Latest / AWAKEN with Dylan Ayaloo: Inner Work, Healing, Yoga & Meditation / [EP36] How to Break Free from Emotional Numbing and Start Feeling Again

Transcript

[EP36] How to Break Free from Emotional Numbing and Start Feeling Again · AWAKEN with Dylan Ayaloo: Inner Work, Healing, Yoga & Meditation

• 0:00
  How to break free from emotional numbing and starting to feel again.
• 0:04
  And obviously, in our framework of Feel, Heal, Manifest, there's a big focus on feel.
• 0:09
  And I want to go into some of the more practical aspects of this topic.
• 0:14
  How to break free from emotional numbing and start feeling again.
• 0:20
  So if you've ever felt disconnected and you're aware that things are pretty leveled, right?
• 0:30
  emotions are poured down. The whole thing around blocking our emotions or not wanting to feel
• 0:35
  emotions is a kind of a protection mechanism, right? Like internally, we are built in such a
• 0:41
  way to protect ourselves. And this mechanism kicks in, it shows up in the form of not wanting to feel.
• 0:50
  And while it protects us from feelings that you could say is the mind deems as bad,
• 0:56
  we also then block out everything else right so we block out joy and excitement and the so-called
• 1:04
  good emotions as well or the emotions that we want to feel and today in this session or in this
• 1:12
  message today i want to look at why we numb and what actually happens and how it's actually there
• 1:18
  to protect us some signs when we actually do this with or without realizing it a lot of times we're
• 1:24
  not really aware of it. It's unconscious. And what you can do about it, right? So how you can
• 1:29
  actually start to feel again and experience life more fully once again. So if you relate to this,
• 1:35
  then obviously it's speaking to you. We tend to do this, right? To block out, to numb out the feelings
• 1:41
  to, and numb out is just one of the strategies of the minds. It's to subconsciously or unconsciously
• 1:47
  disconnect from our feelings, to protect ourself from something that has perhaps is from our past.
• 1:54
  you could say pain or trauma. And sometimes it can just be too overwhelming. So the coping mechanism
• 2:01
  then is to just block it out, right? To not want to feel it. And yeah, it can come from earlier in
• 2:07
  our timeline, in our childhood or earlier, like can always trace things back most of the time to
• 2:13
  our past, where maybe there's been neglect or trauma or emotional kind of invalidation, don't
• 2:20
  feel, block your feelings, stop crying, that kind of stuff. In more kind of recent parts of our
• 2:26
  timeline, as an adult, it can show up as chronic stress, anxiety, burnout, right, hitting the wall
• 2:32
  and just, or maybe just trying to avoid, sometimes things happen which are quite a big kind of
• 2:38
  emotional impact. So we tend to want to not feel the uncomfortable emotions like grief or shame or
• 2:45
  fear, right? So we tend to then not want to feel and block it out. And the brain is just kind of
• 2:51
  trying to protect us, right? It's like trying to shut these emotions down. But this protection
• 2:56
  mechanism over time of not wanting to feel creates a disconnect. So we're disconnected from our
• 3:03
  emotions and therefore we're disconnected from people around us as well. If you block out certain
• 3:08
  things, then it tends to block out almost everything. And included in that is a lot of times
• 3:15
  like love and joy, right, that we want to actually experience. Some of the signs,
• 3:20
  or the five signs that are blocking out. One is that we avoid deeper emotions. So the big spikes,
• 3:29
  right, like the highs and the lows, we tend to just, it's all very same, same. And it's almost
• 3:34
  like a flat lines of emotions. And as much as you want to avoid the difficult emotions, let's say,
• 3:41
  like sadness, we don't allow ourselves, for example, to feel joy fully, for example, on the
• 3:47
  other side of the spike, right? The peaks and the troughs. And this kind of flatness, emotional
• 3:52
  flatness, because it's so practiced, we just expect it, accept it as normal. That's just how
• 3:58
  things are. That's just how I am. And it's not even something that we do logically. It's just
• 4:02
  something that over time just feels normal, right? So it's habitual. We tend to rely a lot on
• 4:09
  distractions as a coping mechanism. So social media, obviously it's going to be on the list.
