Finding the Express Lane to Source - Jan 2006

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f r e e s o u l
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THE JOURNEY NEWSLETTER

a newsletter dedicated to educating, informing and inspiring people
to apply new possibilities in healing and inner growth

VOLUME.3

1/29/06

The discovery of “The Feeling Cleanse”, or:
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How to get on to the express lane to source.

That Saturday I was upset. Two hours later driving home I was still upset. Upset and confused. Why hadn’t this little turmoil gone away after I had spoken and expressed my feelings? I had communicated my truth as well as I knew how. Had I not said I was feeling used? Had I not said I was feeling disrespected, and had I not explained how it was effecting me that my day was turned upside down with only 30 min. notice?


Yes, but it still was there: a little voice inside of me that wouldn’t shut up, that needed to make the same statements, declarations and explanations over and over again, a nervous, unsatisfied restlessness inside of me, and underneath: a lingering sadness, that could turn into a quiet weeping, if I could just let go enough to be that vulnerable. That’s how I knew this wasn’t just about what happened today; this was older stuff. And I was determined to honor what was coming out of hiding that day and use its challenging presence to my greatest advantage.


When I got home, I sat down, took a deep breath and just allowed myself to feel what was really there at the core of those mingled feelings.


An intense 15 minutes later everything was changed: there was deep stillness and peace all around and inside of me, and an exquisite awareness of being, - a knowing of the timelessness of my existence, being connected to an eternal flame. And the troubles had quite thoroughly vanished.


Later that day I realized that my experience could be used as a blueprint, that I could teach other people how to follow that same simple outline and release whatever negative feelings they were hooked on, and that by creating a process structure I might be able to offer them an express lane to nothing less than source itself. Moreover this was something that could fit into peoples busy schedule, something they would be able to do on their own, whenever a trigger showed up.


Soon I began to imagine what could happen if this little tool was used regularly: relationships were bound to become lighter, more truthful, more present, more peaceful and more connected. Isn’t that what we all want? We would experience less conflict with our kids, our parents, our coworkers and our bosses. We would be less depressed and more empowered, and living with a level of awareness and inner knowing that was rising continuously. How can 15 short minutes make that kind of a difference? That’s what I would like to briefly outline in this newsletter.


When I started to work with "The Journey" well over a year ago, one of the most startling revelations had been that any negative emotion will become our personal gateway and passage to source, life force, the universe, or God (whatever name it is given), IF we allow ourselves to welcome this feeling, instead of turning away from it. In the so called Emotional Journey we use a method of dropping our client through the present emotion to whatever lies beneath or in the very core of it. In this way we often 'dig' through a lifetime of negative sediments, layer after layer of different emotional states, until we enter into an experience of source. While the Emotional Journey is a profoundly transformative and deeply healing process, it is also an entirely unpredictable and often long one, because we have no way of knowing how many layers a client needs to pass through.


The reason why the new Feeling Cleanse is so fast, is that it is based on a slightly different type of process: the No Ego Journey. The No Ego Journey was created to enable us to strip away the veils, illusions, and fear fixations of our particular ego type, by plunging us into the very feeling we have most feared and avoided our entire life. A very astonishing thing happens when a long suppressed negative emotion is allowed to be fully felt and to fully unfold. It acts like a flame that burns through our body, taking us directly to source, purifying, and clarifying our being in it’s wake.


Is there an explanation for this phenomenon?

I could describe it with this image. It is a little bit like you have been living in a beautiful house all your life, and there are certain areas in your house that are shrouded by fog. You don’t ever enter into those areas, because you are afraid of them, you don’t know what is in there, you worry you can’t see in there, and from where you are, the fog looks like a solid wall. Once you take the courage to enter, you find the fog isn’t solid at all, you can still breathe, you can even still see, you notice you are in a passage, and as you keep going you finally break through the outer wall of the fog and find yourself standing in the bright sunlight of the wide world outside.


Once we just allow that avoided feeling to completely be there, once we experience that a feeling doesn’t have any substance, and has no power over us, once we discover the greater truth outside of our limitations, we are truly beginning to liberate ourselves.


Most of us have lived our lives in the gravely erroneous belief that when a strong emotion surfaces, we either need to do something, or we have to stuff it back down. How did we get this so wrong? How did we come to take for granted that only by action will we be relieved of our uncomfortable feelings? And what are we driven to do? Typically, any feeling of anger translates into the urge to fight or yell. Sadness propels us to want to retrieve or recreate what we have lost, and fear makes us run for safety or cling to support.


For most of us it is a revelation to be able to simply welcome a painful feeling and experience it dissolving into nothing - entirely on its own. After this path of "non action", what does such an experience leave us with? The rediscovery and unshakable knowledge of our true identity, our deepest essence: freedom, love, stillness, and peace.


