This is the one skill I consciously need to focus on – Willingness- the ability to experience your emotions without needing to immediately escape or avoid them. Willingness is an essential skill, it’s a practical way to learn to allow yourself to experience what you are feeling so that you can work through it.
Willingness
This section is all about getting better at feeling. This skill is the one skill that I wish everyone could learn, because it’s like flipping a switch on your emotions; switching off the struggle, and turning on peace with your emotions. The skill is called willingness. When you learn to use willingness, you can take all that energy that you were wasting fighting your emotions and channel it toward the life you want.
This is the last part from the foundation section of this course where you’ve learned how to notice and name your emotions without judgment, avoidance, and struggle. In the upcoming sections I’m going to teach you a dozen skills to resolve the painful, crappy, intense, distorted emotions that you’re feeling, but to get there, we have to be better at sitting with them as step 2 in the process, so hang tight.
Willingness Makes Painful Emotions Easier
As much as we may wish that we didn’t have to feel painful emotions, it’s just not possible. Emotions, physical sensations, and thoughts, are all part of who we are, a beautiful vivacious part of who we are. They’re essential to our ability to live and love and connect and care.
So, for just a minute, let’s just compare painful emotions to a brick, this brick represents a painful emotion. Maybe it’s sadness, or chronic pain, or anxiety. When I just want to avoid it, try not to think about it, when I ask “Why me?”, when it comes up, that’s like holding this brick at arm’s length. How long do you think I can last? This is exhausting, I can feel the pain in my arm getting worse. So, I may just try harder, exert more energy, more willpower. And that’s not sustainable, I become exhausted, but because I can’t let it go, I may end up collapsing.
What is Willingness?
Willingness means to sit with, and engage with, what you are currently experiencing. It’s not “liking” your emotions, or “wanting” to feel them, it’s a choice to allow yourself to experience what you are feeling. It’s allowing yourself to be where you’re at, even if it’s uncomfortable or painful. It means you’re willing to experience emotions you may instinctively not want to experience. Willingness is a practical skill that can be learned. In this section, I’m going to break it up into tiny little steps that you can practice.
You’ve probably heard that mindfulness and meditation, are helpful with depression and anxiety, and that’s true, they have been shown to be very helpful, but willingness is the key to why mindfulness works. Willingness is the actual thing that you’re doing that makes the difference. Before we break down the skill of willingness into steps, let me tell you a story from one of my friends, and how she used willingness in her life.
It is normal, healthy, and beautiful to feel emotions. This is a beautiful part of life. The path to healing from mental illness is learning to move through them, not avoid them.
What Willingness Is Not
Willingness is not wanting to feel pain. It’s not liking or agreeing with the pain. It’s not saying pain is what I want my life to be about. Willingness is saying- “This is what I’m experiencing right now, so I will tune in and experience it”. Paradoxically, this is the path that is most likely to free you from the intense painful emotions. If we go back to the processing plant analogy, we can’t turn a whole dead salmon into a delicious filet without looking at it, cutting it open, and removing the distasteful parts. We need to go through the process to get the results we want.
Stay in your body as much as possible. This isn’t about figuring out the childhood roots of your problems. It’s not asking “Why am I feeling this way?”, that’s a step we’ll save for later. Overanalysing can be a form of avoidance. With willingness we stay in the present moment and describe things as they are here and now.
Ways to Practice Willingness
- Instead of struggling with emotions, drop the rope and lean in- This means instead of pushing that emotional brick away, pull it close to you. It’s ok to struggle for something, to fight for your life, for your values, for your purpose, to live well and have a meaningful, purposeful life. It’s ok to struggle to do good in the world, but drop the struggle to force your emotions to change. Step away from the trap of putting all your energy into changing how you feel and put that energy somewhere more helpful.
- Be present– Instead of focusing on “How long will this last, what if this lasts forever?”, think “It is what it is right now”.
- Get back in your body– Name, describe, greet, acknowledge, be curious, and allow it to be there, just in the present. Sometimes it helps to put your hand on the place in your body where you’re feeling it. Breathe space into it. Imagine warmth, softness, light flowing into it. Notice your breathing, clench and tighten your muscles. Expand awareness to other parts of your body, other sensations. See if you can experiment, try to make it worse for a moment. Say “Bring it on anxiety! Do your worst!” this is called “putting the kettle on”.
