At some point you experience the reaction physically and emotionally, relatively free of stories and associations. You experience long-held feelings that attention has never touched. It is often unpleasant, painful and frightening, yet a relief — all at the same time. How, then, do you “crush” a reaction? You let it run inside you, experiencing it

by refusing to feel it, nothing changed. It was only when I understood what was happening that my attitude shifted and I became open to it. As I now knew that this release, although uncomfortable, was a good thing and it was my body just looking after me by trying to free up this energy.

Even though our stories about what happened may seem very justified, the important thing to remember is that they actually cause us to go unconscious and lock suffering into our bodies. Instead, what we need to do is to find the capacity to feel what we feel without creating more thoughts about it. When you start to experience a difficult feeling,

an emotional state like loneliness, depression, or anxiety, you open yourself fully to the sensation, free of interpretation. If you’ve tried this approach with physical pain, you know that the result can be quite miraculous. When you give your full attention to your knee or your back or your head—whatever hurts—and drop the good/bad, right/wrong s