Are Emotions Causing You Suffering? (The Relationship Between Avoidance, Emotion, and Suffering)

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About my videos: These videos are a resource for anyone wishing to wake up from the dream of separation. Awakening, enlightenment, and liberation are becoming far more mainstream possibilities than they once were. There are many good teachers out there, and if you resonate with the teachings of Eckhart Tolle, Rupert Spira, or Sadhguru, you might find resources here that address these deeper promptings to investigate your true nature.
Disclaimer: The information presented in these videos is not meant to diagnose or treat any psychiatric or medical illness. The inquiries presented herein are potent and can have powerful effects on the way you experience yourself and reality. If you feel you are at risk of harming yourself or others, these videos and practices may not be the best thing for you at the moment. Seek help wherever necessary which might include a hospital emergency department, a suicide helpline etc.

[@Mocking_Bird_85]

Regarding mushrooms: They can really make you feel the suffering you've caused in other people. I'd alienated my mother, brothers, uncle & grandparents. Let me tell you, that emotional dam had been backed up for years. Called my mother mid trip and cried like a baby because I thought I was dying and just wanted everyone to know I still loved them. Didn't know what an authentic apology was until that moment. The relief...

[@PaigeSquared]

@@Mocking_Bird_85 I remember my very first mushroom trip. (Is it still called a trip? 🤣) The second one involved the curious george movie and it was *not nearly* as good of a time. Maybe about 45 minutes after eating them, I started crying, and I continued to sob for about an hour. I remember I kept repeating "it's all so simple! People make it complex. It doesn't have to be. It is all so simple! We can keep it simple!" 🤯😂🍄🪷 I had seen a sort of web of interconnections between people, when my eyes were closed. I could see in the lines of the web the meaning of the connections. The understanding and the image seemed to all hit at once. There wasn't time in this web, everything that happened or would occur between each connection was present, as well as all of the connections that ever were and ever would be. It was vast, like an entire galaxy, and I only got to see small glimpses. In the web, I could somehow see the "pure" purpose for the connections, it all seemed so obvious. I could see that all the drama between people was all just games. All the stories had been removed from the web, they weren't necessary at all. I had felt like an outsider in highschool and I had believed that the other kids had something that I didn't have; and in my mind, I had granted them some sort of social power that I felt I did not have access to. I saw in a split moment that all the power tripping was all feigned, all an act, and that everyone was working from the same level of inherent value. I didn't have to be yanked around by guilt. I wasn't *really* bad or wrong, when someone else was blaming me. They didn't have any special sort of authority or power that made them able to define me. I can remember having a shared sense of humanity my entire life. I didn't know that was a thing that some people worked to cultivate until I was an adult. I didn't understand why others weren't getting it, and I gradually distanced myself from that knowledge, because frankly, it made me a weird kid. 😂 The trip reminded me of what I had known, it showed me that all the things I had been catastrophicizing as a teenager didn't matter very much. The web showed me that we could, somehow, stop torturing our own selves. I believe there was some sort of intervention after I couldn't explain very much beyond "it's all so simple!" My friends put my art supplies in front of me and I started drawing. I still have those drawings. 😂 It probably took me about another ten years before I could start applying what I had remembered to my own life.

[@EternalBeingOfficial]

"Thank you suffering, show me where to look." 💎

[@Itwasrealbutnotfun]

❤🎉

[@jodimiller2658]

This was EXACTLY what us fraidy-cat newbies need to hear.....it helps me to know why this awakening is been forced ( basically) upon me...ive been suffering my entire life - but if you saw me at my full time job or cruising around you'd prolly never guess cuz i'm a professional at pretending that ' i am ALLLL GOOD '

[@SimplyAlwaysAwake]

yep, I was just like that :)

[@comfortchronicles6237]

