“Just when you think you've moved past an insecurity or pattern, it may suddenly reappear, perhaps triggered by stress, fatigue, or a particular interaction. This doesn't mean you've failed or lost ground — it's a normal part of the process…. Think of these moments as opportunities for deeper integration. When an old pattern resurfaces: Acknowledge it without judgment, ‘Ah, there's that familiar feeling of not being enough.’… Remind yourself that noticing the pattern is already progress …. Choose your response deliberately rather than reacting automatically.”j

Someone compared making progress to shoveling a pile of coal. They pointed out that we often are aware of the shovel full of coal we are lifting right now and we often look at the big pile of coal we have left. We often don’t realize how much of the pile has gone down or how much we have already shoveled.b Looking at how much we have left is overwhelming, recognizing the progress we have made (no matter how small) or the things that have improved is energizing and rewarding.

The ego likes to be in control and likes the familiar. It will resist any change, no matter how beneficial it is going to be.b  Remember your mind thinks it is protecting you. Think of any protector. The harder you come at it, the more it feels the need to defend and protect. Instead of attacking and trying to fix your mind, you could ask “what are you protecting?” or “what do you need to feel safe enough to reveal what you are protecting?”  Sometimes when we say “I’m curious what you might be feeling afraid of?” it helps us or others not feel threatened. We could even state the observation that “it seems like there is a wall up right now or I noticed you are resisting _____, I was just curious what you need to feel safe?”

We have talked many times about how suppressing feelings leads to problems. We have also seen and will see many different options for releasing and addressing emotions. One of the simplest is just the act of expressing the emotion.a

Hal Elrod has what he calls the Five-Minute Rule. He suggests that whenever something goes wrong you just set your timer for five minutes. You then have five minutes to whine, cry, moan, complain, punch a pillow, or whatever. You give yourself five minutes to experience and express any emotion you want, anyway you want (within reason) and then you can move on.  

Someone else mentioned you can tell yourself or someone, “I was really hurt when….”.   There is great power when one feels heard or understood. As long as you feel that no one understands or no one knows then you can’t let it go. Marisa Peer points out that many people say, “I can’t stand up to my boss” or “I can’t tell my mom ______.” She argues that to resolve these issues you have to be aware of them, accept them, and then articulate them. Often for many reasons, you really can’t say somethings to some people – like your boss or your parents. She suggests in those situations for you to go somewhere safe and say what you felt or you can say “I resent you for ____.”e (you can just say it to no one or imagine they are there and you are really talking to them.)  Remember expressing emotions is not the same as acting on them.e Just because you are frustrated with your kids and express that frustration in a healthy way does not make you a bad mom.  

We have a lot of motions from our past that we have never dealt with. A lot of these techniques teach us how to deal with those. We are going to continue to have a lot of emotions come up throughout the rest of our lives. We can sweep those under the rug so that they can fester and we will have to deal with them sometime in the future or we can process them as they come up. Remember emotions are meant to be felt and they are often there to tell you something. If you are feeling something, an easy thing you can do is just say, “today I am feeling ____.”e Often that is all it takes. You don’t have to do a lot of explaining, just admit that you are feeling ____. You can even say, “It may seem silly or irrational, but right now I am feeling ____.” It is when you deny it or rationalize it or try to justify it that it starts to feel threatened and starts to hide. “Feel your feeling until it no longer needs to be felt.”e  

 Closely related to the technique of changing our self-talk, is the power of identity. When we identify ourselves as a night owl or not a morning person, it makes it that much harder for us to wake up for school in the morning. Many smokers have finally been able to quit smoking when they started identifying themselves as non-smokers or former smokers. How many thoughts and emotions are tied to the identity of someone who considers themselves to be a shy person?

