As a human, you’ve had the experience of getting stressed out, being anxiety-ridden, or emotional overwhelm. You’ve also likely experienced overwhelm by tons of thinking going on in your head. Hyperfocusing and over-analyzing problems, challenges, fears, angers, and disappointments. You’ve probably had this experience many times throughout your life. Maybe these times even give you headaches. Maybe they’re weekly experiences or even daily ones.
I call this being in “the spins.” The thoughts in your head are spinning out of control. You are no longer in control – the thoughts are controlling you.
Many men get into the spins when they’re pushing their comfort zone a little too far or if they are just overwhelmed by a situation involving women, flirting, or dating. You might get into the spins when faced with a difficult decision or an unpleasant situation that’s not going your way.
People who’ve learned releasing and letting go techniques will try to use them to let go of their thoughts, but when you’re in the spins, you’re (temporarily) so identified with these thoughts and overwhelmed by them that trying to let them go doesn’t really work. It actually becomes more like you trying to push the thoughts away, which is just staying in denial.
Thoughts are Waves
Have you ever wondered what thoughts even are?
Here’s another question: Have you ever watched waves in the ocean go by? Do you make them mean anything? Do you sit there and judge each wave as good or bad? Are there some waves that you try to hold onto even as the next one begins to crest? Or do you just simply watch them flow in and out?
That’s what thoughts are. They’re waves. They just happen to be waves of energy moving through our bodies. They’re temporary. They aren’t who you are and they don’t define you. If you start to watch them without making them “yours” – without identifying with them or making them mean anything about you – they begin to loosen their hold on you and your emotions.
This is what you want to do when you’re in the spins. Just welcome them and observe them from the third-person. Allow them to run their course without trying to “do” anything about them.
Often your body wants to let thoughts go, but your analytical mind wants to keep them. When this comes up, welcome it. Don’t push it down and repress the thought.
Welcome everything. Welcome your resistance to the welcoming of these uncomfortable thoughts and emotions. Welcome the whole structure. I know this can be extremely difficult, impossible-seeming even. In this situation, stay with the thought or emotion and try to focus on welcoming just 1% of it…or even a fraction of 1%. Whatever’s small enough for your mind and nervous system to accept. And if you can do that, great. You have done your job. From there, try to go for a little more, and a little more, and on and on, but even just a fraction of 1% will get the energy flowing.
This process will shine a light on what’s underneath the thoughts and start to break up the energy. It’s a little painful at first, but don’t take it personally. When you aren’t taking your thoughts personally, they become easier to let go. This is the basis of what releasing looks like.
We all have a range of emotions we experience. It’s useful to think of them on a scale of heaviness to lightness. The lighter-feeling emotions are the more positive and healthier ones. Imagine how Love feels versus Anxiety. Peace versus Anger. Fulfillment versus Emptiness. Now check in with which you are feeling right now.
And even numbness and nothingness are emotions. They may be extremely heavy emotions that just feel like they are “part” of you, but they aren’t. Remember, nothing is still something and can be worked with. Walls can’t exist without empty space to define them, right? Well, nothingness is that empty space.
When you start working with this practice regularly, it will often come in waves and can be overwhelming to start. Sometimes you will be welcoming for hours at time. Don’t fear this – it means you’re on the right track. It’s great and ideal if you can take that time to just sit there and do nothing except welcoming until it passes, but if you absolutely must continue on with your day, that’s ok. Just keep welcoming in the background and as the thoughts come up.
The key is to not stand in resistance and let the process run its course.