Brilliant. So powerful. As the shadow work continues it seems to require more subtle and careful work/exploration. The things coming up are not as obvious, the avoidance methods also not as obvious. Standing at the sink…. Noticing…. Why is my leg so tense? Hang on, is my leg always tense? Further noticing over the days, one side of my body is often tense. Almost always. Feeling into that over and over again and up comes the emotion, up it comes, an elusive, deeply repressed sadness. Ghastly. No choice, can’t look away anymore. Look now or look later, may as well be now. A life and all its choices profoundly influenced by shadow. A life of dedicated turning away from the “worst” feelings as though to not turn away would be some kind of abandonment of one’s duty to oneself. A new conviction to feel everything. But the capacity to simply forget to do that is amazingly huge. Making the unconscious conscious, waking up bits of ourselves, seeing our programming for the first time. Yes to look closely mostly requires willingness but it also seems to require the development and refinement of a new and subtle skill. You might feel like holding out a hand and saying “probe!” But there is no nurse to hand it to you. It’s just you trying to point the torch with one hand and fossick around with the other, all the while hoping the torch batteries last the journey.

[@Itwasrealbutnotfun]

Love it. I know the kitchen sink one so well. And the “ hold on, is my butt always tense? WTF maybe that’s why my back hurts so much. .” Etc etc Thanks for your share. ❤

[@comfortchronicles6237]

@@Itwasrealbutnotfun definitely re the wtf! And the joining the dots about how this and that might be related to this health problem etc. Thanks for reply. I absolutely hear what you’re saying. ❤

[@FetterMuncher666]

Amen brother

[@Itwasrealbutnotfun]

@ the body keeps score. No doubt about it here

[@BearsWithoutEars]

Unfortunately, we live in a world where emotional neglect runs rampant. Most people cannot understand how much that can impact people on a mental and physical level. So many of us have been taught from a very young age to repress and deny our own emotions, instilling in us the belief that there's something wrong with us which ultimately leads us to self-distrust. And then we're astonished when we hear about someone "going nuts" and performing some sort of desperate action.. Looong way to go..

[@EntangledSingularity]

The good news is you don't have to live that way. By doing it yourself, you light the way for others. Bit by bit we change society

[@FetterMuncher666]

Yes your so right. Sometimes I go down police body cam video you tube holes. And in most of the videos what I see is the results of some emotional repression or unconscious reactivity around emotion playing out. It's like an epidemic.

[@wsheasley]

Not related to this video but wanted to mention something that clicked for me recently. When you talked about Adyashanti saying most people's idea of nonduality is a stark duality, i didn't fully understand. That's becoming very clear now - many people interested in nonduality are so fixated on emptiness that they lack the heart quality a fair bit. It's actually interesting because ive noticed that happening here and it came from an avoidance of emotion. Juicy stuff

[@FetterMuncher666]

These shadow work talks are pure goldust to me , much gratitude.

[@blupatches3030]

SAME! 💝

[@kristopherjoy8992]

I think I’m in deep stage unrealization. Lol The farther I go, the more intense and terrible the delusions. “One order of believing your mind is being irrevocably broken, coming up! Then we’ll show you what it feels like to believe you’re dying! For dessert, let’s experience that you’re being frozen in an eternal hell of terror! Finally, we can dump you off feeling that none of this has resulted in the slightest bit of progress!” 😂 Laughing seems better than bitterly complaining

[@johnbates4326]

Right there with you

[@johnpienta4200]

You won't always feel like this. I can't lie to you and tell you, boy, it'll be better soon... But I can promise you won't always feel like this. I can identify, certainly with this psychological/physical kind of experience like walking around with your skin being shredded off. It won't always be like this.

[@soma-soma-soma-soma]

I've listened to this talk many times over. It's right where I'm at. Suffering was so unbearable, it cracked me open. I never want to inflict that on another, and I have a much greater capacity for compassion because of it. And for that reason I don't want to let go of the pain. The pain keeps me in love and compassion. I am afraid that I will forget the brutal exquisite pain of suffering, and then I will become less of what I am. It's hard to express. I just know that the suffering has made me a better person, and I don't want to go back. So I grasp onto the pain. But I'm not sure this is the right thing to do.

