Body.Soul.
harsh, demanding, abusive teacher to look to the present, which
from Hungary, hearing someone means that we have to listen to
speak with that familiar accent might our body. Remember, emotions are
you are waiting to pick up your
elicit anxiety in you today. sensations in the body associated
partner at work. Your partner gets
with thoughts in the mind. From
in and promptly changes the radio
While past experiences influence the perspective of our body, our
station. You become furious and say,
our present perceptions, we do not feelings of comfort or discomfort
“You are so controlling. You act as if
have to be slaves to our conditioning are primitive. We feel comfort,
you’re the only one who deserves to
or emotional Pavlovian dogs. happiness, and pleasure when we
get their way!”
We can go beyond our habitual are getting our needs met. We feel
thought patterns and make new distress, sadness, and pain when
As you begin to pay attention, you
life-supporting choices. An ancient we are not. All emotions derive
will notice how readily you inject
Vedic expression declares, “The from needs. All emotions derive
your past into your present. The first
wise use memories, but do not allow from needs. When you realize the
step in creating emotional freedom
memories to use them.” simple profundity of this insight,
is to stop doing this. This requires
you will possess a vital healing tool:
consciously asking yourself What
Needs: The Heart of Emotions the ability to nurture your emotional
happened? and not indulging in
Here is the question again: What well-being.
conditioned dialogues rooted in the
determines whether we interpret
past. Continuing with our example,
an experience as comfortable or The next step is recognizing and
let’s separate the facts of the
uncomfortable? If past experience communicating your needs more
situation – what actually happened
is not the whole story, we have consciously. This is a learned
– from our interpretation based on
response. If you are not currently
past conditioning.
adept in this area, it is because you
learned from people who were not
What Happened?
proficient.
Conscious Communication
My partner changed
In his book Nonviolent
Communication, psychologist
the radio station.
Marshall Rosenberg reminds us
that the better we become at
communicating our needs, the more
likely we are to get them met – and
Interpretation based
the greater emotional well-being we
will experience. Emotional upset can
on Past Conditioning
be viewed as a response to an unmet
need or to someone crossing our
My partner is a control
boundaries without our permission.
freak who doesn’t care
The first step in releasing emotional
about what I want.
distress is identifying what
happened to disturb your peace.
This requires staying in the present
and resisting the tendency to layer
this current upsetting situation with
When we contaminate our present
emotional debris from your past. For
with conditioning from the past,
example:
there is a high probability that
the current situation will unfold
You are listening to your favorite talk
show host on the car radio while
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Fall 2009
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