I have been doing my sweeping breath personal history work for approximately three years now, though I did not keep a distinct record of when I started. I have written elsewhere about the benefits I have found. Well, I have found another benefit recently. I am becoming more sensitive to my feelings.
What I mean is, in the past, my feelings overwhelmed me I I simply felt them. Now, I have a kind of ‘distance’ between me and my feeling, so I can become aware of my self feeling the feeling. You could say, I am not lost in the feeling. This is important. Because I can notice the feeling, I can do something about it later.
Being able to notice the feeling lets me try to remember it. When I say remember it, I mean I can recall the feeling more clearly later. Then I can apply my sweeping breath technique to clear the baggage that came with that feeling and situation.
The other day, a very familiar feeling came over me. It was a particularly obstructive feeling because it was not appropriate, it did not empower me at all, and left me sort of at the mercy of my environment. I was able to ‘memorise’ the feeling, and recall it later. Then as I did the sweeping breath, I found the feeling located in various places around my body like in my face, and in the bottom half of my gut.
As I explored the feeling further, I was gradually able to put a name to it. At first I seemed like anxiety. Then later it looked more like a worry. Sometimes it had the feeling of fear. It was associated with a whole host of memories and experiences that seemed to flash through my mind as I tried to ‘re-feel’ this feeling. There were all sorts of silly thoughts associated with it, too.
Finally, I was able to realise I was being neurotic. All these feelings of fears, anxieties, worries, and what not packaged together was undeniable. I am neurotic. Or rather, I was. I spent quite a bit of time working on these feelings and have reduced them considerably, if not completely. I have gained quite a bit more space by this; I mean I feel more room to react and to choose reactions to my environment than before. Events that would have knocked me off balance are really almost no big deal to me now. And yet, I have moved into this new normal as if nothing had changed. It is a big relief and yet it is as if all those neurotic feelings were never there at all. There was no big “phew” feeling; no big “relief” from those feelings. It is altogether very interesting.