[@rauleugeniogamonal8187]

Wow... This was powerful... It's amazing how life throws you into an abyss, yet at the same time, it shows you channels like this to help you find your way in that darkness.

[@flyingshroomy5560]

My mind is going bonkers when trying to feel this resistance in the chest. Trying out different stuff, from fantasies to creating music out of my breathing tempo 😂. Anything to avoid.

[@-WillAlone-]

Once i understood and believed that negativity made me stronger,it made it... positive.Thankful prayers during this time helps alot.Take time for yourself and create them boundaries!

[@HiluT]

❤You have no idea how your voice is used as a “GPS” here ❤Super grateful for your guidance ❤

[@mtrisi]

"It won't come if you can't handle it"

[@blupatches3030]

perfect timing

[@erinyourtz734]

This is one of my favorite videos. Clear, direct, practical. Thank you. ❤

[@stargirl9551]

Ever since I watched this video yesterday, I’ve been hearing your voice telling me “suffering is liberation” over and over again. Every time I feel that familiar existential discomfort, I hear you saying “suffering is liberation”. Something in me is determined to understand the meaning of those words.

[@mathybit]

Oh man, shadow work sounded so uninteresting to me, and then everything became shadow work. Doing the dishes and other chores is shadow work (the uncomfortable drive/feeling of "I can't wait to be done with these"). Driving is shadow work, so many opportunities there! The mind still wants to know, always checking up on the current state I'm in, but in the past 2-3 days it's become perfectly clear that the mind can't know. It's literally a state of "not knowing", a complete surrender, no anticipation, no planning, no evaluating what is here. Unstable but easily accessible, the senses are not dual, but it also doesn't feel like oneness, like glimpses used to before. Strangely even the "I AM" sense seems to be fading. It just feels really basic. Do the shadow work people! There is no way around it, so don't waste any time thinking you can avoid it, or that "grace" will give it to you because you are the chosen one :)))

[@ianwithnothing]

Really good lecture! 🙏

[@johnsquabbler3112]

Also, it's just the word "suffering" that might catch us up. It's extreme - like Christ on the cross or the Holocaust or martyrs or whatever. I would have said I was miserable, but suffer? No - not a drama queen. Nothing qualified because of the way I define the word. "Unsatisfactoriness" cracked that minor conceptual hiccup. This is all years ago. You use the term, of course - I've noticed. It's good. More precise. Looking at it as unsatisafactoriness, did I suffer? Hell yeah. Funny how much can hinge on a single word.

[@rachel-is-here-1]

I felt the same way growing up and most of my life, still in the process of seeing it for what it is

[@doubledorje]

It seems to me after some practice that tension is ego. Like the standing wave hits tension and the impact is awesome and sort of absorbed.❤

[@anthony7416]

Thank you 🙏 again

[@Aleesa321]

Truly excellent video. Thank you.

[@stargirl9551]

Came back to watch the last ten minutes again 🙏

[@danconway8632]

Masterful 🙏🏼

[@davidweeks5286]

Fantastic! I needed this. BTW, Angelo, you have been coming to me in my dreams, helping me. When we feel emotions during meditation, should we treat them like thought? Notice them and let them go? Or feel into them. I identify with your childhood suffering. I learned very early that my thoughts, desires, feelings were persona non grata. Thus begins the persona. Help me climb this mountain.

[@prueevans8558]

🤣

[@berkeleywellbeing]

After watching this video (and some of your other videos), suffering finally began to resolve itself. Last night a contraction released, and wave after wave of terror flowed over me... But it wasn't scary. It felt almost exactly like bliss! Was that really what I was resisting all that time?!?!

[@SimplyAlwaysAwake]

sweeeeet

[@siddharth9]

So powerful.

