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The Courage to Feel
with Andrew Seubert, NCC, LPC
ClearPath Healing Arts Center
Mansfield, PA
www.clearpathhealingarts.com
email: seuberta@mac.com
David Whyte
Courage is the ability to
cultivate a relationship
with the unknown;
to create a form of friendship
with what lies around
the corner over the horizon--
with those things that have
not yet fully come into being.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorable.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The Guest House - continued
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Rumi
Goals for the Client
• Recognize the necessity of emotional
competence
• Understand why we have feelings
• Understand how they work - the “Triple
‘E’” concept
• Learn the twofold task regarding
feelings
• Learn the fourfold approach to
emotional competence
Goals for the Therapist
• Be able to go where you intend to
guide your clients
• Become even more of an expert
about your own emotional radar
Neurological Basis for Affect Management
• The first years of life critical for development of
neural networks necessary for affect management
• Mediated by mother’s voice, gaze, touch
• Importance of therapeutic relationship for
attachment repair
• the
Schore, Alan (1994). Affect regulation and
origin of self: the neurobiology of
emotional development
EMDR and the AIP Model
• EMDR - a biologically based form of
psychotherapy within a phase model of
trauma treatment
• Intolerable emotion stored dysfunctionally
• Goal is to bring feelings into contact with
adaptive skills, knowledge - and a
biopositive attitude
• Mostly addressed in the preparation phase
- sometimes “frontloaded
Why Do We Have Them?
• Our radar in the world
• Energizers
• Connectors
FEELINGS Repression or suppression
Based on
Release
Perceptions
Embodied
Based on
Thoughts
Emotional Rest
Energy
Based on
Beliefs Resolution
¥Be aware BLOCKS TO
¥Have the feeling ¥ awareness
¥Check out the message ¥ feelings
¥Decide to express, act or not ¥ action or interaction
How do they work?
• Feelings are radar reactions
• through the lens of perception, thought, or
belief
• that let us know whether things are okay or
not.
• They are embodied , emotional (on the move)
energy
• motivating and informing us and
• in need of release, resolution and reality
checking.
The Courage to Feel: Our twofold task
• Honor, listen to our emotional
system
• Use checks and balances to prevent
“emotional highjacking”and be
guided by our feelings when
appropriate
Four Steps to Emotional Competence
• BE AWARE of the feeling
• HAVE the feeling
• CHECK the message of the feeling
• DECIDE whether to act, express or
not
• A-B-C-D
Step One
• BE AWARE OF THE FEELING
• Focus on body sensations
• “Inside/outside” practice
• “Inside/inside” practice
• The Power and Peace of Awareness
at
www.clearpathhealingarts.com/pages/publications.php
Step Two
• HAVE THE FEELING - be present to feelings
while managing them
• Attend to, “hang out with”, stay with
• Metaphors: riding the waves, a boat in a storm,
a river with banks
• Use of breath and imagery to manage the
feelings
• L.I.D.S.
• Container
The L.I.D.S. Approach
• Locate the feeling (body sensation)
• Intensity of the feeling (now and
when done)
• Describe the feeling (size, shape,
color, temperature, motion)
• Send the feeling on the breath out
into the universe or to a pre-
established container
Tasks in Emotional Processing
AAMM
• Access
• Activate
• Move
• Manage
Step Three
• CHECK THE MESSAGE OF THE
FEELING
• Check the perceptions, thoughts and
beliefs that set the feeling in motion
(the “lens” concept)
Some messages
• Anger - may have been violated
• Guilt - may have violated
• Sadness - may have lost
• Fear - may be some danger
• Shame - may be untrue to myself; disgrace;
dishonor; “let’s us know we are finite” - John
Bradshaw
• Happiness, joy - things may be good (what a
concept!)
Step Three Practice
• Choose incident with anger or guilt
• Check the message: realistic or
false alarm
• Share with neighbor, check each
other’s perceptions
Constructive or Toxic?
• Feelings are always doing their job
• Their intensity must be managed
• Perceptions, thoughts and beliefs
must be reality checked
• The “piggyback” effect - still doing
their job. It’s about unfinished
business
That Nagging Feeling!
Is there a feeling that continues to revisit because
you’ve not taken care of business or because you
haven’t challenged a false belief?
