By Dean Fraser
We all want to experience more times where we feel good rather than bad, yes? Yet how many of us can honestly say this is how our life plays out every day?
Let’s see what we can do to redress the balance.
An essential process allowing us to be free to live the life you or I deserve is to practically let go of any emotional baggage we are quite unintentionally carrying around like an invisible weight on our shoulders. And paradoxically many of us are seldom aware we are even doing this!
Our reactions and behavior are informed by our past, those emotional responses when a similar scenario occurs. If this takes us further away from our goals or seems illogical (even to us!) the time has come to resolve the issue and be free.
The Way We Feel, and Stress
Our feelings act as a barometer. The way we feel about a situation or indeed an individual gives us invaluable feedback about our stress levels relating to that exact thing or person. This is how our feelings react like the gauge on our internal barometer. Some feelings will make us feel pleasantly sunny, then again others more like a grey cloudy winter’s day.
In a very real sense, the emotions that we feel about anything tells us rather usefully the effect the situation or person is having on us right now. Even if this is from long ago in our timeline, when pondering the situation, those feelings inform us of how we still view the event or person.
Embrace Ourselves
Clearly then it is only natural to want to have only those good feelings and buy out of all the bad feelings, right?
Well in the long term, yes, but first there is a process we need to go through, one which will allow us to experience outrageous freedom and self-knowledge!
Those things we feel good about when focussed upon are those ones which don’t require any work. We are perfectly happy with the situation and we need to treasure those moments, those things we feel good about. For this exercise, we need to then collectively put them metaphorically to one side for now.
Next, we need to focus our attention on our bad feelings. These bad feelings are far more useful to us when wishing to deal with any latent stress about the remembered person or event from our past, which can now be brought forth and dealt with.
Point of fact, there are not any genuinely good or bad feelings. Feelings are invaluable feedback. Our bad feelings are to be appreciated, as these show us areas of our lives that we need to work on, areas of our lives we now need to change.
Feelings are energy. Our own personal energy. And as we already know, the energy we project creates our own version of reality. To grow and maximize our potential then we vitally need to free ourselves from anything at all within the way we feel which might limit us in any way from being all we can be.
Fine, so now we know those areas of our lives we feel worse about, the poor thinking energy, happily there are clear strategies or actions we can take to be able to transform that.
Unresolved Emotions
These cause blockages. These blockages manifest through feelings of futility or frustration within the way our own life functions. Another unfortunate by-product of these emotional blockages when undealt with is that they can lead to genuine physical illness or depression.
Overcoming emotional blockages is to overcome our own set way of looking at firstly ourselves and then the outer world. Our interactions with everyone and everything in our life, based upon our built-up experiences and standard responses.
All situations occurring in which we react by own set-up well-established rules and yet seem to take us further away from our objectives or make it more difficult for others to see our point of view are based on some long distant occurrence in our past. Or in other words, learned behavior.
We All Set Rules For Ourselves
Rules on what is acceptable within our own behavior and also that of others; and often these rules can be quite rigid. At one time in our life, they may have been perfectly reasonable and worked within our framework for us right then. We are creatures of habit unfortunately and by being creatures of habit what worked for us when we said fifteen or sixteen years old, certainly won’t be working for us in exactly the same way when we are instead forty or fifty!
So, you or I need to look at anything in our lives which is self-limiting us. Any of our own self-made rules about what is acceptable or unacceptable.
Really deeply ponder this, dig-down forensically to examining all the individual rules you make for yourself and especially any of them which no longer seem to be serving you.
One of my own rules for life which I felt delighted to let go of about twenty years ago, had once seen me relentlessly going through my daily routine in precisely the same order every day. Why exactly would I do things this way became the question? After all, one of the foundations of all I teach is to be flexible and open to change. Eureka!
Now thankfully every day is different, I still have tasks I want to perform, yet by mixing everything up more randomly, my own personal engagement in what I am doing is maximized. By never buying-into a set routine ensures my approach is fresh and I remain awake to any opportunities which open before me.
Examine any of your own set of rules. Once we have done this, then it is time to let some rules go. You are going to feel so much better…you will have to trust me on this one! Make the effort to do it for yourself right now and see!
Jane felt uncomfortable with compliments or any time a significant date in her life came along, such as a birthday or anniversary, she felt overwhelmed when receiving gifts and told me she just wanted to run away from the situation. Clearly, she had underlying issues, ones which were preventing her from fully enjoying life and led to those closest around her; her husband and children frustratingly failing to understand why she always reacted in such a way.
Digging down into her childhood revealed she was one of six children, Jane is the middle sister of three girls. As the more responsible of the three sisters she had always looked out for her baby sister, as there wasn’t too much money around, anything Jane received over and above her basic needs being met (occasional foodie treats, gifts or new clothes) she would invariably share with her sisters.
