Love is Up There! It is a Spiritual quality that is Above all the lower emotions. Jesus taught this Forgiveness and Love Your enemies and not to resist your enemies..but Love them.. Who would have thought it could apply to your own pain and symptoms!
I have a very useful mantra for the E part of ‘LOVE’, the embracing or acceptance of whatever is happening. When life gives me my pain symptoms or indeed any kind of challenges or obstacles, I remind myself that everything passes and I say to myself “right now, this is how it is.’ 🤷🏻♂️ I find it stops me clinging to the resistance and allows me to get on with my day which in turn teaches my brain that it’s no big deal so maybe there’s no need for the overreaction/symptoms it’s producing to keep me safe. It’s something I’ve taken from the wu wei principal in Taoism. Give it a try, I find it helpful. 👍🙏❤️
A big one for me recently is learning to also love the parts of me that hate the symptoms. Noticing that they’re only parts of me that hate the feelings and remind myself I’m the loving awareness, I accept and allow everything in my experience. Game changer, requires continuous work
To hate my pain is to hate myself because I AM my pain. My pain is representative of my life's journey. So maybe I hate my pain a little because I hate myself a little? But that is self harm is it not? Perhaps when I learn to forgive those who hurt me I will forgive myself, and truly love myself again. Then I can make peace with the world, stop running, stop fighting. Then I will make peace with my pain.
I was listening to Jim speak, and initially when he said to love your symptoms, feeling and emotions, I was hearing it as I need or should "like" my sensations, and thought Nah~ I can never like them. But as I listened a little more deeply, I realized what it meant to love the symptoms. It's like trying to "give" love to something. There may be a little boy who is a bully, but I know that he is acting out of something, and I can still send love to this boy. My aha moment. Also, for "V," I think of a word, Validation. Validate our anger, sadness, or fear. "I see you, Feelings. I heard you, and I validate your emotions. It's okay that you feel the way you do." Thank you, Jim!
Hope I can do it! Like the feelings of loss 😢associated with the deaths of my parents 20 years ago and the guilt of selling their house in the Bay Area that they sacrificed so much for to help me. That sorrow and guilt at not meeting their expectations I realize is at the root of my LBP that I started experiencing not long after my mother’s passing in 2001 and have suffered with intermittently ever since. Your analysis of the roots of suffering in unprocessed unpleasant emotions is absolutely brilliant ❤, Jim.
This is very neat! Agree it feels counterintuitive to love the symptoms but all the time we are hating our symptoms, we’re resisting them, and thy won’t pass through. I’ll try it. And the LOVE acronym is a very neat and useful reminder of how to do it!
Hi Jim, I wondered if you could make a video on what a goodist is, why people become goodists and how to be less of a goodist. How to stop being ultra-conscientious and always being the one that organisers everything or fixes things for everyone or tries to be perfect all the time. The person who always does the right thing, always follows the rules. The person who tries to keep the home or workplace running smoothly and sorts out all the problems or tries to anticipate them and make sure there are never hiccups and does all that at the expense of their own physical and emotional health. Putting the care of other people or work obligations ahead of their own self care.
You stated so well the personality traits that Dr. Sarno talks about with a people pleaser. Yeah you’re just trying to change those patterns because you have to realize that being that way is not necessarily good even though it appears to be on the surface. I think a good goal to shoot far is moderation to be somewhere in the middle where you’re not overextending or giving and reaching out too much. Obviously this patterns come from childhood so can take some time to break down but we can and should make efforts to do so
This is great, Jim. At first it sounds very counterintuitive but I see what you’re saying. We’re not doing ourselves any favors by carrying around so much hatred and resentment. I’m reading Kristin Neff’s book on self-compassion. And I just got Fred Luskin’s book on forgiveness, which is a big issue for me. And your videos really help a lot. Thanks for this. 🙏
You had a wonderful video on befriending sensations where you talked about putting your hand on your pain. Which one was that, do you recall? And thank you, these are very helpful.
Always find this a contradiction and confusing because also told to talk to our brain and tell it to stop the pain/sensations/symptoms. How can we open up to our feelings(symptoms) and Embrace(acceptance and allowance) but on other hand tell our brain to stop the symptoms which is a feeling and emotion?
Hi Bruno yes we are telling ourselves we are fine there is nothing wrong. Emotions are fine all emotions are Ok so we do want to accept and allow them. So it’s a balance between the two.
I would appreciate an answer, How do I love pain from Small Fiber Poly Neuropathy when I feel like I have been badly burned with feeling being smack by rubber bands? Im at loss
It’s having compassion for a part of yourself that suffering. a form of self love and self compassion for the pain that you feel and for what you’re going through. The positivity of love can help open you up for healing
Love this! I've been doing a "loving all" inquiry practice so this fits in perfectly. It was taught by Ramana Maharshi as part of his inquiry practice "Who Am I"? Thanks 🙏🤍✨