- Be compassionate- Be compassionate to yourself and your emotions. “How am I treating my body and my anxiety? Am I being kind?” The sensations or emotions may or may not go away, but being mean to them will surely make them worse. You could say something like this to your emotions- “Take as much time as you need.” It’s such a paradox. There is something immensely healing about wholehearted empathy. It’s that amazing healing that happens when someone sincerely listens and says, “I know how you feel. That must really be difficult.”
- Watch out for your “Stories”- All humans have automatic negative thoughts and worries. “Why me? Why is my tinnitus so loud? Why am I so sad? Is there something wrong with me?” Is this a sign that something is actually wrong? There’s a time and a place to explore that. Do these sensations have a message for me, something that is asking to be addressed, to be changed, or healed? Often, those intense automatic negative thoughts are exaggerated or come up even when you’re healthy, safe, and things are ok. When really intense thoughts come up, notice them as thoughts, acknowledge that they’re there, but don’t overthink them, don’t dwell on the thoughts themselves. Overthinking can be a habitual form of avoidance.
- This is not the same as Wallowing, surrendering, giving in, or giving up- Wallowing is all about letting go of your ability to choose allowing emotions to make your choices, giving up, labelling yourself as a victim, as helpless, as broken, and projecting your current emotions into the future. Willingness is all about noticing what you’re feeling, and then noticing that you’re noticing…that there’s a deeper you who watches yourself watching and makes choices about what to watch. This opens up space to make choices.
You Are in charge
You are not in control of what thoughts pop up, or what sensations show up, but you are in control of what you focus on, and when you focus on something it gets louder. The key to healing is to notice, to acknowledge your uncomfortable sensations, and then to make a choice about what you are going to pay attention to.
How to Practice Willingness
Try this with some physical sensations–you may be surprised how much of an emotion is really made up of physical sensations. Try doing a deep stretch, holding a cold ice cube, or doing wall sits, and just do that uncomfortable thing, practicing willingness while you do it.
Then Ways to use this Willingness to Identify opportunities
There are three approaches that you as an entrepreneurs use to identify an opportunity your new venture you choose to pursue. Once you, as an entrepreneur understands the importance of each approach, you will be much more likely to look for opportunities and ideas that fit each profile.
1 – One of the most important attributes of a good entrepreneur is having a keen observation ability. Basically, seeing what’s needed in people’s everyday lives and coming up with innovative new ideas and services that meet those needs. I always believe the entrepreneurs that anticipate trends and maintain observations of what’s needed, to solve those needs will have a higher chance of succeeding in the marketplace.
2 – The second approach to identifying opportunities is to recognize problems and find ways to solve them. Problems can be recognized by observing the challenges that people encounter Gaps in the marketplace are the third source of business opportunities. There are many examples of products that consumers need or want that aren’t available in a particular location or aren’t available at all. Part of the problem is created by large retailers, like Wal-Mart and Costco, that compete primarily on price and of- fer the most popular items targeted toward mainstream consumers. While this approach allows the large retailers to achieve economies of scale, it leaves gaps in the marketplace. This is the reason that clothing boutiques, specialty shops, and e-commerce websites exist. These businesses are willing to carry merchandise that doesn’t sell in large enough quantities for Wal-Mart and Costco to carry.
this observation, many companies have been started by people who have experienced a problem in their own lives, and then realized that the solution to the problem represented a business opportunity.
3 – Gaps in the marketplace are the third source of business opportunities. There are many examples of products that consumers need or want that aren’t available in a particular location or aren’t available at all. Part of the problem is created by large retailers, like Wal-Mart and Costco, that compete primarily on price and of- fer the most popular items targeted toward mainstream consumers. While this approach allows the large retailers to achieve economies of scale, it leaves gaps in the marketplace. This is the reason that clothing boutiques, specialty shops, and e-commerce websites exist. These businesses are willing to carry merchandise that doesn’t sell in large enough quantities for Myers and Woolworths.
So, by consciously being willing to look at the positive, it does allow you opportunities to start a profitable business