The Tiger of emotion or fear only bites when you run from it or try to cage it. No amount of running, suppressing, oppressing or invalidation will make any fear or undesired emotion go away... It is quiet the opposite. Accepting the fear or emotion as it arises for what it is: just feelings and sensations in the body, the easier it is to just BE with it.
This is something that I conceptually understood so well, but only made sense when I started to understand it on an experiential level in the midst of fears or strong emotions.
Every time fear or strong emotions arise we have an opportunity to meet it by feeling it, without the need for it to go or be different. Only then we can set it free. One by one, layer by layer.
Feelings are not facts and they don’t say anything about us, a situation or person, only about our own definitions and labels we give it or the opinions and beliefs we hold.
When we listen less to the stories our minds make up, but instead “listen” to what belief or opinion they point to, the easier it will be to FEEL and let go of them.
I can tell from my own experience that is much easier said than done, but once you experience how safe you are in the midst of any strong emotion and how they just leave when you no longer cage them in but let them BE (FREE), the easier it will become.
TRY THIS when you find yourself emotionally overwhelmed, in fear or in resistance to what is.
1. Accept the validity of the fear/emotion as FEELINGS.
2. Ride the wave of the feelings and understand that the feelings are about reality not OF reality (meaning: it is your perspective or opinion about the situation that makes you feel the way you feel, it is not a fact).
3. Actively experience the feeling. Where is it located in your body? The moment you can locate it, you can 'look' at it and therefor you can't be IT. You are not the emotion or fear. It belongs to the body. Keep on looking at it. Be present with it.
4. Say I FEEEL ... and at the same time realize that it is not a fact, but a validity of the emotion.
5. Then ask: Why do I feel so... anxious, angry, etc? See if it can exist without you resisting it.
Practice! When a feeling is accepted for what it is, you will feel lighter very quickly and overtime it becomes easier to surrender.