Life is stressful, and it’s easy to feel sabotaged by stress. You feel like there’s not enough time and not enough money. You’re not enjoying your job enough. You can’t be with the ones you love enough. You’re not appreciated enough.
All this ‘not enough’ can feel pretty overwhelming, and some days, like an avalanche, it all shows up at once. It limits your enjoyment of your life, affects your health, and weighs down your relationships. It’s times like these that the idea of emotional mastery seems unlikely, if not downright impossible. How can you dig yourself out?
It’s so simple, you might not believe that it’s true. There is a simple, painless practice for empowering your emotions in any situation, especially in times of adversity:
S.E.A.L.: See. Embrace. Appreciate. Love.
Step 1: I See You
So often, the first response to something negative is to push it aside, bury it, or disown your experience of it. Rather than freeing you, this is how being sabotaged by stress begins. The absolute truth is, to stem the tide of discomfort and unhappiness you are feeling, the vitally important first step is to say, “I See You.”
Yes, let the unpleasant emotions, the difficult people, and the unsatisfying circumstances know that you are willing to acknowledge that they exist. You do not need to say it out loud because the power of this comes from within you. Just the fact that you are expressing a willingness to see whatever is causing the difficulty will create a shift. At this point, you are not trying to change how you are feeling; it is enough that you accept it. By not burying or pushing aside the stress and its source, you make it possible to begin to dissolve the power it has to sabotage you.
Step 2: I Embrace You
This step melts the defensive walls that have enabled you to be sabotaged by stress. Typically, the last thing you would want to do with something distasteful and unpleasant is to wrap your arms around it and give it a BIG hug. On the one hand, you have probably heard the saying, ‘warts and all,’ but on the other hand, no one really wants to hug a warty toad. So, how can you embrace uncomfortable feelings, if not truly painful?
Embracing your distasteful, unhappy feelings is not about denying your feelings or perceptions. You certainly do not need to give up your initial dissatisfaction or displeasure. All you are doing at this point is saying (to yourself), ‘I Embrace You,’ which is a way of making your feelings welcome. At first glance, this can seem like a tough request, yet once you practice it a few times, you will see that it is actually not that bad. In fact, in time, the toad will likely become one of your most cherished companions.
Step 3: I Appreciate You
Now you are ready to explore making a shift in your feelings toward the unpleasantness. Despite how it may appear, this step isn’t about denying how you feel. Instead, realize that saying ‘I Appreciate You’ is not the same thing as saying ‘You are right’ or ‘I am wrong.’ It also doesn’t mean that you do not deserve something better. You can practice appreciation and still be your own best advocate for transforming the conditions of your life.
One reason this step works is that often what causes us stress actually creates an environment for growth. Think of an oyster. It is the irritation and grit that gets into the oyster and makes it possible for it to produce the treasured pearl. You may not be able to see it right now, but what if the stress you’re feeling is really an invitation to grow something beautiful in your life? When you allow yourself to feel appreciation for even a seemingly negative something, you will be amazed at how it transforms.
Step 4: I Love You
By now, hopefully, you have witnessed some unexpected results from employing the first three steps of S.E.A.L. Perhaps your willingness to really see, to embrace, and to appreciate the stresses that felt like they were sabotaging your life has created surprising and positive improvements. If so, taking the leap and telling your negative emotions and whatever triggered them, ‘I Love You,’ may feel pretty effortless.
On the other hand, if you are starting out or if you find this idea preposterous, say the words, whether or not you feel the feeling. It may surprise you to learn that the act of speaking them works just as well, regardless of your emotional status. Because, for the most part, an emotion, which is a blend of neurochemistry, thought, and environmental conditions, is temporary. The practice of saying ‘I Love You’ can be performed in the abstract yet still create the desired result.
S.E.A.L.ing Your Human Design
In Human Design, there’s a term called Not-Self Conditioning that describes the effects of others on your openness. It’s an attempt to convey how the beliefs, judgments, blame, and shame that you absorb from others, particularly during your formative years, take up residence in all of the undefined spaces in your birth chart.
Not-Self isn’t negative or positive. Ultimately, it’s a neutral field of possibility. Until, that is, someone else’s “inner clutter” lands in your open space. And most often, it stays there until its origins, forgotten, become your truth.
This “inner clutter” could be helpful and lovely to look at. Sadly, almost always it’s ugly, bulky, ill-fitting, and causes you to trip and hurt yourself whenever you stumble over it.
Now, the Human Design system advises you to follow your Strategy and Authority as the most reliable path to clearing out your “inner clutter.” It also speaks of a 7-year deconditioning cycle for the process.
Following your Strategy and Authority may not always seem or feel clear when your open spaces are cluttered and painfully full of unwanted ‘furniture’ from others.
So, employing the S.E.A.L. process whenever you come heart to heart with some sharp-edged, pointy-cornered, ugly bit of ‘furniture’ supports you in finding your way back to your Strategy and Authority.
S.E.A.L. creates a space in which you come heart to heart with all of those painful, unloved, and unloving voices you’ve believed for too long were actually you.
These four steps give you the chance to recognize that they’re not, and never really were, you.
And in that kindly, curious, and compassionate space, you can accept how they got there and how simple it is to let them go.
Simple, yes. Easy, not always.
This process is a gentle, graceful way to come heart to heart with yourself continually. It disinvites judgment, blame, and shame. It invites self-compassion, self-acceptance, and self-love.
You can go deep with it, or apply it lightly and frequently.
And trust that as you acknowledge
- What’s truly you according to your Human Design chart
- What’s open and receptive
- The ideas of who you think you are or who you should be placed within you
You create the space for the wisdom of your Authority and the reliability of your Strategy to help you on your most enlivened path.