Steps Skill A-B-C
• AWARENESS
• BREATHE
• CHECK/CHALLENGE
Sweet Sorrow
• The “pain of touch”
• The bitter-sweet experience
Affect Training - Basics
• Awareness continuum
• Mindful breathwork
• Diaphragmatic breathwork
• Energizing breathwork
Affect Training - 2
• “Visualization” - resource (safe) place, light
image
• Calm place in body - P. Levine
• Pendulating
• Resource development: memories, models,
mirrors, imaginings
• The Circle of _____________ (NLP)
• Anchoring homework: see appendix
• Grounding: “1-2-3-4-5” (visual, auditory,
tactile) cold water/ice
• Trance busters: posture, motion, breath, gaze
• Awareness check: Sequence-1
Anchoring body/breath, emotions,
thoughts, images, calm place
• Meditative breath
• Belly breathing
• Image: peaceful, calm, safe place (details)
• Pick spot to sit/breathe in atmosphere
• Notice body/emotional sensations. Breathe
into them
• Imagine a circle of ___________(quality,
desired state. Recall memories, mirrors,
models,imagined
Anchor Sequence-2
8. Breathe in response from those in circle
9. Step inside - breathe in atmosphere
10. Notice body and emotional sensations
11. Pick a cue word or phrase that helps you relate to
all of this
12. Take photo of entire scene, anchor (NLP) it in calm
place in body. Take in image, body sensations,
feelings, cue word
13. Breathe into that place in your body (possible EMs)
14. Practice upon waking and before going to sleep
Resource and Time
Travel
Affect Training - 3
• Practice switching emotional states
• Practice skills correctively on past events
(movie)
• Practice skills within a future template
• Process recent low disturbance events. Use
two SUDs (pre- and post-) “0 - 10”
• “Gate Theory” - Leeds and York
• Reinforce with EMs
Steps in Scripting a
Movie
• Describe the “high risk” situation
• Be aware of internal clues and cues
(thoughts, feelings, body sensations) that
signal a choice point
• Bring in resources and skills
• Imagine the action steps you wish to take
• Arrive at the desired outcome (happy
ending!) Ricky Greenwald, Psy.D.
Process Questions
• As you notice _________, what else do you notice
in________(your body, feelings,thoughts)?
• What do you notice happening in your body (rather than
“what are you feeling?”)?
• If you weren’t ________(blaming, asking “why?”, staying
angry, guilty, depressed, etc.), what might you be feeling
or experiencing?
• If you weren’t talking/narrating, what might you be
feeling or experiencing?
• After ______________, what happens next?
• What might you need to make that something happen?
The Two Levels of Now
• Content: what are we talking about?
• Process: what are the dynamics
underpinning that conversation?
• Attention to both levels at all times
The Courage to Feel
Anxiety
• Typical strategies: pizza or drown
• Awareness of early body signals (1)
• Manage the anxiety: banks of the
river; holding on in the storm (2)
• Check the reality of the fear (3)
• Is there a need to express, act or
not?
Guilt, Shame, Pride and Self- esteem
• Self-esteem contemplates what needs to be done and
says, “I can.”
• Pride - the emotional reward of achievement
(Nathaniel Brandon,The Six Pillars of Self-esteem). “I
did!”
• Guilt and shame differentiated
• Inverse ratio between toxic shame and self-esteem
• Must deal with toxic guilt and shame first
Courage to deal with toxic guilt and
shame
• Acknowledge and have the feeling (1 and 2)
• Check the reality of the message connected with
the feeling (3)
• Share the feeling with someone who will not
judge you (disabling the inner critic) [4]
• Be aware of how you compensate for or defend
against the feeling
• Act from the inside out. Integrity.
• Explore the source of shame and guilt-based
beliefs and do some housecleaning
Stuck Points in the Four
Steps
• Awareness clouded or disengaged (1)
• Defenses: avoiding,burying, cognizing,
masking, projecting, anxiety/depression to
prevent a feared affect storm (“I can’t handle
it!) [2]
• If the feeling is outside awareness, it can’t
deliver it’s message. Absence of clear
mind/questions (3)
• Fear of action and/or interaction (4)
The A.R.T. of Emotional Honesty
• Awareness
• Responsibility
• Truth-telling
• I like who I am with you...
