Embodied Transcendence
This article is related to an event, click here to learn more.
As a multicultural mother living in Madrid, an actress, and a professional group trainer, I experience much suffering from miscommunication. It’s not easy to have a significant exchange with people we find genuinely nurturing. I learned about Compassionate Exchange through Karuna and aspired to apply it. Due to unprocessed internal trauma and mental conditioning, it does not always work the way I would like it.
I found the Alba Emoting (AE) method after I studied Contemplative Psychology in Karuna Training. The AE technique, created by Dr. Susana Bloch, has deepened the work that Karuna started. The method is based on allowing basic emotions to be felt directly, liberating contaminating patterns that block direct contact with the experience of these emotions.
Dr. Bloch is from Chile and developed her scientific career mainly in France, practicing physiological psychologist and neuroscientist. She discovered the ways of six basic emotions; rage, fear, sadness, joy, tenderness, and erotism. She then founded the Alba Emoting method in the mid-90s. The AE method trains in these six basic emotions by releasing a pattern of breath, muscular activation, and facial gesture. Through specific exercises, we cleanse our emotional pathways to authenticity. We reclaim spontaneity in our body, speech, and mind - and clarify our relationship to the environment in the present moment. The work offers us a pathway to our transcendent nature.
Most miscommunication comes from a need for more access to our emotional experiences. Often we forbid certain emotions to be experienced due to past mental conditioning. For example, if someone approaches us with tenderness, we respond with erotism because tenderness is linked to a traumatic experience from our childhood. These mixed emotional responses can lead to unwanted situations without understanding what happened.
The AE method teaches us about the ‘effectors’ of different emotions. The training teaches us to ride emotional energies that would otherwise be avoided or conflated with other feelings. Another example is in allowing ourselves to embody erotism, without which it becomes a barrier to experiencing ecstasy. Erotism is the primary emotion where I can feel the transition from a dualistic to a non-dualistic perspective.
I’ve found that the AE method has a lot to offer in expanding the framework of practicing Maitri Space Awareness. AE enhances our capacity to develop the recognition of emotional faculties. The AE method plays with the intensity dosage, providing different sensations, corporalities, and adaptability of an emotion.
The work is about clearing these six emotional, functional conduits and removing the judgments and beliefs we’ve attached to them. Rage, fear, sadness, joy, tenderness, and erotism are not good or bad emotions; they are practical ways to survive. Feeling and recognizing these emotions offer us a rest from confused needs that arise from the mixed conditioned emotional states. It feels incredible to experience the pure expression of one of the six basic emotions.
Once we taste the non-judgemental experience of these six basic emotions, we find new emotional vocabulary. Susana's theory is that sublime (spiritual) emotions can only be experienced through the grounding that contact with these basic six emotions can bring. For example, it will be challenging to experience courage if we do not have access to anger, fear, or tenderness.
Every emotion has a purity that opens us to something more significant when touched fully and completely. Emotions connect us intensely to the force of life, which is why I’m passionate about this work. I feel ready to be playful with life, to dance with phenomena, and enjoy being alive. Of course, the fun part is playing with others; this is why I’m offering this workshop.
In the course, we will learn the effectors of two emotions per class. After a brief theoretical introduction, I introduce a main body of work. Through simple practices, we prepare the body to experience the day’s emotions in their purest form. Afterward, we use a step-out method to return to neutral, be silent, and contemplate. There will be sharing the microscopic truth and other insights in break-out rooms regarding our historical experience of emotion. When time allows, we delve into our physical memory through embodied visualization for information about how we learned to relate to each emotion. The work is about obtaining the permission and blessing of our ancestors to experience the emotions purely now.
Please consider playing together and learning about the possibility of embodied transcendence! Enroll here.