The household was run like a military academy; with six children, her parents considered imposed strictness as essential for everything to run smoothly. Not surprisingly Jane felt more than a little starved of love and attention. There was a siege mentality inbred into the children, and Jane would consistently place her personal interests last to share what meager things did come her way with her sisters.
Working with Jane over the course of several sessions got her to come to terms with her childhood and see it more in perspective. That her reality today was informed by her experiences growing up and the guilt led feelings of somehow being unworthy of love or nice things happening for her. Forgiving her parents, realizing here they were there dealing with the reality of six children, all crammed together with them in one small house, and on an extremely limited budget. As parents this must have been mighty stressful at times for them and imposing discipline in the way they had was just their coping mechanism, allowing them a sense of feeling a little in control, when so often they didn’t. Letting go of the situation through understanding a childhood situation through more informed, adult eyes finally freed Jane from her childhood guilt created emotions, to feel way more at peace when nice things happen to her now and thoroughly enjoy the experience.
We do also need to address phobias, fears, and misplaced anger to free ourselves further. And all these will have their root in some, often long consciously forgotten incident which happened directly to us or we witnessed.
Phobias
If you live with a phobia, think about when you first really experienced it, where in your personal history did you become aware of this reaction? What age was you?
If you have a fear of spiders, as a small child did you witness someone else reacting in fear at the sight of a spider?
Same with a fear of flying, perhaps you once saw photos in a newspaper or saw an incident on television that featured a plane crash? Maybe you even overheard a conversation or documentary questioning the safety of
Go Play Ball
Freedom to be free…and it has nothing to do with sport!
We can all possess that persistent thought or poor-thinking mindset we are fully aware doesn’t serve us and we would rather let go of. That limiting thought pattern which comes back to haunt us whenever a similar situation occurs, or we endlessly ponder any poor life choices we might have made and re-live those times we felt ourselves being treated unfairly by another. If you are experiencing a little difficulty in feeling the love when letting go of negative situations from your past, how about possessing the power to do precisely that in your own hands right now?
Wouldn’t it be just a little awesome to leave all those limiting thoughts and mindsets exactly where they belong…in the past?
I have good news. You and I can choose to do precisely that. And it can happen in a moment!
Let's Play Ball!
This ball game may have absolutely nothing to do with playing sport, but it does have everything to do with discovering new-found freedom to live on our own terms.
You are going to need to find somewhere quiet, far from any possible disturbances or distractions. As you begin to focus all of your attention on just one troublesome thought or self-limiting mindset. However painful it might be, you really do need to FEEL the pain associated with the thing which is bugging you.
Now comes the fun part!
Imagine wrapping the thought within a ball, placing it right there inside the ball. Now, this can be any kind of ball which speaks to you, the actual type isn’t important – soccer, rugby, tennis, basketball, whatever. The only given here is that the ball has to be hollow inside.
See that troublesome thought now sitting right there inside the hollow space in that ball.
So how about we get rid of that thought forever, banish it from ever returning?
Sound good?
Let’s do this!
Kick, throw or hit that imaginary ball with such force that it travels massively rapidly vertically upwards. Really give all your energy into sending that ball straight up into the clear blue sky…and the magical part here is gravity has absolutely no effect on the ball whatsoever!
Up it carries on, gaining momentum all the while, quickly passing out of your sight…until eventually, it hits the upper atmosphere and you see a brilliant flash of light as it burns away, together with the thought contained within it. To never return to earth or you…
Summary of What We Just Did
This is a subconscious-clearing exercise I first developed in the mid-1990s and immediately applied to my own life at the time. Then later sharing it with those I have helped over the decades has validated the effectiveness of this simple visualization. Feedback from others has confirmed using this method brings incredible freedom to leave behind literally anything at all which might possibly hold us back within our own mindsets.
We can practice this method on as many self-limiting mindsets as we choose. The only rule is one issue at a time and only one per day. By all means use Play Ball to clear your subconscious as many times as you sense you need, but you do need to leave a gap of at least a few days between each session (a whole week is ideal) to allow yourself the opportunity to integrate your transformed mindset into your life…to see how things work differently for you now. Experience has shown Play Ball does bring often dramatic shifts in attitude and feelings.
Once a week, on a set day is ideal to clear each issue by Play Ball. I found using this exercise every Sunday evening set me up beautifully for the coming week.
It’s like a spring-clean to the subconscious!
About the Author
Dean Fraser is an entrepreneur, broadcaster, best-selling author, poet, stress consultant, and positive lifestyle coach. He has been talking to and advising local authorities, businesses, and individuals for over thirty years.
He offers stand-alone talks and seminars on positive living; he is also available on a consultancy basis to visit businesses (and occasionally to individuals). He speaks at health events, educational centers and corporately. Helping us all stay positive regardless and deal with any stress-related issues.
