How we perceive and respond to life’s challenges and opportunities to grow are derived from basic beliefs.  These beliefs we are told are imprinted into our brains between 0-7 years of age.  If an external experience or stimulus is congruent with the internal belief, there is no tension, resistance , fight or flight response.  However if there is a lack of congruency between beliefs and environmental stimuli, an alert message is perceived by the brain, something is not safe.  The sympathetic system starts to engage and to make matters more complicated what we perceive as a threat may not be, in reality.  Then we start to justify, blame, project. excuse, addict our perception of reality.

Stuffing our emotions is a form of denial.  In reality I’m lying to myself about how I feel and perceive life.  I’m not trusting myself.  Body symptoms will soon follow.  I could also become a pressure cooker of boiling emotions, that buried alive never die, but percolate and stew, leading to accidents and diseases.  Everyday in my office I see this scenario over and over.

So now what?

1.  Be honest with yourself.  Acknowledge how you feel emotionally, mentally, physically…

2.  Breathe deeply into the abdomen; not naming the thought, feeling or situation.., embracing it/me as I am and the situation as it is now.

3.  Breathing deeply will allow your being to be present in the now.  By being present there is a shift in awareness and brain physiology.  Our brains begin to function from present need as opposed to old stuck perceptions.

4.  Let it go: if the thought, emotion or sensation returns, repeat 1-3.  It will repeat until there is less stored energy.  You will not die from a thought.  If you breath-embrace and release you will learn to handle the catastrophic through the mundane.  Your brain will do the rest as you change your habits.

In Health & Service,

Dr. Roland Phillips