In "Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender" by David Hawkins, he writes...
"Feelings and Mental mechanisms"
"We have three major ways of handling feelings: suppression, expression, and escape. We will discuss each in turn."
1. Suppression and repression. These are the most common ways in which we push feelings down and put them aside. In repression, this happens when unconsciously; in suppression it happens consciously. We don't want to be bothered by feelings and, besides, we don't know what else to do with them and try to keep functioning as we can. The feelings that we select to be suppressed or repressed are in accord with the conscious and unconscious programs we carry within us from social custom and family training. The pressure of suppressed feelings is later felt as irritability, mood swings, tension in the muscles of the neck, headaches, cramps, menstrual disorders, colitis, indigestion, insomnia, hypertension, allergies, and other somatic conditions."
"When we repress a feeling, it is because there is so much guilt and fear over the feeling that it is not even consciously felt at all. It becomes instantly thrust into the unconscious as soon as it threatens to emerge. The repressed feeling is then handled in a variety of ways to ensure that it stays repressed and out of awareness."
"Of these mechanisms used by the mind to keep the feeling repressed, denial and projection are perhaps the best-known methods, as they tend to go together and reinforce each other. Denial results in major emotional and maturational blocks. It is usually accompanied by the mechanism of projection. Because of guilt and fear, we repress the impulse or feeling, and we deny its presence within us. Instead of feeling it, we project it onto the world and those around us. We experience the feelings as if it belonged to "them." "They" then become the enemy, and the mind searches for and finds justification to reinforce the projection. Blame is placed on people, places, institutions, food, social conditions, fate, God, luck, the devil, foreigners, ethnic groups, political rivals, and other things outside of ourselves. Projection is the main mechanism in use by the world today. It accounts for all wars, strife, and civil disorder. Hating the enemy is even encouraged in order to become a "good citizen." We maintain our own self-esteem at the expense of others and eventually, this results in social breakdown. The mechanism of projection underlies all attack, violence, aggression, and every form of social destruction."
2. Expression. With this mechanism, the feeling is vented, verbalized, or stated in body language, and acted out in endless group demonstrations. The expression of negative feelings allow just enough of the inner pressure to be let out so that the remainder can be suppressed. This is a very important point to understand, for many people in society today believe that expressing their feelings frees them from the feeling. The facts are to the contrary. The expression of a feeling, first tends to propagate that feeling and give it greater energy. Second, the expression of the feeling merely allows the remainder to be suppressed out of awareness."
"The balance between suppression and expression varies in each individual depending on early training, current cultural norms and mores, and the media. Expressing oneself is now in vogue as a result of a misunderstanding of the work of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. Freud pointed out that suppression was the cause of neurosis; therefore, expression was mistakenly thought to be the cure. This misinterpretation became a license for self-indulgence at the cost of others. What Freud actually said , in classical psychoanalysis, was that the repressed impulse or feeling was to be neutralized, sublimated, socialized, and channeled into constructive drives of love, work and creativity."
"If we dump our negative feelings on others, they experience it as an attack and they, in turn, are forced to suppress, express, or escape the feelings; therefore, the expression of negativity results in the deterioration and destruction of relationships. A far better alternative is to take responsibility for our own feelings and neutralize them. Then, only positive feelings remain to be expressed."
3. Escape. Escape is the avoidance of feelings through diversion. This avoidance is the backbone of the entertainment and liquor industries, and also the route of the workaholic. Escapism and avoidance of inner awareness is a socially condoned mechanism. We can avoid our own inner selves and keep our feelings from emerging by an endless variety of pursuits, many of which eventually become addictions as our dependency upon them grows."
"People are desperate to stay unconscious. We observe how often people flick on the television set the minute they enter a room and then walk around in a dream-like state, constantly being programmed by the data poured into them. People are terrified of facing themselves. They dread even a moment of aloneness. Thus the constant frantic activities: the endless socializing, talking, texting, reading, music playing, working, traveling, sightseeing, gambling, movie-going, pill taking, drug using, and cocktail-partying."
Many of the foregoing mechanisms of escape are faulty, stressful, and ineffective. Each of them requires increasing amounts of energy in and of itself. Enormous amounts of energy are required to keep down the growing pressure of the suppress and repressed feelings. There is a progressive loss of awareness and an arrest of growth. There is a loss of creativity, energy, and real interest in others. There is a halting of spiritual growth and eventually the development of physical and emotional illness, disease, aging and premature death. The projection of these repressed feelings result in the social problems, disorders, and the increase of selfishness and callousness characteristic of our present society. Most of all, the effect is the inability to truly love and trust another person, which results in emotional isolation and self-hatred."
"In contrast to the above, what happens instead when we let go of a feeling? The energy behind the feeling is instantly surrendered and the net affect is decompression. The accumulated pressure begins to decrease as we constantly let go. Everyone knows that, when we let go, we immediately feel better. The body's physiology changes. There are detectable improvements in skin color, breathing, pulse, blood pressure, muscle tension, gastro-intestinal function, and blood chemistries. In the state of inner freedom, all bodily functions and organs move in the general direction of normalcy and health. There is an immediate increase in muscle power. Vision improves and our perception of the world and ourselves changes for the better. We feel happier, more loving, and more easygoing." David
It is amazing and quite shocking and incredibly true, "People are terrified of facing themselves. They dread even a moment of aloneness."
Imagine. We don't want to face ourselves!
We will do endless amounts of behaviors to keep us from seeing who we are and to acknowledge own and be responsible for our feelings.
I know this to be true.
I also know, and recognized, it was up to me to take the negative and neutralize it and not spew forth more negative energy.
David goes on to write....about Feelings and Stress.
"There is much attention and publicity given to the subject of stress without a real understanding of essential nature. It is said that we are more stress-prone than ever. What is the essential cause of stress? Certainly is is not the external precipitating factors. they are merely examples of the mechanism we described as projection. It is "they" or "it" that is thought to be the culprit when, in fact, what we are feeling is merely the letting go of the inner pressure of repressed emotions. It is these repressed feelings that make us feel vulnerable to external stress."
"The real source of "stress" is actually internal; it is not external, as people would like to believe. The readiness to react with fear, for instance, depends on how much fear is already present within to be triggered by a stimulus. The more fear we have on the inside, the more our perception of the world is changed to a fearful, guarded expectancy. To the fearful person, this world is a terrifying place. To the angry person, this world is a chaos of frustration and vexation. To the guilty person, it is a world of temptation and sin, which they see everywhere. What we are holding inside colors our world. If we let go of guilt, we will see innocence; however, a guilt-ridden person will see only evil. The basic rule is that we focus on what we have repressed." David
I am enjoying this book so far and I am only on the first chapter! It certainly explains how we all see the world so differently. How you see it, IS what is inside!
