Advanced leadership skill: how to feel things fully

 I am just back from a week delivering a leadership program with rural primary producers. It was an amazing program with some seriously hard working farmers and industry leaders. They were a keen and engaged group, ready for anything - and we threw some tough challenges at them.

One of the most challenging aspects of the program that proved to have the most impact was the 'tell your story' session. Each participant shared the highlights - and lowlights - of their life journey so far.

It opened the flood gates.

Many shared the impact of the long, seemingly endless drought; year after year of no crops, no income, rising debt, and no end in sight. Some slipped unwittingly into depression; a deep dark haze that settles in like a damp fog that clings to you - erasing boundaries, blurring lines of self esteem, and slowly dragging your worldview into darkness.

And now, on the upswing of a few years of rain and good crops, optimism is re-surging.

And yet, the black, damp fog feels like it has just receded, and not gone.

Some were rattled by the mere thought of a possible return to the black foggy days - fearful of the darkness, the helplessness.

I had a few one-on-one chats with folks about what to do to manage these fears, and the black fog itself.

Here are my suggestions. They are advanced leadership skills, whether you face drought, depression, despair - or simply overwhelm in your day to day life.

1. Cough up the story to the bright light of day. By talking about your story, your experiences, and your feelings, you expose them to air and sunlight, and thereby dry them up. It takes the experience outside of our bodies and gives it some objective perspective. Even subjective perspective of others as you tell the story diffuses the edge and charge of the story.

2. Feel your feelings fully. Most want to avoid telling their story as they are afraid the emotion will well up and swamp them again. We think, "I don't want to feel bad, so if I just don't talk about, try not to think about it, then hopefully it will go away." This is the recipe of, 'what we resist, persists.' When you try and AVOID feelings, they only build and grow - like festering bacteria being swept into dark corners; it only grows more foul.

The only way to purge the overwhelm of bad feelings is to FEEL them fully - go ahead and delve right in.

You do this by paying detailed attention to:

• Where is the feeling in your body - tune in to the exact location of the most intense part of the emotion.
• What colour does the feeling have?
• If you could touch it, what it the texture? The temperature? The shape?
• Focus your inner eye on this feeling shape/colour, and just breathe into it, observing. Pretend you can pierce in to the most intense part of it. Take your imagination into the epicentre of that feeling and just sit in it, and breathe.

You may cry - that's great. According to my colleague's four year old nephew, "crying is when my feelings get too big for my body".  Perfect, right? Crying helps to release the energy of the feeling; when you hold back your tears, you are hanging on to surplus lower vibration energy until it boils over (usually at a very a convenient time).

Simply paying attention to where your feelings are in your body will help release the energy in your body.

3. Change the past. You can change your experience of past events by changing your story. If you take any negative event in your life - ANY negative event - you can change your chronic feelings responses to that event by changing your interpretation of that event. Try this by seeking to find something GOOD that happened as a result of that negative experience. This is the start of changing the past - looking at past events as the springboard to better outcomes for you.

4. Move beyond your thoughts. When you become aware that you have thoughts, that you are not your thoughts, that you are not even the thinker - that you are in fact beyond thought and thinker at your true essence - that you are essentially awareness, then you have  transcended the oscillations of mind and feelings. 

You can start to observe your thoughts and feelings without making them wrong or good, but simply acknowledging them. In this way, feelings and thoughts pass quickly - like clouds on drifting on a breeze. You become aware instead of your eternal self, the part of you that existed before you were born and will continue after you drop your physical casing; tis is the part of you that remains essentially unchanged from when you were an infant through to the adult you now. Your body's cells grow, reproduce, and die, but your essential self remains continuous. When you see the world through THAT prerpective, you can rise above the natural fluctuations of emotions, rather than trying to avoid or resist them.

5. Immerse yourself in nature. Sit under a tree, watch an ant, listen to the birds. Let your mind contemplate the abundance and chaos of the natural world and you will come close to knowing the Divine - the flow of life force that is beyond human contemplation, part of a greater expansion of which we play a role - small and enormous all at once. Let nature take you into the wonder.

That's a start! 

What are your key tips in dealing with overwhelming feelings? 

I would love to hear your suggestions - please share :)

Zoe

p.s. If you would like to develop more of these advanced leadership skills, please join me at my upcoming Deep Wisdom workshop in Canberra.