The Emotional First Aid Kit

Emotional First Aid - 7 Simple Steps to Well Being!

When I was about 8 years old, my older brother was chasing me around our house (probably because I’d done something to tee him off). My Dad was remodeling, and at full speed, I slipped, fell against the edge of a sheet metal heater grate and cut a jagged slash across my lower back. I still have a scar today from the stitches the local doctor put in many hours later.

Since we lived in the country, had no adults at home, and no car, my older sisters applied first aid – they had me lay on my stomach and the filled the jagged gash with baking flour to stop the bleeding! The doctor wasn’t happy hours later when he had to clean out congealed flour from the gash before stitching it up! I still have a nifty scar that people ask about at the beach or in the locker room.

While that application of first aid wasn’t exactly scientific, most of us have learned the basics of applying physical first aid – applying a bandage to a cut, ice to a sprain, an analgesic to a burn or just taking an aspirin for a headache.

Just as we have learned first aid, we’ve learned personal hygiene – brushing our teeth, taking a bath, wearing clean clothes.’

But did anyone ever teach you Emotional First Aid or Emotional Hygiene? …Me either.

It’s assumed we’ll figure that out, or learn it somewhere else I guess. But emotional bruises or cuts sometimes hurt more than physical injuries, and we’re expected to just “deal with it”. Emotional “debris” is collected as we go through life and we’re seldom taught how to “brush it away” or “clean it up” – we’re expected to just “deal with it”.

Have you ever watched a very young child fall down and then look around to see if there’s any reason to be upset? When children think no one is watching them, in an instant they just let go, brush themselves off and act like nothing has happened. The same child in a similar situation on seeing the opportunity to get attention may burst

into tears and run to the arms of a parent. Or have you ever watched a young child get furious with a playmate or a parent, and even say something like “I hate you and I will never speak to you again,” and then just a few minutes later the child feels and acts as nothing at all has happened?

What if, just like brushing your teeth, or taking a bath, or letting go of anger or upset as a child does, there was a simple technique (or a few techniques) that would rid us of those emotional cuts, bruises, sprains or bumps and allow us to clean up the debris they leave?

Dr. Guy Winch, Phycologist and Author, tells the story of growing up with an identical twin who was also an incredibly loving brother. When Dr. Winch moved to New York City to get a doctorate in psychology he and his twin were separated for the first time in their lives, and the separation was brutal for both.

He tells the story of their separation on the first birthday that they ever spent apart and the impact that loneliness had on him and on his brother, and has on us as individuals. It distorts our perceptions, scrambles our thinking, and makes us believe that those around us care much less than they actually do.

Dr. Winch describes how we apply physical first aid automatically. We all know how to maintain our physical health and how to practice dental hygiene. We’ve known since we were 5 years old.

What do we know about maintaining our psychological health?

Almost nothing, according to Dr. Winch.

Psychological injuries occur even more often than physical. Injuries like failure, rejection, loneliness or loss of a loved one that can get worse with time, and if we ignore them can impact on lives in dramatic ways.

On his blog http://ideas.ted.com/7-ways-to-practice-emotional-first-aid/ he lists 7 ways to practice emotional first aid; v Pay attention to emotional pain – recognize it when it happens and work to treat it before it feels all-encompassing.

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v Redirect your gut reaction when you fail v Monitor and protect your self-esteem - when you feel like putting yourself down take a moment to be Compassionate to yourself. v When negative thoughts are taking over, disrupt them with positive distraction. v Find the meaning in loss. v Don’t let excessive guilt linger. v Learn what treatments for emotional wounds work for you.

Dr. Winch’s 7 methods will help relieve emotional pain.

But how do we practice them?

Dr. David Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., in a series of books including Healing and Recovery, teaches a simple technique for emotional, mental and spiritual first aid. As he explains, the body is experienced, through the senses, in the mind. Mind does not experience itself but is experienced in a greater energy field called consciousness.

Consciousness can be imagined as an energy field in which emotions can be related to their relative energies. Dr. Hawkins has developed his own logarithmic scale (see Power versus Force; Dr. David Hawkins. M.D., PhD.) or “Map of Consciousness.”

At the bottom of his scale one finds; • Shame. Characterized by humiliation, as in “hanging your head in shame”.

Shame is destructive to health and leads to cruelty toward self and others.

Shame is a state of negativity usually experienced in the form of self-hatred.

