Often when we are feeling bad our minds can start working overtime. Many of us deal with feelings by try to mentally figure out a way to stop feeling so bad. However, research shows that when we are in a negative emotional state that our thoughts become restricted to mostly negative thoughts. So it's like trying to get out of a hole by digging. Thinking can as an attempt to problem solve the situation can create hundreds of "What if...?" thoughts rather than a viable solution. "What if I fail?" "What if this doesn't improve?" "What if they don't like me?" and so on.
Often our emotions are like the heat that heats up our minds and creates a 'cognitive popcorn' effect where we can't stop thinking and feel worse and worse from the stress. The LABL exercise can help get you out of your head by bringing your awareness into your body. I am constantly amazed at the breakthroughs that can occur for people when they train themselves into meeting the feeling in their body rather than analysing it in their heads.
There is a link to download a guided version of this exercise but here are the steps if you want to do it on your own:
1. Label what you are feeling. For example: “This is sadness” or “This is shame”. If you are
feeling several emotions then label the strongest emotion. If you don’t notice any emotion, then look for experiences like numbness, emptiness or neutrality and label it that.
2. Acknowledge the physical sensations. Where do you feel this emotion in your body?
Emotions are usually felt in the area between the throat and the pelvis since there are multiple nerve endings associated with emotions in this area. Sometimes they are in the arms, hands or felt as a pressure around your head. If you notice the emotion in several areas, try to focus just on the area where the sensations are strongest. Can you feel the perimeter of the emotion or the space that it takes up in your body? Can you notice how the physical sensations of the emotion change from moment to moment?
3. Breathe into the emotion and experience it fully. Imagine that your breath moves into
the area where the emotion is. Each time that you breathe in, focus on becoming a little bit more willing to experience the emotion. This step is about working towards 100% willingness to feel the emotion. This can be tough to begin with. It can help to just try to feel a little bit of it (like 5% of it) and work up. Saying things to yourself like: “It’s safe to feel this emotion”, “I am willing to feel this” or “I am in control of how much I want to feel of this” can help.
4. Let go. In this step you can let go of the emotion. Some people like to take some deep
breaths and imagine breathing the emotion out and letting it go a little more each time. This step is to remind us that no emotions are permanent – they are always coming, going and changing.
At the end of the LABL process you might notice that the emotion has changed. It might be less, or it might be more... or it could still be very similar. The point of this exercise is not to get rid of the emotion. The point is to not avoid the emotion. It is normal to want to get rid of painful emotions and most people feel frustrated if the emotion isn’t gone after you let it go. That’s why it can be useful to repeat the LABL steps several times each time that you sit down to do it. Once you let go, go back to the start and label whatever feeling is strongest and start again. This will help you to learn that trying to get rid of emotions is avoiding. The LABL exercise is designed to increase your willingness to experience emotions. This will help you to reduce the avoidance of emotion that tends to keep negative experiences going.
Here is the link to download a guided mp3 version of this exercise: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B59Y9tDyah5AaFZLUE94c1R5S0U&usp=sharing. When you click on the LABL exercise you will see a small arrow appear in the bottom right of the screen to download the file.
Acknowledgement
With gratitude to Belinda Khong for sharing this technique with me with the many people it has helped over the years.
