Question of the Month: “How to Overcome Life-Long Limits”
Welcome Members to our June “Question of the Month.” Kevin Schoeninger here.
This month, we’ve been discussing “The HeartMath Solution” by Doc Childre and Howard Martin. Before we begin this week’s message, I want to say that I believe this book is one of the most important and substantial that you could add to your library and the techniques hold within them great transformative power. If you become intrigued through our one-month intro, I highly suggest getting this book and going through it intently and very slowly. This book isn’t a speed read. It is one to slowly digest over time.
With that said, I think you’ll find that you can take the Weekly Messages this month and the practices described and work with them right away. As always, you’ll get out of this what you put into it.
So far this month, we’ve dipped into the treasure of HeartMath and discovered two things. In Week One, we explored the science of heart power and discovered that the heart has as much as 5000 times more power to influence our energy system than the brain. In Week Two, we learned and practiced the “Freeze-Frame” technique to shift us quickly out of stress mode.
In response to the first two weeks, this question came up, “What do you do when you can’t seem to shake off a negative feeling and come from your heart?”
This week, we’ll talk about feelings that run deeply and are more difficult to shift away from. HeartMath offers a technique called “CUT-THRU” to work with your longer-term limiting patterns, patterns that you developed young in life and carry with you to this day. These patterns are so deeply etched in your subconscious mind, in your neural circuitry, and in your cells, that they are difficult to recognize and even more challenging to overcome.
“The purpose of CUT-THRU is to help people recognize and reprogram the subconscious emotional memory paths that, through long-term reinforcement influence our perception, color our day-to-day thoughts and feelings, and condition our responses to future situations.” P.184
“For deeply ingrained emotional issues, it takes more than doing a one-minute technique such as FREEZE-FRAME to move beyond them; it takes going deeper into the realm of heart intelligence—and that’s when we need CUT-THRU.” P.185
So while FREEZE-FRAME is great for quickly shifting to a core heart feeling in a moment of stress (and who can’t use that?), CUT-THRU is a more thorough, slower, and deeper form to work with long-held emotional issues.
So let’s run through the six steps of CUT-THRU from page 187 in the book, then we’ll talk a little more about the reasoning behind it and when and how to use it. Whenever you feel a strong negative emotion or get caught up in an issue that is intense and recurring try:
THE SIX STEPS OF CUT-THRU:
- Be Aware of how you Feel about the issue at hand.
- Focus in the Heart and Solar Plexus—Breathe love and appreciation through this area for ten seconds or more to help anchor your attention there.
- Assume Objectivity about the feeling or issue—as if it were someone else’s problem.
- Rest in Neutral—in your Rational, Mature Heart.
- Soak and Relax any disturbed or perplexing feelings in the compassion of the heart, Dissolving the Significance a little at a time. Take your time doing this step; there’s no time limit. Remember, it’s not the problem that causes energy drain as much as the significance you assign to the problem.
- After Extracting as much Significance as you can, from your Deep heart sincerely Ask for appropriate guidance or insight. If you don’t get an answer, Find something to Appreciate for awhile. Appreciation of anything often facilitates intuitive clarity on issues you’ve been working on.
“As you begin the process, you’ll discover that some emotions can be shifted very quickly, while others—generally those with a longer emotional history—take more time. Keep in mind that negative emotional patterns that have been reinforced for years (or even decades) have created well-worn neural pathways through your brain. If you stop traveling down those pathways, they’ll soon give way to the new patterns you’re creating, but it takes repetition. You can rest assured that your physiology will respond to your intervention.” P .186
Let’s draw out the keys to this process in a little more detail. Again, the book has a wealth of information, but I think that we can summarize the gist of it here. The first step is to become aware of what you are feeling.
So often in the fast pace of our lives, we push aside what we are feeling so that we can get done all the things on our “To Do” lists. When we travel through life in this way, we accumulate feelings without processing them. We finally arrive at a point where we just feel overwhelmed without being able to put our finger on “what did it to us.”
