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Emo-Exposure Integrator
EMO EXPOSURE-INTEGRATOR.
***Warning: Folks with a history of mental illness, trauma, or panic are urged not to use this process without a therapist. If you decide to do this process you will agree to absolve the webmaster, his server, Steve Mensing, or Emoclear.com of any responsibility for the application or misapplication of this process. Within any mental or emotional process there is always the possibility that someone could experience some discomfort. So proceed with this warning.***
(c) Steve Mensing
The Emo Exposure-Integrator is a feelings integrator-desensitizer for both newbies and advanced folks too. The Emo Exposure-Integrator focuses on feeling an emotion, feeling, or physical sensation and feeling it to full integration-desensitization. It uses breathing into the emotional target to supress resistance and develop disidentification. The Emo Exposure-Integrator utilizes both lower forehead/eyebrow palming, heartbeat palming, and tongue relaxation to achieve comfort, suppress emotional resistance, and advance integration-desensitization.
(c) Steve Mensing
EMO EXPOSURE INTEGRATOR
Here are the steps to the Emo Exposure-Integrator:
(1) LAY A PALM OVER YOUR LOWER FOREHEAD/EYEBROWS & LAY YOUR OTHER PALM OVER YOUR HEARTBEAT REGION. FILL YOUR MOUTH WITH SALIVA SO YOUR TONGUE IS SURROUNDED/LET YOUR TONGUE RELAX: Gently lay your palm and fingers across your lower forehead and eyebrows, with the karate base of your hand touching the bridge of your nose. Your fingers will point toward your ears. Lay your other palm gently on your heartbeat region. Fill your mouth with saliva so your tongue is surrounded. Let your tongue gently relax. (This quiets resistance and develops comfort.)
(2) BRING ALL YOUR ATTENTION TO AN EMOTION/FEELING/PHYSICAL SENSATION AND COMPLETELY FEEL IT: Bring all your attention to an emotion/feeling/physical sensation and completely feel it. Let it intensify. Fully feel that emotion, feeling, or physical sensation, and allow it to be there without trying to get rid of it or keep it. Notice it's sensations. [If you want to intensify the feeling, briefly recall events where it appeared. See those events. Hear those events. Feel those events. Smell and taste those events.] Anytime you think of something instead of feeling your feeling, simply bring your attention back to the feeling. The feeling will grow in intensity as you allow it to be there with a sense of openness and welcome. No need to question whether the process is being done correctly. Just feeling it is good enough. No forcing a feeling or demanding it to be there. (This may demonstrate the intention of getting rid of a feeling which creates resistance). Just allow the feeling to be there and fully feel it. Let the feeling permeate all your attention. Continue until the feeling is as intense as it can get. Go to step (3)
**ATTENTION: Your feeling (Emotion/sensation) may integrate spontaneously during any of the steps. This isn't a problem. You'll notice your feeling (Emotion/sensation) no longer has any emotional charge (Loses it's intensity). As you gain practice you'll likely experience this spontanaous integration taking place as a subtle felt shift in your body.**
(3) BREATHE INTO THE EMOTION AND NOTICE IT'S EDGES. EXPLORE THE EMOTION AND FEEL IT INTO ACCEPTANCE: Breathe into the emotion and notice it's outermost edges. Explore the emotion with your awareness and feel it throughly to its edges. Notice where it's most intense and where the intensity dies out at the edges. Continue to breathe into emotion/feeling/physical sensation and experience it while a sense of tranquil detachment begins to grow. Some of us may experience a subtle separation from their emotion/feeling/physical sensation as they observe it and it's edges (Where the emotion/feeling/physical sensation begins to fade out). You may feel as if you are outside the emotion/feeling/physical sensation and are observing it. If you don't experience the subtle separation, no problem. Your emotion/feeling/physical sensation will integrate-desensitize with steady experiencing. Take as long as you need and keep breathing into or toward the emotional target area. No rush. The object is to allow the emotion/feeling/physical sensation to be there. It will naturally lose intensity with steady experiencing and allowing it to be there. When it's integrated-desensitized it will no longer draw your attention. The emotional target will be acceptable or okay. The intensity will have drained from it. You're more comfortable with having this feeling.
During this final step you may get an intuitive sense about any issues connected with your emotion/feeling/physical sensation. You may get a sense of "what to do" or some other emotional insight.
************************** BASIC STEPS OF THE EMO EXPOSURE-INTEGRATOR:
(1) LAY A PALM OVER YOUR LOWER FOREHEAD/EYEBROWS & LAY YOUR OTHER PALM OVER YOUR HEARTBEAT REGION. FILL YOUR MOUTH WITH SALIVA SO YOUR TONGUE IS SURROUNDED/LET YOUR TONGUE RELAX.
(2) BRING ALL YOUR ATTENTION TO AN EMOTION/FEELING/PHYSICAL SENSATION AND COMPLETELY FEEL IT.
(3) BREATHE INTO THE EMOTION AND NOTICE IT'S EDGES. EXPLORE THE EMOTION AND FEEL IT INTO ACCEPTANCE.
************************** TIPS ON THE EMO EXPOSURE-INTEGRATOR.
*Make sure you're well hydrated and alert prior to using this process.