• Guilt. Guilt leads to self rejection, masochism, remorse, “feeling bad”, “it’s all my fault”, and self sabotage.

• Apathy. Characterized by hopelessness, being a “drain” on others, being immobilized, and the feelings; “I can’t” and “who cares”.

• Grief. In grief we find helplessness and despair, loss, regret, and the feeling “if only I had…”. Depression. Sadness. Mournful, as in “I can’t go on.”

• Fear. The energy of fear sees “danger,” everywhere. It is avoidant, defensive, preoccupied with security, possessive of others, jealous, restless, anxious, and vigilant • Desire. Desire is “wanting”. We express it as wanting and craving and desire 3

has a lot of power. It can actually become an obsession or compulsion, even an addiction. Desiringness can lead to a view of the world as very frustrating, because desire does not cure itself by getting; it simply leads to additional wantingness.

• Anger. Anger overcomes the source of fear by force, threats, and attack. It is irritable, explosive, bitter, volatile, and resentful. It likes to “get even”.

• Pride. The focus of pride is desire for recognition, specialness, and perfectionism. It is a feeling of “better than…” And superiority. “My way is the best way.” Pride is preoccupied with status, ownership, having, symbols, and labels which can put one in a defensive position. Pride can be useful, as the Marine Corps has discovered, to use its energy to move on through to the higher energy field of courage.

When we experience shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, wanting or anger our almost automatic response is one of either;

Suppression, (repression) Expression, or Evasion.

We either “cram” down the energy of the emotion or allow it to burst out in a show of negative energy. Either way is non-productive. We suppress the feeling and replace it with something else that distracts us from it, such as television, meaningless chatter, food, alcohol or drugs. If we do let the emotion out in the form of an expression, it can be an angry outburst, a “better than you” response, a childish “I want”, or self-defeating, guilty or apathetic body language or words. Any of those actions are destructive to relationships, in business, family or damaging to those in the “line of fire”.

There is an easier and more effective way!

In his book Letting Go Dr. David Hawkins, M.D, Ph.D. describes the technique of Letting Go in the following way.

“Letting go involves being aware of the 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, venting it, fearing it, condemning it, or moralizing about it. It means to drop judgment 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. When you give up resisting or trying to modify the feeling, it will shift to the next feeling and be accompanied by a lighter sensation. A feeling that is not resisted will disappear as the energy behind it dissipates.

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When letting go ignore all thoughts. Focus on the feeling itself, not the thoughts. Thoughts are merely rationalizations of the mind to try and explain the presence of the feeling. The real reason for the feeling is the accumulated pressure (suppressed or repressed) behind the feeling that is forcing it to come up at the moment. The thoughts or external events are only an excuse made up by the mind.”

Applying The Releasing Process means to Welcome or Allow the emotion.

In The Sedona Method, welcoming and allowing is taught in five easy steps. Ask yourself; What is your now feeling about this topic?

(Whatever thought, topic, incident or experience that caused the emotion to come up in the first place) Could you welcome the feeling? Could you just allow it to come up and to be there now? You don’t have to give it a name or a label – Can you just welcome the feeling?

Could you let it go? Or could you just let it be there, without debating or analyzing it? Answer as best you can. If the answer is “yes”, then let it go. If the answer is “No”, then just let the feeling be there, without fighting it or replacing it; welcome it.

Would you let it go? Don’t debate the question with yourself. Just ask would I rather have the feeling, or would I rather be free?

When? Whether the answer is yes or no, this is an invitation to let the feeling go – a decision you can make anytime.

How do you know when you need to practice Emotional First Aid? You know when you realize you’re experience any of the negative emotions – shame, guilt, apathy, fear, wanting, anger or superiority – often it comes up in a physical feeling – queasiness in the stomach, a feeling of weakness or loss of strength, a feeling you can’t “deal with this situation” – an urge to “self-medicate” with the drug or alcohol of choice. That’s the time to stop, allow the feeling, welcome it and let it run its course.

What can you expect when you practice Letting Go? You’ll find an “easing” feeling – almost as though the air is slowly being let out of an over inflated balloon. An experience of lightness, freedom or ease will replace the “pressure” of the negative emotion. A sense of peace will replace the stress or pressure of the emotion.

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Practicing emotional first aid and allowing yourself to release the negative emotions allows you to experience the positive emotions • Courage. Courage is the willingness to tell the truth. Courage says “I can do”. It is determined, excited about life, productive, independent, and self empowered. From the level of courage the world appears to be full of opportunity, interesting, challenging and a place to grow and experience personal growth. From this level one has the strength to look at facts and admit the truth.

