We’ve all felt how draining fear-based emotions can be. Nothing saps our life force more than panic, overreaction, and unexpected upsets.
What if you could choose how you felt with ease? It starts with shifting from resistance to consent. Thankfully, there’s a proven process that walks you through each step along the way.
Remember: whatever we focus on, we fuel. When we put time and energy into resisting an emotion, we make it stronger. But if we consent to feeling what is, we shift our relationship to what’s happening and begin to loosen up our emotional experience. Once we’ve added more options to our menu of emotional choices, we can maneuver, or change, our consciousness (that is, our current conscious emotional experience) quite easily. Human beings are inherently resilient – some of us just haven’t realized it yet.
Maneuver Your Consciousness In 12 Minutes Or Less
First, think of something you are resisting. Pick something meaty, like a painful belief; a belittling, angry, or unpleasant person; or a situation you really don’t want in your life. Be sure to have your Emotion Wheel and a timer handy because you’ll be doing four segments of three minutes in a row. Ideally, you’ll do this exercise with a buddy who will sit silently with you and ensure that you use all three minutes for each step below:
Step 1. Negative Evaluation State: Have your buddy set the timer for three minutes. During those three minutes, say out loud all the things you don’t like about what you’re resisting: what’s bad about it, what you can’t stand about it, how painful it is, how it makes you feel, why it’s wrong. Really go all out. As soon as the three minutes are up, look at the Emotion Wheel and identify the key emotions you experienced during this state of Negative Evaluation. Then have your buddy break your state. He or she can invite you to shake your body out, ask you a nonsequitur question involving a number, such as “How many stripes does a zebra have?”, or even ask you to count backwards from 10 to 1.
Step 2. Curiosity State: Have your buddy set the timer for three minutes. Now get really curious about this situation. How did it come to be? What is interesting about it? What is familiar about it? What good things come from it? As soon as the three minutes are up, look at the Emotion Wheel and identify your key emotions from this state of Curiosity. Then, have your buddy break your state by inviting you to shake your body out, asking you a nonsequitur question involving a number, such as “How many spots does a cheetah have?”, or asking you to count backwards from 10 to 1.
Step 3. Amazement State: Have your buddy set the timer for three minutes, and actively become amazed that this situation ever came to be. Wow, this is fascinating! What’s amazing about it? How do you feel about it? As soon as the three minutes are up, look at the Emotion Wheel and identify the key emotions you noticed in this state of Amazement. Then, have your buddy break your state. He or she might invite you to shake your body out, ask you a nonsequitur question involving a number, such as “How many grains of sand are on a perfect beach?”, or ask you to count backwards from 10 to 1.
Step 4. Full Appreciation State: Have your buddy set the timer for three minutes. Ahhhh…deep breath. Honor everything about this situation: “Yes! This has been so very helpful in bringing me to the next level. Wow.” So much gratitude and appreciation. How do you feel about it as you’re honoring it? As soon as the three minutes are up, look at the Emotion Wheel and identify key emotions you experienced while in this state of Full Appreciation. Then have your buddy break your state. He or she could invite you to shake your body out, ask you a nonsequitur question involving a number, such as “What’s your favorite number?”, or even ask you to count backwards from 10 to 1.
Not only does this process help release resistance, but it also allows us to have choices and to increase our productivity. The quicker we can shift out of resistance and into consent, the faster we can focus on what really moves the needle.
Once you’ve given this process a try, I’d love to hear about how it worked for you!
Christine Comaford is a leadership and culture coach who helps businesses achieve growth. Learn more at SmartTribes Institute and see Power Your Tribe: Create Resilient Teams in Turbulent Times and Smart Tribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.
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