mean. The goal is to be able to discern what information they're giving you, and what action to take based on that information. But to be able to get to that level of discernment, it's really beneficial to practice having no idea about them. No idea whether they're right or wrong. Really, no idea what is triggering them.

Guided Meditation: No Idea What Your Feelings Mean

So I want to invite you into your meditation posture again. And just become aware of how you're feeling.

This is a simple practice of having no idea what your feelings mean. So you're just allowing the world of feeling to come and go, to be whatever it is. You're not trying to understand anything about it, and you're not making any meaning out of the feelings—not interpreting them, not judging them. It's really about not judging the content of our feeling experience.

So we're feeling our feelings fully, and then not knowing anything about them.

Without leaving the meditation in any way, I want to invite you to just let go of the practice of not knowing, and having no idea about your feelings.

And for our final practice of the day, I want to invite you to come to rest in a place that is deeper than any feeling that could arise. There is a part of you that is always still and quiet and unperturbed by what's happening on the surface of being—a part of you that is beyond time and change and movement and becoming. And I want to invite you to begin to give your attention to this deep center, the stillness at the core of your being. And just gently settling into this place that never moves—this place that the storms of feeling don't touch.

Resting in this deep, still center doesn't mean feelings don't arise. Feelings will still come and go. But you aren't moving anywhere. You are being still, quiet, and centered—unperturbed by the comings and goings of feeling and emotion.

I now want to invite you to begin to let go of the meditation. You can move your body and look around. Notice the quality of your consciousness.

I encourage you to just notice, as you go through the rest of your week, the ways that you might be less reactive to your feelings because you did this practice—the ways the momentum of this might show up in your life.