My mother held a Ph.D. in psychology. Her approach was to analyze emotions instead of allowing them to be felt, seen, and released. It took me many years to discover I didn't have to know why I felt that way; I just did.
Mine, too, Kathryn. It's been a process to come back to myself by just letting myself feel and let go. Thanks for sharing this. It put pieces together for me about why it's so hard to just feel my feelings. 💕
I hesitated to share such a personal detail about my life, but I went ahead because it might help another woman see herself differently. That woman was you!🌹
The storm image. What I notice in sitting practice is that the emotion is rarely the thing I can actually locate. The grip is. I go looking for the sadness and find my hand already closed around it, and the hand is the part that can open.
It's easier said than done, and I think the method itself points at why. Every one of its four questions already requires the raw experience to have been converted into a named thing first, something you can "allow" or "let go of." That's the same move that turns a passing state into a fixed identity in the first place.
Experience precedes language. A young child runs entirely on that, no labeling process standing between them and what's happening, well before reasoning or naming comes online. Wisdom traditions have pointed at exactly this for millennia, no attachment, being in the flow, one with the experience itself, not with the description of it.
So the real move isn't managing a feeling once it's been named. It's meeting the moment before the label gets applied at all.
I agree that experience precedes language, and that naming something inevitably adds another layer to the raw sensation. I guess where I may see the Sedona Method a little differently is that I think it’s designed for the moment after that has already happened. Once I’m thinking “I’m anxious,” “I’m angry,” or “I can’t let this go,” I’m no longer in that pre-label state—the mind has already entered the room. 😂
I mean ideally, we become capable of meeting experience before turning it into a story or identity. But when we don't (and most of us won't all of the time) the questions can help us notice the attachment we've already created and loosen our grip on it.
But I do get both approaches: learning to experience something before naming it, and learning how to release the name once we've already given it one. :)
Really appreciate that distinction, and I think your "ideally" is actually the whole point worth building on, not a caveat to move past. If meeting experience before it becomes a story is the real ideal, and the four questions are what's left once that's already happened, then developing that earlier capacity directly seems like it should be the actual priority, not just an occasional bonus when the labeling happens to be caught in time.
The gap between experience and label isn't just something that occasionally opens on its own, it's trainable. Practicing whole-body, present awareness as a daily background state, not just when something difficult shows up, is what actually shrinks how often the mind gets there first. Then a technique like this becomes less necessary, not because the feelings stop, but because there's less already-hardened story left to release by the time anyone reaches for the four questions.
I felt myself freeze when I read your opening line: "What if the emotion you’ve spent years trying to get rid of isn’t asking to be solved? What if it’s simply asking to be felt,"
Wait, what?! 🤣
Because even though I know this, there's some part of me that still doesn't! (I'm going to take a moment and breathe rather than try to fix this part! 😂).
Okay, I'm back!
I loved this post!
I knew you were going to write it since you promised you were, and I was looking forward to it. But it was even better than I'd imagined because you break the process down into manageable pieces and make it relatable.
I especially loved your metaphor of emotions being like weather and we wouldn't want to chain weather to the landscape! 🤣
Thank you too for the acknowledgement; I really appreciate that! You didn't have to do it, but I still appreciate it! 💜
Hahaha I love the live “wait, let me actually practice what I just read” moment 😂💜 And I know exactly what you mean, sometimes we can understand something completely and still catch ourselves doing the exact opposite. I always say this! I have alll the tools and sometimes I suck at using them. I think that’s part of why I wanted to break it down this way. Knowing something intellectually and actually letting the body experience it are such different things.
And I’m so glad the weather metaphor landed! I kept thinking about how absurd it would be to demand that a storm stop being a storm, or decide the sky was broken because it rained. Yet we do that to ourselves constantly.
And of course I wanted to acknowledge you! Our conversations genuinely help send my thoughts in new direction. Thank you for reading it so thoughtfully and for always bringing so much. 💜
Haha, so true! I know you get it! Knowing things intellectually vs in your body in the moment are two different things for me at times. 🤣. But I love how you broke this process down. And, your metaphor of the storm being a storm is perfect! 👌 I’m so glad you enjoy what I say; I value what you have to say and how you really think about what you right, synthesize it, and share based on your own experience. And, thank you for acknowledging me. I’ve had people not do that at times (with my ideas) and it’s been hard. So, thank you. 💜
Always! I think it is important to give credit to those who spark such musings! You definitely deserve to be acknowledged. I am so happy we stay connected and curious
The way I see emotion is driven by fear of something bad happening along one's path , if a person is on the wrong path he will get hit and this hit should correcr the path to follow , if however he is on the right path normally should not get hit but even if hit then carry on regardless by absorbing natural events .