*Prior to using the Emo Exposure-Integrator scan your body for any emotions/feelings/physical sensations that need of your attention. You might ask: "Are there any emotions/feelings/physical sensations that require my attention?" The one vying most for your attention will be your first target.
*Some folks like to welcome their emotional target with a "Hi" or "Hello". This may lead to less emotional resistance at the start of processing.
*Know that exposure-desensitization is a research validated approach to dehabituating intense and enduring emotions. There is much research in support of exposure methods.
*Relax your tongue every so often during the processing.
Relax your tongue as you would relax your body. You may notice which side of your tongue is more relaxed or you may make it tense, then relax it. You can also submerge your tongue in warm saliva and allow it to relax.
*As you grow more experienced with the Emo Exposure-Integrator you may want to notice your heartbeat and the emotion/feeling/physical sensation in the same field of awareness. This can reduce emotional resistance and create more comfort during processing.
*Be patient with the process--don't rush. Steady observation integrates-desensitizes emotional stuckness. With practice the process speeds up. Practice each step of the process separately before you put them together.
As you progress in your experience with the Emo Exposure-Integrator you may wish to ask your heartbeat the following questions to access your emotional intuition:
*What can you tell me about me, others, the world around me?
*What do I need to do here?
*What do you want for me?
*Is there anything else I better know?
Just await the murky knowing. If you translate this murky knowing into sentences, you can jot them down on paper. But just getting the murkey knowing is enough. That your unconscious knows is enough. This knowing is like driving a car and knowing when to brake or step on the gas. You know--you don't think about it. It's second nature. You get that intuitive knowing in your body and you brake or step on the gas. Whatever the situation requires.
In integrating-desensitizing feelings several key items occur:
*Making full contact with a feeling. This means really feeling it without thinking. Full feeling means just that. No competing thoughts. No being distracted by other sensations, feelings, random thoughts, and doubts. We're talking about our attention being fully absorbed in the feeling.
*The No Intention Intention. This means we fully feel our feelings with no intention of getting rid of them or keeping them. This leads to acceptance. Keep in mind that most feelings are biological messages that do us good service even though they may bring discomfort at times in their attempts to get our attention. They all are valuable. Learning to appreciate their value assists greatly in our natural process of integration. It also develops long-term comfort with a full range of our feelings. The No Intention Intention naturally installs itself though working with Emoclear Integrators.
*Calling feelings "unwanted feelings" is resistance. If we're intending to get rid of feelings or we're negatively putting them down, that will create resistance and block natural integration. Calling our feelings "unwanted" points back to our intentions here. So having that intention of allowing feelings and not trying to keep feelings will greatly assist your natural ability to feel and integrate
*Deeper acceptance is not a thought. It is a sense of what ever is going on is acceptable or okay. Notice how acceptance arrives. It is a natural sense of things. This acceptance leaves us with a sense there's an okayness in what we're feeling. So acceptance is part of the unsticking process. It flows best when we really allow ourselves to feel something with no intention of getting rid of it or keeping it.
So if you're fully feeling a feeling, have no intentions of getting rid of it or keeping it, taking that "just back" or dis-identified position, getting those sensations knowing, allowing acceptance to flow--you can count on your feelings, emotions, and physical sensations to integrate-desensitize.
*Develop your appreciation for feelings by starting to notice all the good things they do. For starters they provide valuable information and sometimes lessons.
*Placing a palm over your heartbeat region during the process amplifies feelings and connects you with the heart's 10,000 neuron subcortical center. It helps keep people from dissociating with very strong feelings. It increases intuition and suppresses resistance.
*Breathing into a feeling suppresses resistance and has comforting effects. Breathing into feelings can help us dis-identify with them which helps in lowering resistance and raising comfort.
*Between cycles of doing the Emo Exposure-Integrator ask your heartbeat a future orientation in time question: "A year from now when I look back and my feeling, emotion, or physical sensation and the feeling is either accepted, what will I notice first? How will I feel? What will I know to do? What will I see and hear? Who will be the first to notice, besides me how I accepted this feeling?"
*Placing your palm over your lower forehead and eyebrows appears to alter blood flow in the frontal brain and leads to less resistance and cooler thoughts and feelings.
*Learn each step of the Emo Exposure-Integrator separately before you put all 3 steps together.
*The Little Pocket Intensifier can be added to the process to intensify feelings after you are well versed in the Emo Exposure-Integrator.
*To scale the level of resistance/acceptance of a target use the Acceptance/resistance scale which is basically a rating scale of resistance/acceptance, ranging from overwhelming hate/can't stand your feelings to loving and fully appreciating them.(This scale could also be used instead of the SUD Scale for measuring progress in emotional processing and integration work). Here goes:
RESISTANCE/ACCEPTANCE SCALE
(10) Overwhelmingly hate/Overwhelmingly can't stand my feelings.
(9) Strongly hate/ Strongly can't stand my feelings.
(8) Hate my feelings/can't stand my feelings.
(7) Mildly hate.
(6) Very much dislike my feelings.
(5) Dislike my feelings.
(4) Experiencing some negativity toward my feelings.
(3) Putting up with and not quite accepting my feelings.
(2) Accept/have some appreciation for my feelings.
(1) Love/have strong appreciation for my feelings.
Have fun, Steve