How to Move Through Intensity with Grace and Ease - Experts Panel with Therapist, Sashi Gollub

I went out and got the best of the best for you. 

I spoke with experts, doctors, and spiritual teachers.

I asked these high achievers about their fears and how they move through them to live the life they love. 
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Sashi Gollub, therapist, tells us about a time she felt fear and how she moves through it to live a rich and satisfying life.... 

"Last week when my mom was in town, when she said goodbye .she was crying.  I'm her  only child and she is sensitive and emotional. She cries every time we say goodbye.

In the past I have been unsure of how to relate to her tears.

But this time, when she was leaving, I felt the impulse to cry too.

Immediately following the impulse was a sense of shame.

I allowed myself to acknowledge the sadness and shame. I didn't repress it. I got really curious about this emerging part of me. Who is this part that cries when my mom leaves?"

 I let myself cry - and acknowledge the fear. 

 "As a result I was able to identify with something that I have been so unconsciously disassociated from - I have always been the one who has had strong boundaries with my mom and I got to feel into the part of me that would do ANYTHING for her to be well and happy.

So then I felt into the immense fear of losing her. 

I let myself cry - and and acknowledge the fear.

What felt really good about it - even though it was intense - was that by acknowledging this part of myself that I had been unaware of and disassociated from I saw my growth.

There was another part of me that was able to see my ability to feel as testimony to my own growth and show how I am actually more trust worthy and strong because I am not repressing any part of me. 

I am allowing what’s there to be worked with to arise - and listening to it as opposed to pushing it away - It makes me life RICHER. 

The result is a great confidence and trust in how I interface with the world. Trusting myself more.

More and more I own all parts of myself - the full spectrum of my experience  

3 Ways to Self Soothe and Move Through ...

"When anxiety comes up around people - or when anger comes up in my relationships-  I can recognize it and say to myself 'this is part of the package.' I am not blaming anyone or trying not to feel uncomfortable things. I realize it is just part of my life and being in relationship.  It's just the deal of life. If I want to have relationships I have to accept the wonderful things with the sometimes sh!tty parts that come with it."

1. Feel and name the feeling 

"Being transparent with myself even if it is unfavorable, or some part of me judges it as bad or unsavory allows me to acknowledge ‘what is.’ The more I relax into what is, the more I know everything is workable.  That moment with my mom was an expression of being with what is. It showed me I have the capacity to feel and identify the desire to cry and the shame that followed it. I have been practicing feeling my feelings and naming them very diligently for a long time. Feel and name the feeling."

Open to what is. Feel the freedom on the other side.

2. Make a choice to turn towards it rather than not deal. 

"Get curious about the deeper intelligence or drive of your experience. After the choice is made to feel and witness, I direct my awareness down into my body and I check out the raw sensation.

I notice what’s happening emotionally, I notice what is happening physically. I keep breathing ((Sashi is a yogi who teaches at the Little Yoga studio)).

Then I start to name what I am feeling - I start to pick up conceptual thought - I try to have as open awareness as possible, staying one part on physical sensations, one part on thoughts, and one part on emotional tone.
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And then for me there is really one guideline, which is kindness. I put the kindest part of me behind the wheel."

 It’s okay for life to be intense and emotional. It is okay of life to be hard and scary sometimes. We don’t have to fight reality. ​

3. Cultivate a trust in reality. 

"When things feel monumentally shitty, ((because they just do sometimes!!)) I try to orient towards kindness.

I tell myself, 'There must be something right about this because it's happening.'

I mean that in the most simple and pragmatic way. Remembering the fundamental sanity of working with what is as oppose to fighting with it. 

The fundamental rightness of the situation with my mom is that I love her, and we are both getting older. It is scary to watch my mom in pain and I am capable of feeling that. It is scary because her fragility is apparent, and if life is like a bell curve, she is on the downward slope. It’s okay for life to be intense and emotional. It is okay of life to be hard and scary sometimes. I don’t have to fight reality. As a result I feel a relaxation and greater sense of belonging. There is a bigger sense of my place in the scheme of things. There is less separation and sense of battling, and more feeling connected in my place in the bigger picture. 

When I have these magnificently terrible moments, or periods of time, when I am able to stay open to them I open the door to a massive perspective shift that is so much bigger than the way my ordinary mind operates. 

As I watched her walk away that day a part of me had the thought ‘what if I don't see her again?’ That was the fear I was facing… and by turning towards it and allowing myself to feel, I found the love that was driving my impulse to cry. 

Ken Wilber said,  'Hurts more matters less.'  The more we open, the more we feel everything vividly. We find that what was uncomfortable to feel is no longer a problem. 

This whole thing - life - is so much bigger than we are able to see.

There is just so much that is unknowable and mysterious and it’s not our job to know it all.

There is something deeply trustable about the mystery. 
And no one can tell us how it is. We have to experience it on our own." 

Sashi Gollub is a therapist and yoga teacher who supports people who are passionate about engaging in life - deeply and fully. She works with clients who are willing to face the full spectrum of their experience in order to know their own resiliency, strength, brilliance and the joy of being alive. 

Click here to work with Sashi! ​