This makes sense! Thank you for sharing! I like the idea of emotion as information along the path. I persoanlly don’t necessarily think getting “hit” means we’re on the wrong path. Sometimes difficulty is the very thing that deepens us, redirects our attention, or asks us to develop something we couldn’t have developed otherwise. Fear can be a warning, but it can also appear when we’re moving toward something new and meaningful. I think a big thing is to discern the difference when listening to what an emotion is communicating without automatically treating it as an instruction. :) Thank you for this insight and conversation
Yet, to my mind, it is not emotions that hold us for so long. Emotions are entirely natural. Like a flash of light. A matter of seconds. Merely the illumination, the sudden colour of an event.
But a feeling can be lived with, and lingered in, for a long time. And there is such precious value in that. It grows and breathes like a flower. That is how I experience them. And every single one of them is beautiful. And resting in these feelings brings me a quiet, gentle peace.💮❤️💞
Your description of emotion as “the sudden colour of an event.” ❤️ I think there’s something beautiful in separating that initial flash from the feeling we continue to experience, explore, and give meaning to afterward. :)
And I agree that there can be enormous value in allowing a feeling to linger when we’re actually with it rather than fighting it.
I love your image of feelings growing and breathing like flowers, too. There’s something very different about tending to what appears within us instead of immediately trying to uproot it. ❤️
Loved reading this. I’ve always believed micromanaging and trusting the process can’t coexist at the same time, the moment you start controlling every detail, you’ve already stopped trusting it. Thank you 🙏
Yes!! My therapist does a form of Brainspotting and her main thing is not to do anything but feel. I have to allow. Not soothe, think, or revisit the charged situation. Just feel. Ugh. It’s hard work and it’s so rewarding.
My mother held a Ph.D. in psychology. Her approach was to analyze emotions instead of allowing them to be felt, seen, and released. It took me many years to discover I didn't have to know why I felt that way; I just did.
Mine, too, Kathryn. It's been a process to come back to myself by just letting myself feel and let go. Thanks for sharing this. It put pieces together for me about why it's so hard to just feel my feelings. 💕
I hesitated to share such a personal detail about my life, but I went ahead because it might help another woman see herself differently. That woman was you!🌹
Yes, I’m so glad you did! Thank you! 😊
The storm image. What I notice in sitting practice is that the emotion is rarely the thing I can actually locate. The grip is. I go looking for the sadness and find my hand already closed around it, and the hand is the part that can open.
I love this framing! So important! Thank you for sharing Anton :)
It's easier said than done, and I think the method itself points at why. Every one of its four questions already requires the raw experience to have been converted into a named thing first, something you can "allow" or "let go of." That's the same move that turns a passing state into a fixed identity in the first place.
Experience precedes language. A young child runs entirely on that, no labeling process standing between them and what's happening, well before reasoning or naming comes online. Wisdom traditions have pointed at exactly this for millennia, no attachment, being in the flow, one with the experience itself, not with the description of it.
So the real move isn't managing a feeling once it's been named. It's meeting the moment before the label gets applied at all.
I agree that experience precedes language, and that naming something inevitably adds another layer to the raw sensation. I guess where I may see the Sedona Method a little differently is that I think it’s designed for the moment after that has already happened. Once I’m thinking “I’m anxious,” “I’m angry,” or “I can’t let this go,” I’m no longer in that pre-label state—the mind has already entered the room. 😂
I mean ideally, we become capable of meeting experience before turning it into a story or identity. But when we don't (and most of us won't all of the time) the questions can help us notice the attachment we've already created and loosen our grip on it.
But I do get both approaches: learning to experience something before naming it, and learning how to release the name once we've already given it one. :)
Really appreciate that distinction, and I think your "ideally" is actually the whole point worth building on, not a caveat to move past. If meeting experience before it becomes a story is the real ideal, and the four questions are what's left once that's already happened, then developing that earlier capacity directly seems like it should be the actual priority, not just an occasional bonus when the labeling happens to be caught in time.