• Neutrality. Neutrality is not a political position. It is a way of life that is comfortable, pragmatic, and relatively free of emotionality. It is free of rigid positions, nonjudgmental and noncompetitive. It is a level of energy where we have let go of resistance and can be free and unattached. We can let go of the outcome. The world is okay and there is freedom to grow, become conscious and begin to look into oneself the nature of human experience.

• Willingness. This is the power of intention. At this level, positive intention becomes operative putting behind us differences and attachments and we began to experience this as a friendly world. Willingness opens up opportunities. It is friendly, helpful, wants to assist and seeks to be of service • Acceptance. Acceptance is easy-going laid-back, is, flexible, inclusive and free of inner resistance. At a level of acceptance a person feels adequate, confident and capable. We begin to re-own our own power. Moving into acceptance is recognizing the reality that you are the source of your own happiness in your own life; the realization that happiness lies within you and not outside of you or through “getting”. At the level of acceptance there is the conviction of self-sufficiency and the capacity to create something that is satisfying. You are no longer limited by powerlessness or victimhood. There is the power to create your own life for yourself. At the level of acceptance there is openness to reason and rationality as guiding principles of life rather than emotions.

Thinking gains importance over feeling. The level of acceptance and reason is the basis of our modern society of education, information and the utilization of intelligence.

• Reason. Reason differentiates humans from the animal. There is the ability to see things in the abstract, to conceptualize the objective, and to make rapid and correct decisions. Science, philosophy, medicine and logic are expressions of this level. Reason has enormous utility for problem solving.

• Love. The level of love is where true happiness is experienced. There is the understanding that more getting, whether money, sex, power, position, does not bring happiness. It does bring pleasure and it does bring convenience but only momentary fulfillment. Love is an energy field that nurtures and 6

supports life. Out of it come forgiveness and the beginning of revelations into the truth of life. At this level there is a release of endorphins which is the correlation of love on the physical level within the brain chemistry. Forgivingness becomes automatic; the capacity and the desire to understand become foremost. This is a different energy field from that usually called love by the world, which is most often attachment and emotionalized sentimentality.

Love is non-judgmental.

• Joy. Joy is love that is unconditional and unchanging, despite circumstances and actions of others. The world is illuminated by exquisite beauty which is seen in all things. The perfection of creation is self-evident. There is closeness to unity; to discovery of self; compassion for all; enormous patience; the feeling that one is with others and concern for their happiness. A sense of self completion and self-sufficiency prevail.

7 things you can do to apply emotional first aid when it’s needed; Ø Be aware of what you are thinking and the emotions that accompany the thought. Ø Recognize when the emotion is a negative emotion of shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, wanting or desire, anger, or superiority and pride. Ø When the emotion is negative, immediately and on the spot process it. Even if you are in an argument, a business meeting, driving on the interstate highway, the check-out line at the supermarket, or flying an airplane! Ø Welcome the feeling and ignore the thoughts that accompany it. Ø Allow the feeling to be there without resisting or condemning. Ø Let go of reacting to having the feelings in the first place. Let go of the fear or the guilt that you have about the feeling first, and then get into the feeling itself. Ø Practice and learn. Start applying the emotional first aid technique of releasing the next time you experience any of the negative emotions. You’ll find that it works immediately and you’ll want to learn more about. Check out our resource list below.

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Emotional first aid applied as frequently as necessary will free you of obstructions to courage, willingness, self-acceptance, reason, love and joy.

Further Resources to Explore: Letting Go – The Pathway of Surrender – David R Hawkins M.D., Ph.D. Power versus Force - David R Hawkins M.D., Ph.D. Veritas Publishing – www.veritas.com The Sedona Method – Hale Dwoskin www.sedona.com TedTalk– Emotional First Aid – Dr. Guy Winch http://ideas.ted.com/7-ways-to-practice-emotional-first-aid / Credits.

The description of the emotional levels of shame, guilt, apathy, grief, desire, fear, anger, pride, courage, willingness, acceptance, love and joy are taken directly from the work of Dr. David Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. and his related Map of Consciousness, as described in detail in his many published works.

The releasing or Letting Go technique from Hale Dwoskin is taken from his book “The Sedona Method”.

The 7 ways to practice emotional first aid are from the blog of Dr. Guy Winch.

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