Connecting thoughts with emotions
I love how the interview with Andrea Serrano seems to have such a powerful theme between brain and heart or heart and brain… My second drawing inspired by the interview is about a book she mentioned “Letting go” by Dr. David Hawkins. Andrea shared with me that as human beings we tend to connect with our thoughts and not with our emotions. Thoughts can take us anywhere, but the key to win against the resistance is to find the emotion that is behind that specific thought. It is more important to understand the emotion behind the thought than the thought itself.
Since I found the concept very interesting, I decided to search more online and I found a nice excerpt from the book by Jordan Bates’ blog “Refine the mind”:
“Letting go involves being aware of a feeling, letting it come up, staying with it, and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about it. It means simply to let the feeling be there and to focus on letting out the energy behind it. The first step is to allow yourself to have the feeling without resisting it, venting it, fearing it, condemning it, or moralizing about it. It means to drop judgment and to see that it is just a feeling. The technique is to be with the feeling and surrender all efforts to modify it in any way. Let go of wanting to resist the feeling. It is resistance that keeps the feeling going. When you give up resisting or trying to modify the feeling, it will shift to the next feeling and be accompanied by a lighter sensation. A feeling that is not resisted will disappear as the energy behind it dissipates.
When letting go, ignore all thoughts. Focus on the feeling itself, not on the thoughts. Thoughts are endless and self-reinforcing, and they only breed more thoughts. Thoughts are merely rationalizations of the mind to try and explain the presence of the feeling. The real reason for the feeling is the accumulated pressure behind the feeling that is forcing it to come up in the moment. The thoughts or external events are only an excuse made up by the mind”.
I have to acknowledge that I have read the abstract a couple of times now and I still need to think about it. Or maybe see how I feel about it :) Although I continue to be interested in the concept, I would like to better understand the implications and what to do with it. In the meantime, I am paying more attention to my thoughts and trying to 1. Identify what is the emotion behind the thought and 2. Let go the emotion. Easier said than done but it hopefully inspires some action on your side as well!!