The gap between experience and label isn't just something that occasionally opens on its own, it's trainable. Practicing whole-body, present awareness as a daily background state, not just when something difficult shows up, is what actually shrinks how often the mind gets there first. Then a technique like this becomes less necessary, not because the feelings stop, but because there's less already-hardened story left to release by the time anyone reaches for the four questions.
An important expansion :) Thank you for this conversation!
Hi Stephanie, 👋🏻
I felt myself freeze when I read your opening line: "What if the emotion you’ve spent years trying to get rid of isn’t asking to be solved? What if it’s simply asking to be felt,"
Wait, what?! 🤣
Because even though I know this, there's some part of me that still doesn't! (I'm going to take a moment and breathe rather than try to fix this part! 😂).
Okay, I'm back!
I loved this post!
I knew you were going to write it since you promised you were, and I was looking forward to it. But it was even better than I'd imagined because you break the process down into manageable pieces and make it relatable.
I especially loved your metaphor of emotions being like weather and we wouldn't want to chain weather to the landscape! 🤣
Thank you too for the acknowledgement; I really appreciate that! You didn't have to do it, but I still appreciate it! 💜
Hahaha I love the live “wait, let me actually practice what I just read” moment 😂💜 And I know exactly what you mean, sometimes we can understand something completely and still catch ourselves doing the exact opposite. I always say this! I have alll the tools and sometimes I suck at using them. I think that’s part of why I wanted to break it down this way. Knowing something intellectually and actually letting the body experience it are such different things.
And I’m so glad the weather metaphor landed! I kept thinking about how absurd it would be to demand that a storm stop being a storm, or decide the sky was broken because it rained. Yet we do that to ourselves constantly.
And of course I wanted to acknowledge you! Our conversations genuinely help send my thoughts in new direction. Thank you for reading it so thoughtfully and for always bringing so much. 💜
Haha, so true! I know you get it! Knowing things intellectually vs in your body in the moment are two different things for me at times. 🤣. But I love how you broke this process down. And, your metaphor of the storm being a storm is perfect! 👌 I’m so glad you enjoy what I say; I value what you have to say and how you really think about what you right, synthesize it, and share based on your own experience. And, thank you for acknowledging me. I’ve had people not do that at times (with my ideas) and it’s been hard. So, thank you. 💜
Always! I think it is important to give credit to those who spark such musings! You definitely deserve to be acknowledged. I am so happy we stay connected and curious
The way I see emotion is driven by fear of something bad happening along one's path , if a person is on the wrong path he will get hit and this hit should correcr the path to follow , if however he is on the right path normally should not get hit but even if hit then carry on regardless by absorbing natural events .
This makes sense! Thank you for sharing! I like the idea of emotion as information along the path. I persoanlly don’t necessarily think getting “hit” means we’re on the wrong path. Sometimes difficulty is the very thing that deepens us, redirects our attention, or asks us to develop something we couldn’t have developed otherwise. Fear can be a warning, but it can also appear when we’re moving toward something new and meaningful. I think a big thing is to discern the difference when listening to what an emotion is communicating without automatically treating it as an instruction. :) Thank you for this insight and conversation
Yet, to my mind, it is not emotions that hold us for so long. Emotions are entirely natural. Like a flash of light. A matter of seconds. Merely the illumination, the sudden colour of an event.
But a feeling can be lived with, and lingered in, for a long time. And there is such precious value in that. It grows and breathes like a flower. That is how I experience them. And every single one of them is beautiful. And resting in these feelings brings me a quiet, gentle peace.💮❤️💞
Your description of emotion as “the sudden colour of an event.” ❤️ I think there’s something beautiful in separating that initial flash from the feeling we continue to experience, explore, and give meaning to afterward. :)
And I agree that there can be enormous value in allowing a feeling to linger when we’re actually with it rather than fighting it.
I love your image of feelings growing and breathing like flowers, too. There’s something very different about tending to what appears within us instead of immediately trying to uproot it. ❤️
Loved reading this. I’ve always believed micromanaging and trusting the process can’t coexist at the same time, the moment you start controlling every detail, you’ve already stopped trusting it. Thank you 🙏
Completely! Thank you too!
Yes!! My therapist does a form of Brainspotting and her main thing is not to do anything but feel. I have to allow. Not soothe, think, or revisit the charged situation. Just feel. Ugh. It’s hard work and it’s so rewarding.
I really love that! She sounds like a great therapist
She is. She’s also like 75 years old. :) so there’s a lot of hard earned wisdom.
Oh yes! Its lucky to encounter people like that on our journey :)