[@georgesonm1774]

Do you think overreliance of therapy might have adverse effect in that it focuses on strengthening personal narratives, or replacing the less 'constructive' ones with 'better' ones (eg. Ok, so now I'll see myself as a winner etc.) I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, as I've been in therapy (several) for years and yet it doesn't seem helpful in seeing through self

[@777Morganna]

I‘ve wondered this too. Somatic therapies seem more useful than talking therapies, possibly except for IFS and psychosynthesis

[@FetterMuncher666]

Great Question. I hit a wall in talking therapy, I think there was only so far I could go with in the paradigm of two seperate people trying to unravel something through relating and exploring stories very much rooted in the sense of being the character in the stories.

[@clairedot657]

I don’t know about psychosynthesis (off to google), but I’d say somatic therapies are brilliant tools to use for shadow work. IFS, Somatic Experiencing and EMDR really help. I think IFS is one of the best theories out there that explains ‘ego’ and seeing it as a protective (albeit a misplaced overly protective) mechanism. It’s really helped me look at things without the added sting of self blame.

[@777Morganna]

@ Psychosynthesis is especially good for those of us with a western mystery tradition background. Look at Will Parfitt and Ian Rees.

[@EntangledSingularity]

Thank you 🙏

[@LeftTheMatrix]

This video is right on the nose as encouragement to continue rooting around in my boogeyman closet and pulling them out by their dusty little horns one by one. So much howling, and then then just poof - almost like they weren’t real in the first place 😂

[@mordie31]

First. Posted 8 mins ago with 8 likes hi everyone

[@BearsWithoutEars]

😁👋

[@-WillAlone-]

Congratulations!

[@brendanlea3605]

24-24

[@georgesonm1774]

From my experience, not being in control feels extremely scary because it seems that everyone around demands that we behave as 'responsible mature individuals' who take ownership of whether things go as they are supposed to etc., so that being in constant 'fixer' mode (which to me feels like struggle) is seemingly what 'everyone around' demands.. Do you have any comments on that? I suspect this is only a seeming contradiction and can be seen through, but I'm not quite sure where to look. Is that something that might be tied to a particular fetter, maybe?

[@prueevans8558]

Yeah, it's strange, in a world where lots of stuff is out of our control. I caught an image of the Marx Bros, looning about, creating even more chaos and thought - yeah. It's all out of control. 🤣

[@TheWizard10008]

Dear Angelo, If consciousness is like a fountain of eternal present moment awareness prior to thoughts, sense awareness or sense of self all flowing from the tip of a pin, am I that tip?

[@redirishmanxlt]

Would you say that the self seems manifest because of how it constantly pulls on attention? Maybe another way ask this would be; is the self just a load on the bandwidth of thought?

[@jadinowade]

For the first approach, if when you’re asking questions you hear thoughts come back as answers- is that what you mean by digging deeper? Or should we go deeper into the sensations?

[@Bsowow]

o. m. g.!!! 🙏🙏🙏 🙏🙏🙏 🙏🙏🙏 🙏🙏🙏 🙏🙏🙏 🙏🙏❤...

[@alfreddifeo9642]

💝🎯🙏

[@PaigeSquared]

I'm wondering how exactly our mind structure evolved to become so sneaky. 😂 Was it always this slick? As consciousness is evolving, does this mean that at some point, perhaps in the past (perhaps in the future), we weren't at such a risk of being fooled by our own egos? How could the sneakiness possibly be for our wellbeing, and why aren't more people concerned about it? 😂😅 After I dealt with someone in denial face to face, and tried my damnedest to get them to see the evidence they were biased against (took over a month before giving up), I became absolutely *terrified!* If my mind could do THAT, I needed some sort of safety rails in place! 🤯😂🙌🏻

[@michaelwilinski6631]

😊

[@JoeyKastelic777]

Wouldn't people-pleasing be a repression of fear as well as anger? It feels like it comes partly from fear of coming into contact with others' anger, i.e. not wanting to feel the fear associated with experiencing anger in someone else (as well as anger within oneself.) I'd say repressed anger is partly (or entirely) due to unwillingness to experience/come into contact with fear.