If we label ourselves as unworthy or not good enough then it can really affect our life.e For example, if you feel you are not good enough then you start dating someone. You are going to have a lot of conflicting emotions to deal with. You may wonder “I am not that good so why are you with me, what’s wrong with you?” Maybe you will think, “I don’t know how I fooled him, but once he realizes the real me he will be disgusted and dump me.” You may even go ahead and dump him just so he doesn’t have the chance to find out the real you. “Your self-doubts, if you have them, aren’t about you at all, but about a misconception of yourself, a false self-image that you can be rid of.”m

Changing our identity can have great power in changing our habits, thoughts, and actions. This is more than just saying “I want to be confident.” “Remember your brain doesn't care what you hope to do, it cares what you believe you are.”k This is more of that neuroplasticity that changes your brain how you want it to be changed. “The brain treats identity as something sacred and non-negotiable. So when a behavior is tied to your identity and not just a temporary desire, your nervous system fights harder to maintain it…  so instead of saying ‘I will try to be productive today’ say ‘you are the kind of person who handles hard things and doesn't make excuses.’ Doing this, the brain will begin to match behavior to identity automatically”k Maybe that was how you used to be, but not anymore. Remember what you focus on grows, so if you look for proof that you are still clumsy or shy or whatever you will find it. However, if you look for reasons why that is no longer true you will find and make more evidence for that as well.e

We do have to be careful with labels though – even good labels. This is where a lot of our limiting beliefs actually started. When you were a child, your parents labeled you as “the smart one” or the “responsible one” or the “messy one” and chances are that is still partly dictating some of your habits today. Another problem with labels is the implications that go with it. So if we label someone as beautiful and say that is why we love them, sometimes what they hear is that if they weren’t beautiful then we wouldn’t love them.e Labels are a powerful identity maker. Identity then dictates a lot of our actions.

“Our insecurities and self-defeating beliefs don't emerge from nowhere. They're shaped by a lifetime of experiences, messages, and conditioning from various sources.”n One good way to resolve limiting beliefs is to take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left side of the piece of paper you will list all the limiting beliefs you have about a particular subject (money, your worth, your looks, your personality, etc). Once you have everything listed that you would like, now you get to question all of them. Questioning a belief is the first step into not believing it.e Ask if it is true, where you learned this belief, why you still have this belief, how this is benefiting you, how this is hurting you, how would you feel if someone said this to your best friend or brother or sister, etc. Once you have analyzed it, now write down the actual truth and maybe some supporting details on the right side of the paper. Now rip the paper down the line and throw away the falsehoods. Place the truths where you will see them often. Repeat them to yourself often. If you ever start to think one of those limiting beliefs you can stop yourself and say “that is not true, actually …. (state the truth you found).”  you can always choose your beliefs and you really should constantly check why do I even believe that is it even true because so often it's not true at all it's just something you've been taught or you've just gone along with it e

Another thing we have to be careful with is owning our problems. When we say “my migraine ….” Or “my anxiety ….” or whatever it sounds like it is ours. Like it belongs to us. Our subconscious rightly is going to want to keep or defend something that is ours. It just doesn’t differentiate between good or bad. Maybe try to get in the habit of saying “I am starting to feel a migraine.” Or “I am starting to feel some anxiety.” If you don’t own it and it doesn’t belong to you, it will be easier for your mind to let it go.e

This is a good way to see if your subconscious mind is controlling some of your symptoms or not. (Although, just because you can’t get this technique to work doesn’t mean that your symptoms aren’t coming from trapped emotions or beliefs.) What you can do is get in a comfortable position or if there is a better position for your particular trigger you can do that. All you do is close your eyes and imagine that you are performing whatever normally triggers your symptoms. So if you have pain bending over you can stand up and close your eyes and really picture yourself bending over. The more vivid you can make it, the better it works. Remember the subconscious can’t tell the difference between reality and imagination.

See what happens in your body. Do you get some of your symptoms? Does it make you anxious or trigger some other emotion? Does nothing happen? There isn’t a right or wrong, you are just observing what response you get. If you do get some symptoms or emotions, you can imagine doing it with ease and joy. If you can do it with less symptoms, you can keep working on it until you can visualize doing the whole task with no problems.j   

Some people like to think of the worst possible scenario and see what feelings come up and process them. They know it is not real and can’t hurt them so this allows them to address their fear, anxiety, and other emotions without the physical pain or symptoms.b After traumatic experiences, many people will have triggers that remind them of the bad experience. If a certain smell or touch or sound reminds you of that experience it often triggers the body to go into protection mode. This can be very troublesome especially if it interferes with your relationships. One thing that may help is instead of focusing on what is similar in those experiences, focus on what is different.e Yes maybe it is the same song that is playing, but are the smells the same, are the people you are with the same, are you the same age, etc.