Emotions at Work: Keeping the Air Clear
• Corporate fear of emotion: loss of
productivity
• Emotional honesty and integrity create a
collaborative and efficient culture
• Tasks of executives and managers: be
real, walk the talk, and tell the truth
• Tasks of employees: use the four steps,
check assumption, and be the person you
want to work with.
Change and Addictions
• Awareness of the moment of the urge or
the avoidance (1)
• Awareness of feelings and body
sensations (1)
• Being with the feelings (2)
• Check out the message (3)
• Decide - to be present or not. This
process provides a buffer between
urge/reaction and action (4)
Secondary Gain - Global Level
• Immovable anger
• Layering: shame, powerless and grief
• Relationships: two levels of grief
• Transgenerational hate: “If we do not hold one
another in the midst of our most excruciating
loss, we may well continue to murder each other
with our unresolved grief and shame that seek
another victim other than ourselves.” The
Courage to Feel
From Trauma to Ecstasy
The Case of Mistaken Identity
Being, Doing, then Having
T.S. Eliot
“We shall not cease from
exploration, and the end of
all our exploring will be to
arrive where we started and
know the place for the first
time.”
T
x False
fronts H
x
E
THE REAL x
SELF x Identitites
W
HOME x Frozen O
x images
R
x
Roles L
x
D
What color is your lens?
• Response to event leads to a STORY and
• Identities and roles, which
• Protect us from experiencing and feeling the
story’s effects.
• But the story remains intact and
• Colors one’s perceptual lens, which
• Reinforces the original response, which
• In turn reinforces the identities and roles.
• The courage to be aware (step 1), to feel (step
2) and to check the message (step 3) is the way
out.
Identity and Experience
The Real Self was lost and false identity formed
through experience.
Re-formation, re-discovery, re-gaining, re-
claiming, re-membering identity require new
experience
New Identity
Experienced
True identity was lost in a multi-dimensional
(thought, feeling, image, body sensation)
experience; so it must be regained.
The “desert experience” - leaving home
Good religion and good therapy. Both require
relationship, experience and a leap of faith.
Emotional expertise required
Who Do You BE?
• Being precedes doing
• Being precedes having
• Living from the inside out
• Overcoming the addiction to approval or
control (co-dependence)
• What is the Best in you?
• The role of emotional guidance in all of this
Essential Questions
• Who are you?
• What do you want?
• What are you most afraid of when
you think of what you want?
Who are you?
Leaving Home
Interview questions
Questions for everyone
#1: How did you experience or identify yourself
before treatment?
#2: What did you have to give up and what
feelings did you have to deal with to get free?
#3: How do you experience or identify yourself
now?
How do we get back home?
Listening to our guidance system
Tearing down and building up
Ego State Therapy (parts work - ED)
Resourcing/reparenting
Experiential /creative art therapy/body centeredness
Trauma treatment (EMDR, TFT, EFT) - trauma broadly
defined
Positive life experience; corrective experiences; passion
pursuits (Ira Sacker)
Born to Want: Follow Your Bliss
• What do you want?
• “Inner voice” - intuitive wants and desires
• Feelings that indicate alignment with Self: relief,
excitement, joy, happiness
• Differentiating from wants that do not align with
Self: love or fear, expansive or contracted,
boredom, greed, guilt
• Living from the inside out
• Wanting is the voice of the Self when it is
motivated by love, not fear
Born to Want - Tips
• Be aware of moments of choice: what to eat,
which friendship to pursue, which job to apply
for
• Listen for the emotional signals (1)
• Stay with the feeling, listening for what it is
telling you to do or not to do (2)
• Check motivation behind the attraction or
repulsion (3)
• Allow the emotional energy to mobilize and
support you into action (4)
Wanting and the Law of Attraction
• “What the bleep do we know?”
• No longer innocent bystanders as
life happens
• Metaphor: radio signal
• Alignment of intention and emotion
• Harville Hendrix: the Imago
Dawna Markova
I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days
to allow my living to open me,
To make me less afraid,
more accessible,
To loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live
So that which came to me as seed
Goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom
Goes on as fruit.
Spiritual Authenticity and Emotional
Honesty
• Spirituality and religion
differentiated
• Spiritual bypass
• Emotional honesty and spiritual
authenticity: “I AM a child of God!”
• Surviving the dark night and the
desert
• The thin veil and who I BE:
transpersonal and peak experience
Love after Love
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Derek Walcott
www.Infinitypublishing.com
