I was listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast the other day with Brené Brown and they were talking about becoming more aware of subconscious habits. Tim mentioned a phrase that he picked up somewhere that I found really powerful. It was: what are you unwilling to feel?
This was in relation to the things we avoid feeling inside ourselves but are likely the very things that are keeping us blocked/stuck in our conditioned feelings/actions/responses.
This got me thinking.
It’s a pretty well-known phenomenon that when you ask yourself a question, the mind naturally likes to come up with the answer (usually a very appropriate answer), and when you ask yourself the question “What am I unwilling to feel?”, or “What don’t I want to feel right now?” your mind (or body) will likely show you the answer.
So, in practice, this works. Asking ourselves these questions does bring us closer to the feelings we are avoiding. In practicing this myself, I noticed the subtle emergence of feelings that I generally don’t go looking for or experience naturally (probably because subconsciously, I don’t want to feel them!). From there, I’m able to bring a gentle awareness and allowance to these feelings.
I think this is a really helpful thing to practice from time to time. These are questions that we most likely don’t ask ourselves very often but should be asking ourselves more, in my opinion. So give it a try! You might be surprised…