• 4:14
  Binge watching shows, for example, or like emotional eating, or just anything to keep
• 4:21
  ourselves from sitting with the uncomfortable feelings or what we deem to be uncomfortable
• 4:25
  or difficult. I don't want to feel that it's too difficult, it's too much. So I'm just going to not
• 4:29
  deal with that. If you're disconnected from relationships, for example, the relationships
• 4:34
  then tend to be more surface level and we tend to not want to feel the difficult emotions. We don't
• 4:40
  want to be present with them and therefore we don't want to be emotionally open either. So because
• 4:45
  we're blocking out certain emotions, we also block love from coming in and or probably going out as
• 4:50
  well. The busy becomes a badge of honor. I feel busy and it's a lot of doing and you're probably
• 4:57
  very good at doing and doing as a coping mechanism. But then internally, emotionally, we just feel
• 5:04
  experienced this in my life as well. Like really all of these I've experienced. So always doing,
• 5:09
  but rarely being, right? And we forget that we're a human being and become a human doing,
• 5:13
  as I've said before. And life just becomes full of like check boxes, right? Like tick boxes.
• 5:19
  And sometimes we see that when people come into this work, for example, and it's okay,
• 5:23
  I've done the meditation and I've done this and I can't do this and I can't do all of that. Or
• 5:27
  we tend to get in our heads, we climb in our heads and not want to feel. So that's another
• 5:31
  way we tend to block out and you struggle to identify with feelings for example so when people
• 5:37
  say how do you feel you might say something you might have an answer but actually the honest
• 5:41
  answer is deep inside you're probably going i actually don't know how i feel and it just it's
• 5:48
  uncomfortable again right so those are the things the five kind of signs and how to actually break
• 5:54
  free from it to create space, to create space by actually feeling.
• 6:01
  And if you've been to Awaken, you've heard me talk about and teach on breath and body
• 6:06
  connection, right?
• 6:08
  You could say, oh, okay, if you want to do it in a heady way, you could say, okay, I'm
• 6:11
  going to set a timer where every few whatever minutes, there's going to be a reminder for
• 6:15
  me to breathe or for me to feel.
• 6:17
  Fine, if you need to do that, start with that, great.
• 6:20
  But even in our mini-awaken that I was teaching, was it on the weekend, we did a whole exercise
• 6:27
  on pausing and taking a breath.
• 6:30
  And sometimes people take one breath and then that's it.
• 6:34
  Continue.
• 6:35
  Keep doing the deep breathing.
• 6:36
  And as you're doing the deep breathing, feel.
• 6:38
  Feel the sensations.
• 6:40
  Maybe emotions are too big to deal with first, but we can deal with sensations.
• 6:44
  So what are the physical sensations of the label, the name, right?
• 6:48
  So that's another thing that we did.
• 6:49
  had many awaken on the weekends. Physical sensations of the breath, physical sensations
• 6:54
  in the body. So if you're saying, oh, I feel fear right now. So how does fear show up in the body?
• 7:00
  What sensations put together represents the label of, let's say, fear or sad. I feel sad.
• 7:08
  How does that show up in your body physically by way of sensation? And then doing something to,
• 7:15
  so first part is presencing it, acknowledging it, seeing it as it is, not less, not more,
• 7:22
  just as it is, right? So the mind will want to minimize it or it will want to blow it out of
• 7:27
  proportion. Do neither of those, stay present with it. Okay, this is what I'm feeling. So it might
• 7:33
  start with physical sensations and it become more present to the actual emotions, right? Emotion,
• 7:38
  energy that wants to be in motion. So therefore, the next step then is to let it be in motion.
• 7:44
  We do conscious movement and conscious breathing as we do the conscious movement.
• 7:49
  And by doing the conscious movement, in which our case in our body of work is yoga, and of
• 7:55
  course you can do that with other forms of movement.
• 7:57
  But in yoga, I find, I want to say it's easier.
• 8:00
  Maybe it's biased because I've been doing it for some time.
• 8:03
  It's easier to do deep breathing and thread the postures, weave it in with the breath.
• 8:08
  So the breath is the consistent.
• 8:09
  It's like you're threading beads together and the string is the breath and the beads
• 8:15
  So you're threading it together with the breath.
• 8:17
  And the consistent is the deep breathing.
• 8:20
  And the postures you're coming in and out of and you're moving as you're moving the body
• 8:24
  in our connective tissue, in our musculature, is where we hold emotional patterns, right?
• 8:29
  So the narrative in the mind, which takes a form of emotions, we tend to store in our body.
• 8:34
  So therefore, I always say the body tells the story of your life.
• 8:37
  And there's other books that have been written about that too.