Marisa Peer sometimes encourages her patients to try and make the sensation stronger. So for example, one lady came on the stage and her knees were shaking pretty strongly. Marisa had her try and make them shake more. By realizing they can make the sensation stronger, they often also realize that they can control the sensation. This often helps them decrease the sensation quite a bit as a result.e Regaining that sense of being able to control at least some of the sensation helps them not be so scared. Decreased fear leads to a decreased stress response in the body and mind.

Most addictions are just an unhealthy attempt to fill an unmet need. Most of us have some sort of hole or emptiness inside of us that we are trying to fill. This often comes from unmet needs we had as a child.e We then look to something like drugs, food, work, awards to fill this need but at best it only makes us feel better temporarily and then we need more to get that same temporary satisfaction. We may have just given up hope that it will be met and become depressed. We may be searching for someone else to fill this need for us but as this is not possible, they will always let us down. It is not until we realize that it is our job to find and fix our unmet needs that we can finally move on.e Ironically, one person found, “The more I’ve become consumed with how my own needs aren’t being met, the larger those needs have become, until I think I have numbed myself to the needs of others.”I Regarding our addictions or anything, we give our power to objects. We need to remember that we can give ourself those feelings we are searching for without that object we are depending on.e

How do we know what our unmet needs are? There are many options and many of the other techniques in this area will also help. Michelle Martinez had some good insights. She said, “Think of this step as a treasure hunt, where the map to your deepest desire is hidden within the very insecurities that have been holding you back. Focusing on negative beliefs when what you want is more pleasure and connection may seem counterintuitive, but there's profound wisdom in this approach.” She continued, “That's where our insecurities become surprisingly helpful. Usually, what you deeply want to feel is the flip side of what you're afraid of. If you're scared of rejection, you probably crave acceptance. If you worry you're not attractive enough, you're likely longing to feel desirable. Your fears are actually pointing you straight toward what you truly want. You may be thinking: “I don’t really have any insecurities or hangups.” But ask yourself: Have you ever been envious of someone else’s life or relationship? Envy can be a very powerful indicator that there’s something we desire, but believe we can’t have… Every complaint is a masked desire.”n

Here is another thing to consider, “Don’t look for answers, instead, let go of the feelings behind the question……Let’s say that we disagree with our mate on what movie to see. We look to see what the feeling is behind the problem….let’s say we find the feeling of anger and resentment….let go of wanting to modify that feeling, and we just let it be there. …Look to see what the underlying feeling is that produced the question in the first place. Once that feeling is let go, the answer will present itself automatically.

It can be useful to sit down with pencil and paper and write down the heading…delineate its real meaning in the various avenues of life. Then write down the feelings that are associated in each area.

Let’s say that behind the desire for money we discover that one of our goals is to be respected and valued. In that discovery, we have just found out that it isn’t money itself that we are interested in; rather, it is our self-respect and a feeling of inner worth. We see that money was just a tool to achieve something else.”b

Here are two examples showing how these unmet needs can be manifest as an unrelated physical symptom and you won’t be able to fix the physical symptom until you figure out the true cause. These are from Marisa Peer.e

“I worked with a little kid who had eczema, and I said, ‘Darling, I know this is a crazy question, but if the eczema had a job, what would it be?’ And he said, ‘Well, when I stand like that and Mommy puts the wet bandage on my eczema,’ he called it his sensible skin. He couldn't say sensitive. He said, ‘When she puts the bandage on my sensible skin, she doesn't put any cream on that baby.’ And there it was, he told his mind ‘I want that. I want massage.’ like the mother did to the baby.”

“I worked with another kid who had migraines at six. I said, ‘I know this is very unusual, but if the migraine was your friend, I know that's crazy, isn't it?, but if he wanted to help you,’ He went, ‘Well, when I get migraines, Mommy and Daddy stop shouting. They turn off the light and we sit in the dark until it goes away.’ So, he'd obviously said to his mind, ‘I wish I could stop my parents fighting.’ And the mind goes, ‘Let me come up with a solution.’ It may be crazy, it may be harmful, but the mind doesn't know it says, ‘Just let me have a solution.’ It doesn't think ‘Is it good, bad, helpful, unhelpful, beneficial?’ It's just a solution.”