I call this process the ”Feeling Cleanse”, and I offer it to you for your own liberation.


So, when and how do you use the Feeling Cleanse?

You can apply it to any uncomfortable emotion you are experiencing. As you get more experienced you will also be able to use this process on headaches, other physical pain and more subtle emotions. Here is the outline as I have been using the process so far, for myself, family and friends. In parentheses I have added the example of my own first experience with a feeling cleanse.

OPENING UP

1.) Identify all thoughts that are associated with this feeling and write them down.

Sometimes your thoughts may seem unrelated, that’s fine! Don’t edit. It doesn’t have to make sense. Just empty out, express what’s there and get it down on paper.

(My thoughts were: I feel taken for granted. It is unfair that he can always do what he wants to do, and make changes last minute. It’s unfair that they can have all this fun in the city and I can never go.)

2.) Identify the feelings that are present and write them down.

You may be unclear about what it really is you are feeling. Ask yourself any of these questions: "If this is a part of me that has been hiding, what is this part of me that is showing up here?" or, "What is this part of me feeling?" or, " What is the pain of this part that is showing up here?" or, "If there was a feeling buried underneath this confusion, or this agitation, what might that be?"

(I felt: upset, sad, used, alone, weepy)

3.) Find the “root statement” of these feelings.

This is a statement that describes what is at the bottom of what you are feeling. Again, you can ask some questions to elicit this statement: "What is this part of me really saying about itself?" or, "If there were words that could describe the kind of pain this part of me is in, what would they be?" (From this point on you probably want to keep your eyes closed.)

(My root statement was: “I don’t matter”)

ENTERING THE GATEWAY

4.) Allow yourself to go to the deepest root of this pain.

Now you use the above root statement and repeat it like a mantra to allow yourself to sink to the deepest pain. Once you are conscious of what this feeling is, just stay in it...

(My root feeling was one of increasing annihilation)

5.) Allow this feeling to completely expand and unfold along its inner path.

...and keep repeating your mantra, and just stay immersed in this feeling, keep breathing evenly, staying open. Notice if there are areas in your body that are blocking this feeling and ask what needs to happen to open those places up. Welcome any visual images that show up to become part of this unfolding. You may have a very strong physical experience of this feeling in your body, especially if it is a form of anger. You may feel heat, certain muscles may be tightening up, or even shaking - that’s fine. But if you feel an urge to yell - don’t give into that, don’t disperse the energy! Keep it inside your body. You will experience the feeling peak and then slowly wane. Allow all of this to happen naturally, welcome all that is part of this unraveling.

(I felt and saw myself falling away, falling out of existence, as through a tube, disappearing out of sight)

ARRIVING IN SOURCE

6.) Allow yourself to be taken to where you need to be in Source.

When the painful emotion has finally disappeared on its own, allow yourself to become aware of where you have arrived, and what you are experiencing right now. "How does it feel right now?" To deepen this first state of source, ask yourself: “What is in the heart of this feeling, what is in the core of this experience?”

(At the end I became aware that there was another part of me that was actually watching myself falling away, and that the watching part was eternal)

7.) Find your new “source statement”.

Find the statement that expresses the knowledge about who you are in Source, in this place of expanded awareness.

(My source statement was: “I am eternal”)

8.) What is your image of liberation

You can stay in here as long as you like. You can even ask specific questions, and you may get some surprisingly clear answers. Write them down if they are significant. Also write down your new source statement, and any other insights you have had, changes you want to make, or actions you want to take.

(My image was one of that eternal part of me being connected to and part of a stream of light or fire, which in that moment had the name: ‘the eternal flame’)

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Once you are experienced in using the feeling cleanse, it will be a tool you you can use in the midst of a busy day, to clear out the debris left after the kind of remark someone made that really hurt you. It will bring you back into balance after someone behaved in that certain way that left you feeling painfully unnoticed and unimportant. It will help you discover and dissolve the root of the anger you feel when your kids still don’t do what you ask for the millionth time. Be creative! We don’t even yet know all the things this miraculous little process can do for us. So I invite you to explore and play with it full out. You can only win!

I would love to hear back from you about your experiences using the Feeling Cleanse. The more feedback I get, the more I can fine tune this process to serve its purpose. I have work sheets available to track your experience, as well as all eight process points collected onto a legal size sheet, both of which can be sent by e-mail. And I am happy to offer help over the phone, or answer questions by e-mail.

I will also create a structured form of teaching the Feeling Cleanse through individual classes and workshops, and I will keep you posted on that.



May the Source be with you...
... much love

Tomma

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TOMMA VON HAEFTEN 632 ALBANY TPK OLD CHATHAM NY 12136
OFFICE 518 794 0017 HOME 518 794 6224 EMAIL tomma@taconic.net
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