• 8:40
  So by doing conscious movement, deep breathing, we are starting to literally untangle, you
• 8:47
  could say, free up those emotional patterns from the body.
• 8:51
  And therefore, we are rewiring the brain and the nervous system into a new configuration.
• 8:56
  And you start with creating space first, and then you can consciously choose, which is
• 9:00
  the next step.
• 9:01
  Consciously choose, okay, what do I want to, what emotions do I want to live in?
• 9:05
  What's the internal emotional home that I want to live in?
• 9:09
  say, okay, I'm clearing out the house and I'm creating some space. In our emotional home, we
• 9:15
  can do that too. We can clear out the house and actually we can reconstruct the emotional house
• 9:19
  in whatever way we want and whatever we want to fill it with. Living in joy is a conscious choice.
• 9:24
  Living in peace is a conscious choice, right? So therefore, choices that you make are going to
• 9:29
  give you different results and also allow you to live in certain emotion. And then the other part
• 9:35
  of it is I truly believe one of the most powerful things about our community is the community. Yes,
• 9:41
  the process is powerful. Yes, it works. We've got countless numbers of testimonials. Most of you
• 9:46
  here in this live session have had some experience. But the other part, one of the most powerful parts
• 9:51
  I would say is people come in normally for the process and the interventions and the healing,
• 9:56
  but people stay because of the power of the community. So just know that you don't have to
• 10:00
  do it on your own. And that's the power of us when we do our mini awakens and when we do our events
• 10:06
  that you can come together and hear other people's experiences
• 10:08
  and or if you're sharing as well
• 10:10
  and realize that you're not alone
• 10:12
  and that you don't have to do it on your own,
• 10:13
  which is another form of, I've got this.
• 10:16
  I don't need you.
• 10:17
  I don't need anyone.
• 10:17
  I don't need you.
• 10:18
  I don't need anyone.
• 10:19
  But actually, you don't need to need anyone,
• 10:21
  but you can want support.
• 10:23
  You can have it.
• 10:23
  You can receive the support,
• 10:25
  which is another way of actually clearing out the blocks
• 10:28
  and letting there be flow of, let's say, love, right?
• 10:32
  So connection and love.
• 10:33
  And it may not be an overnight thing.
• 10:35
  Just because you decide you're going to start to feel doesn't mean it's going to be easy
• 10:38
  and doesn't mean everything falls in your lap.
• 10:40
  It can be a process.
• 10:42
  And sometimes I read things where people say, oh, take a five-minute break and schedule
• 10:47
  it in and do a kind of break where you're breathing and feeling fine.
• 10:50
  If that's what helps you, great, do that.
• 10:52
  But actually, you're always breathing.
• 10:54
  And we're always in some kind of physical posture.
• 10:57
  So as often as you can, train yourself to come back to the breath.
• 11:03
  to the body, train yourself to come back to paying attention to the sensations and the emotions,
• 11:08
  and therefore you bring yourself back. And it's a practice, not a perfection, so that the more you
• 11:13
  practice it, the easier it does become over time as you allow yourself to feel. And having a space
• 11:20
  where you can come and process, and this is why I think in what we do in Albed Premium, our mini
• 11:25
  awakens are so powerful, where once a month we come together and you don't have to do it on your
• 11:30
  on because if I could do my transformation on my own, then I would have, just like you would have.
• 11:35
  But it's just that I don't see my blind spots. I'm in the roller coaster and I'm not sure which
• 11:40
  way it's going. I just know it's all crazy. And most of us, when we're in our emotional roller
• 11:45
  coaster, when we're in our process, it's difficult. It's almost impossible to see.
• 11:50
  And it's also difficult to guide ourselves through the process. So therefore, having someone who's
• 11:55
  done it before and actually being in a community where other people are also up for it and up to
• 12:00
  In their life, they're up for the transformation, can accelerate the process and support your
• 12:05
  journey as well.
• 12:06
  So there you go.
• 12:08
  As you've heard me say, the doorway to healing is to feel.
• 12:12
  If you want to heal something in your life, it's to feel.
• 12:15
  Feel your body, feel your breath, feel your emotions.
• 12:18
  And that is the first step.
• 12:19
  That's why the framework that we've got, feel, he'll manifest.
• 12:21
  Before you can get to the healing part, before you can manifest the life of your dreams,
• 12:25
  it starts with getting presence.
• 12:26
  and the simplest way I've found to get present is breath and body connection.