David Hawkins’ whole technique is about letting go of these emotions. He has written multiple books on the subject which have helped many people. Here is a summary of the basic technique. “Letting go involves being aware of a feeling, letting it come up, staying with it, and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about it. It means simply to let the feeling be there and to focus on letting out the energy behind it. The first step is to allow yourself to have the feeling without resisting it, venting it, fearing it, condemning it, or moralizing about it. It means to drop judgement and to see that it is just a feeling. The technique is to be with the feeling and surrender all efforts to modify it in any way. Let go of wanting to resist the feeling. It is resistance that keeps the feeling going. A feeling that is not resisted will disappear as the energy behind it dissipates. When letting go, ignore all thoughts. Focus on the feeling itself, not on the thoughts. Thoughts are endless and self-reinforcing, and they only breed more thoughts. Thoughts are merely rationalizations of the mind to try and explain the presence of the feeling.”b

He also mentioned that the emotion can be reduced in intensity by sharing the feeling with close friends or mentors. You can also let go of small aspects of the situation rather than the overall situation. He gave the example of a man being fired. He suggested it was a lot to take in all at once, but he could let go of eating lunch in the same spot, parking in the same spot, the attachment to his desk,etc.b

“We can tell if we are really surrendered when we feel ok either way; it’s ok with us if it happens and it’s ok with us if it doesn’t.”b

With most improvements in life, a big part of what we have to do is stop doing things that are holding us back or harming us. The other part is to start doing or do more of what is helping us. The same is true with feelings. We need to process and stop accepting the negative thoughts feelings but also have to learn to accept and enjoy the positive ones.b Part of the reason we have trouble with this is because we have bombarded ourselves with so much negative self-talk that it has become familiar and praise has become unfamiliar. We have already mentioned that the mind likes and craves the familiar whether it is good or bad.

You know how it goes, if someone gives you a compliment you always have a way to reject it. “You look beautiful in that dress” is met with “I don’t like how it makes my hips stick out” or “it doesn’t fit me like it used to.” “Your cookies were amazing” is met with “I cooked them a little too long and they were harder than I like.” Marisa Peer recommends just telling yourself “I will make this familiar” when good things are happening or you are getting praised.e Instead of focusing on what is wrong, see if you can find where you agree that they are right. Maybe the cookies were a little too hard, but they still tasted delicious or were decorated nicely. Maybe the dress does hug your hips tight, but the color brings out your eyes. Practice giving yourself more compliments and treating yourself like your best friend.     

One of the problems with being so connected today through news and all of the social platforms is that we are bombarded non-stop with opinions. I don’t think that we recognize first of all that these are only opinions and I don’t think we realize how much we let these opinions control us. “If someone tells us that they eat the way they eat because they enjoy it, there is nothing much we can say about it, is there?”b “What if they say they have the best way to eat? Well now that implies that their way is better than ours. If we let it, this can then make us feel a little self conscious about the way we eat or maybe we get defensive and have to defend our way of eating.” (Sounds kind of silly, but watch two people talking about politics and you will see the same dynamic.)

 It doesn’t have to be this way. One thing that really helps is to realize that it is just their opinion – no matter how they present it. Since it is just an opinion, it may or may not be true. It is not just other people’s opinions that cause us trouble. We also get in trouble when we have strong opinions. One person pointed out, “If we look back on our life, we will see that every mistake we ever made was based on an opinion.”b If we recognize that ours is just AN opinion instead of talking about MY opinion it helps us not be so possessive or defensive. Most of the time we feel so strongly about our opinion we feel obligated to share it. Unfortunately the harder we try to pull people towards our opinion, usually the harder they resist. We often make more progress with others when we quit pulling so hard – kind of like those Chinese finger traps.

Ironically, the more certain you are that you are right, the more likely you will be mistaken because you blind yourself to anything that doesn’t support your theory.i If you are not wrong, then you actually have nothing to fear about being willing to consider how you might be mistaken or may not know everything. My guess is that you are at least partly right. Maybe it would be wise to get in the habit of asking yourself questions like “Where am I right and where might I be wrong?” or “What am I missing or don’t know.”