[@PaigeSquared]

Oh we are quite aware of the fear, while people pleasing. 😅 Fear ruled every life choice. Attempting to make sure our fears don't occur, fretting about it. Preoccupied with others in the center of our lives. We aren't able to access protective anger when required to, the anger accessible in this pattern is internalized and aimed at self. If someone tells you you're bad, you basically attempt to fit into their definition of "good," instead of getting angry at them for projecting onto us or becoming controlling. We believe the safest path is to appease because we can't tap into that externally directed defensive anger at the precise moments we need it. ETA: the "martyr people pleaser" is a whole other story that I'm not touching with a ten foot pole. 😂

[@JoeyKastelic777]

@PaigeSquared yeah I was speaking from experience, you put it very beautifully, thanks

[@PaigeSquared]

@JoeyKastelic777 in the video he doesn't really talk about the lived experience beyond being more comfortable or accepting of fear, I see more of what you're getting at. Those words aren't quite what I would assign to the lived experience. But they are accurate, in comparison to the repression of anger. In my experience, I still avoided fear. I would not say it was repressed in the same way, although I definitely didn't want to be aware of my fear when I was younger. Fear was still a "negative" feeling, and I had been trained to ignore or numb negative feelings, in my family of origin there wasn't anything that would or could be done about them. The anger had to be turned inward; as children, we are biologically wired to maintain our parents/caregivers approval as a necessary part of survival. A parent's rejection is considered a life or death situation. It is more dangerous for a child to blame a parent, than themselves, because they rely on that parent. The anger becomes internalized, and I was unable to feel anger (as well as disgust) regarding my own treatment, I wasn't able to label external people as the source of my anger or disgust, it was all turned inward. As an adult, I had to work to get those back. I think that fear is the feeling people pleasers are "comfortable" with, *in comparison* to anger, is closer to what he meant. It took me a very long time until I was comfortable choosing something I was afraid of, I wouldn't say I "prefer" fear, either. 😅 I definitely agree that we still experience fear as an unwanted emotion, but it is still available to us, not repressed. In our subconscious minds, we do technically prefer it to anger. It isn't that we choose it willfully. The repression itself is when we don't have access to it. Conscious avoidance is more along the lines of suppression. I have run into people who had lost access to anger in the people pleasing pattern, and were also so checked out (and avoidant of any negative emotions) that they weren't aware that fear was really running their show. They will express it more as anxiety, typically. Many western women, for example, aren't quite aware of the pervasive fear in the background of their experience, because it has been normalized. We just tune it out, we don't acknowledge the stress it has on our nervous system over time. When we don't acknowledge it, when it is being suppressed, it comes out sideways, usually via maladaptive mechanisms and emotional implosions. But, it isn't socially acceptable to discuss, we are told we are paranoid or making a big deal out of nothing or somehow believe we are special, so, many women just try their best to pretend otherwise. That fear is still running their behaviors, though. Does that make sense? I think it might be more about the level of buried the feeling is. My mind avoids fear; my body has repressed the anger. I wouldn't go around saying I prefer fear, but I definitely access it much easier than I do anger. 😅

[@MindfulWill]

I really want to send this to my ex girlfriend

[@sudarshansharma9807]

why do you want to send this? What do you want to prove? Feel that emotion

[@Jack_Parsons-666]

Send it to one of her friends who will send it to her without telling her it's from you.

[@sudarshansharma9807]

​@@Jack_Parsons-666😂

[@HopefulTarnished]

Send her forgiveness and compassion instead, it will be far more beneficial for both of you

[@JustDontMove111]

27:31

[@cindylmartinez]

😭🙏❤️‍🔥

[@markvosslpcc]

Silver