So the first step is to take some time to check in with what you are feeling at the moment and to identify what issue your present feeling relates to. To do this, take a time out from your “To Do” list and give yourself a moment to reflect and feel inside. Feel your body as a whole from the inside and identify your dominant feeling tone.
Once you have a sense for what you are feeling and the issue at hand, focus into the area of your heart and solar plexus. The solar plexus is a holding zone for many deep-seated feelings. By accessing your solar plexus and your heart together and breathing into that space, you bring heart coherence into this seat of subconscious feeling.
As Doc Childre says, “Often we feel strong emotions in the solar plexus. We now understand why: it contains those ever-important neurons and neurotransmitters. Like the heart, it has its own little brain. Strong emotions impact this little brain, which explains why we feel nervousness as a knot in the stomach when we’re anxious or upset. . .By concentrating on both the heart and the solar plexus as you breathe love and appreciation, you’re aligning the brain in the gut with the brain in the heart. The heart will automatically harmonize the communication between them.
You’ll find that this interplay between heart, solar plexus, and brain gives you a more anchored feeling.” P.189-190
Once you are anchored in your heart and solar plexus, see if you can assume a sense of objectivity in relation to the feelings and the issue at hand. See if you can observe your feelings and the event that catalyzed them as if from the outside, as an outside observer.
Observing as if from the outside, gives you some release from the emotional charge of the situation. When you observe from the outside, you can find a more neutral point of view. Long-held, deep-seated feelings can be difficult to shift out of completely. You may not be able to find a warm fuzzy feeling immediately. However, you may be able to distance yourself from your feeling and find a more neutral, less-charged point of view.
When you can find some sense of separation from your emotional charge, from its emotional significance, rest in neutral. You are not trying to change your feeling, just stepping away from it a bit and giving yourself a rest from its intensity. You’re aware of the feeling and you’re leaving it be for awhile.
“Assuming objectivity allows you to become less identified with the issue, which reduces the amount of emotional energy you have invested in it.” P.191
Once you have a more objective relationship toward your feeling, you are able to rest in a neutral state. A neutral state is a feeling of impartiality which allows new possibilities to arise. The experience of neutral comes from a deep, mature space in your heart. In that experience of neutrality, your heart intelligence can go to work.
Allow any remaining disturbing feeling or negative emotion to soak in the energy of your heart. Allow your heart intelligence to work on them. You are not trying to figure anything out or rationalize away your feeling. You are simply drawing your feeling into the space of your heart and allowing your heart energy to work on it in a relaxed way.
“In Step 5 you use the power of the heart to dissipate and transmute unpleasant emotional energy. You soak it in the solvent of the heart—in your love and compassion. . .” p.194
“Now, having used the heart to release old and uncomfortable feelings, you’ll be able to more easily hear the intuitive voice of your heart intelligence. Sincerely ask your heart for new understanding and direction.” P.194
You may find a new insight flashes into your awareness, or a new feeling begins to emerge, or you may just find that your previous negative emotion begins to recede. You may feel an urge to move in a specific direction or take a certain action. If no definitive direction emerges, the final step in the process is to find something to appreciate in your present experience.
Allow your experience of appreciation to lead you into acceptance and gratitude for what is here and now. If that is still difficult to come by, then you can re-run the Six Steps to find a greater sense of relief. As we said earlier, with deeply ingrained patterns, it may take repeated practice, as often as the habitual feeling state comes up, until a new heartful experience is strong enough to overwrite the old pattern.
I suggest that you try CUT-THRU in one challenging situation each day this week, so that you get to know it and find out how it works best for you.
I would love to hear your experiences with this process in the Comments section at the end of this message.
Also, mark your calendar for our Group Coaching Call this coming Sunday. Call details will be posted on the site and be sent to you via email.
Until then,
Happy practicing,
Kevin