I recently wrote this to another 43er, and I thought it might be helpful (:

sincerely, jooyoung

Actually I started doing this release meditation that is really helpful.

Whenever something happens that really bothers you, and you think about it often, embrace your feeling and then release it.

This is an exercise that I learned from my dear friend Takuin.

Take a pen, or a stick or a balled up sock. and hold it in your hand and close your eyes.

Imagine in your head the feeling you have that is bothering you.

Now remember, that each passing event that bothers you is now in the past and what you are bothered by is your own reaction to a situation. Your feeling of anger or saddness.

And although you can’t go back in time and ‘fix’ whatever that happened, there are two things you can do.

You can let go of your own saddness, distress and self anger, i.e. your reaction to the situation, and then wake up and try to find a way to change the actual situation.

Regardless if the situation is unchangable, it means that you need to release as much emotional mud as you can.

So again back to the pencil.

Close your ideas and imagine your emotional response as if it was a child.

Say you were sad/insecure because someone said that your work wasn’t very good.

Imagine a very sad and insecure child knocking at your door, and you embrace that emotion you don’t let that little child stay outside your let her in, you let her in and you hug her and console her, and she realizes that she is good at what she does and let’s go of the sad feeling, and visualize the sad feeling leaving her.

Okay after that, hold the pen and squeeze it with the same pressure/strain that you feel when you get upset about what ever grudge you are trying to rid yourself of, and say:

Could I let go of this feeling?

after saying this release all tention in your hand and look at the pencil and roll it gently back and forth in your hand.

(now could is very different than would, could means, is it possible for your brain to let go of this? does your cognitive function have the capability to let this go?

be honest if you answer is no, it’s okay.

then say:

Would I let this feeling go?

Answer, be honest, it’s okay if you say no.

then say:

When will you let this feeling go

most people answer, now, because it’d be kind of odd to pick like in 2 weeks, or next saturday, (: etc. but yeah, you can say I don’t know but usually people look at the little pencil, and think, now! I want to release this now. And let it go. Let this energy that has confused and consumed be free and realeased (:

Then drop the pencil, just drop it, watch it fall and listen to it plunk.

Usually if you do this 1-3 times you’ll be able to release the feeling. If that doesn’t work, try to figure out what keeps you from letting it go, maybe there is another feeling that keeps that feeling there. So if my feeling I thought was bothering was:

my teacher hates my art project, I am so mad at him.

it might actually be something like

why am I upset, I’m upset because he hurt my feelings. he didn’t give me a chance to explain my project. My art is a direct representation of myself. Thus, he never gave me a chance to explain myself. Thus… I’m just scared people won’t take the time to try to understand me. Thus. I’m scared no one will ever understand me, or give me a chance to explain myself.

Once I realized that was what I was scared of. I felt like this mother and I said to that frantic child knocking at my door. It’s okay, don’t worry, there will be of course people in this world that won’t understand you. Embrace this child like feeling, I found a sort of sweetness and naivety in it, and then I released it. (: