Have you ever stopped and wondered why you get emotionally triggered like a minefield? Sometimes you may see it coming but can't stop it. Other times it explodes in your face before realizing what is happening.
Maybe this doesn't happen for you at all, and that is fantastic.
Maybe it hasn't happen for you yet because you have never challenged yourself to get out of your comfort zone. Maybe you had a brief emotional encounter and quickly retreated into the illusionary safety of your comfort zone, and never peeked out again of fear it may happen again.
As a social entrepreneur, close to launching your entrepreneurial enterprise, or just having won the trust of your volunteer team, being emotional triggered can have devastating consequences for your social entrepreneurial success and your desired social impact in the world.
Imagine if there was a way for you to be free of negative emotions and their impact on your health, relationships and social entrepreneurial success. Imagine you knowing how to handle - in the moment - all of the unwanted feelings and emotional triggers you experience from time to time, even the ones that cause you emotional pain.
Imagination is not just a powerful word. Imagination is powerful beyond comprehension. Imagination connects us with invisible forces. Imagination sparks curiosity and wonder, something most adults are sadly trading for "Right" answers. Why? Because that is what is expected and rewarded in our society. Imagination and natural curiosity and wonder are progressively eroded when entering the education system. Independent thought, imagination and intuition are rarely rewarded or encouraged. Yet, that is what is called for us to break free of emotional triggers that are caused by suppressed and unexpressed emotions.
David R. Hawkins in his book entitled "Letting Go: The Pathway to Surrender" presents an approach that he emphasizes to be quite different to the world's usual methods. It is similar yet different to approaches I have come across in my work and life-long-learning. It's a problem-solving approach with a difference. Usually we become aware of a feeling or emotion we experience, and almost instantly our mind kicks in starting a drawn-out attempt at problem solving. The Pathway to Surrender promises a mechanism that brings fast and easy results, and can unlock our innate capacities to enable us to live a meaningful, peaceful and successful life. The most wonderful insight offered is that these states and capacities for - happiness, success, health and well-being, intuition, unconditional love, beauty, inner peace and creativity - are within everyone of us. Yet the question is posed, "How can something innate to us - a natural part of our being - be so difficult to attain, or ought we ask "How can we awaken to our innate capacities? Or "How can we reconnect with our innate capacities?"
Over the years, I became aware of how much resistance there is to the concept surrender. I first used the word "surrender" in the mid-90's during a conflict resolution workshop, I led as part of my organisation development role, in Local Government. I was totally unprepared for the huge resistance and outright rejection of the word surrender in the context of conflict resolution. The word surrender brought up strong emotions and was used synonymously with capitulations - giving self up to the enemy to be tortured and executed or walking away from everything that was close to the heart. Surrender was seen as a difficult endevour and a last resort. If you are experiencing a similar emotional reaction or resistance to reading/hearing the word surrender, it may initially be challenging for you to read on. Hence my suggestions is to start with imagination. Imagination's extraordinary transformational power is a grossly underutilised. I trust the following quote will inspire you to experiment with imagination, and slowly start to see "surrender" as a freeing future from emotional attachment and turmoil.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand. Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.” ~ Albert Einstein
"Imagination...is the preview of life's coming attraction is profound. What occurs to me, as I write this, is my experience of instant recognition when one of my "life's coming attraction entered my present." It called for big decisions in an environment of uncertainty and lack of know how, yet I made them effortless within seconds. One of my "life's coming attraction" was founding and launching World Leadership Day. It was the most natural thing to do. Another was to enrol in Coach Training, and become a professional coach, leaving secure employment and starting my own international coaching and training company.
Hawkins emphasises the importance of understanding the Letting Go Mechanism as it is quite different than the world's usual methods. The mechanism developed follows a specific process that is described in Chapter 16. In essence:
I have recently applied the process to a technology-related problem that brought up feelings of disappointment, sadness and loss. Following the Surrender Process, I focused on letting go of the feelings behind the questions, which I had been churning over in my mind. The more I focused on letting go of the feelings behind the questions, the more my feelings intensified. I remembered the saying, and truth behind it "What we focus on grows." Realising this, I shifted my focus on my breathing. This worked fast. As it was late I went to sleep. The next morning the answer was waiting for me "keep an open mind and explore how the project can go ahead." I am happy to say "The project is going ahead. in inspiring ways"
Before using the process, stop and reflect on your thinking as this will determine your results.
Elisabeth Gortschacher ©2017 All Rights Reserved