How to Handle Unwanted Feelings: The Upset Clearing Process

Reposted from April 2011.

A reader wanted to know how we deal with the negative feelings like hatred and vengefulness that arise when we remember what the dark side has done to us – causing death and destruction and other forms of suffering. How do we deal with our emotions without wanting to lynch the dark ones?

We could if we wanted address it using the “cognitive” approach: by educating ourselves on the accurate situation we’re in as Matthew, SaLuSa, Saul, Hilarion, and others have revealed it to us.

That would involve us seeing that we created the dark ones from our own dark side and that if we withdraw our attention from the dark ones we move away from them and reach a point where we no longer have to be in their world or dimension.

We could use the growth movement answers such as hitting a pillow, shouting in our car, punching a punching bag, expressing ourselves with the same degree and kind of emotion as the upset.

We could use Ho’oponopono and forgiveness. But what can we use when none of these seem to work?

Readers here know that I recommend a process which I’ve called the upset clearing process. Using this, we “source,” or get to the bottom of, the original upset. When we’ve reached the source of the upset and completed the experience at the base of it, the upset disappears and often will not return to bother us.

There is a part of me that sighs when I introduce this subject. Because, although it sounds straightforward, it’s not entirely straightforward. Many people don’t know how to work the process.

Many fail to locate an image of their earlier upset. Many fail to grab the first image that flies by their minds. Some don’t know how to “be with” the image. Some try to move the process forward when they should be passively observing.

There are many reasons why we may find ourselves unable to make the process work and I don’t know what to do about that through the medium of writing. If I were standing beside another person, I could guide them through the process. But writing? Not obvious how I’d do it.

That doesn’t mean the process doesn’t work. It just means I don’t know how to accomplish the task in writing.

Nonetheless, I’ll lay the process out in the hopes that some of it will ring a bell and either you’ll be able to make use of it yourself or else find a setting in which the process is used and get face-to-face instruction in it. I have to say that it took me years to learn it and then do it enough times that many of my major upsets have lifted.

The aim of using this process is that, instead of correcting the ignorance that holds the situation in place or instead of expressing ourselves until the upset lifts (if it does), we complete the experience of the piece of old business that has us see the world and respond as we do. The process is the same as what Krishnamurti called “passive awareness” and Eckhart Tolle calls “practising presence.”

It is covered by innumerable articles in the subsection “Preparing for Ascension” in the righthand column. I’ve probably written about nothing else more than the upset clearing process because I know how freeing it is. At the end of this article I’ll list the other articles that treat it.

I learned this process from encounter-group leaders, Werner Erhard, John Enright, Vipassana meditation, and enlightenment intensives. It has many names but has been discussed in the channeled messages that we’ve been reading for the last two years, all of which say, in brief, “complete your unfinished business.”

The Upset Clearing Process

1. Name or Describe the Upset

We cannot process an upset that is not already happening so value your upsets when they happen. What usually happens for me is that I get upset and begin winding up to attack the other person (who “upset me,” right?). Then, in a flash, I realize I’m in an upset.

I stop what I’m doing, take a deep breath, and begin the upset clearing process instead of attacking the other.

I begin by identifying the upset in any way that does the job for me. “I don’t like other people attacking my friends.” “I don’t like it when the guy next door warbles in his awful voice.” “I don’t like being served cold food.”

2. Identify the Accompanying Feeling

When these things happen I feel (rageful, ready to scream, irritated). I take a moment to fully experience the feeling I’ve named. I breathe into it. I let it fill me up.

3. Locate the Earlier, Similar Incident

What troubles us about the incident is almost never the present situation. It is usually an incident from the distant past which was so difficult for us that we stepped out of the flow of life and stopped experiencing there. Often we made a binding decision of the form “I will always” or “I will never.” What we must do now is take ourselves back to that discrete moment in history when the traumatizing event happened.

So I ask myself for an image, word, phrase, thought, or memory that will identify that original incident. Now here is where most people go off the track. The image comes shooting by them and they do not notice it. Or else they don’t like the first image that comes to their mind but dismiss it for one reason or another and look for a second image.

No, the mind works perfectly to send you the image asked for. Take the first image that comes shooting across your mind. Passively be with it. Stay with that image and allow it to tell its story to you. Feel the feelings that arise, no matter how unpleasant they may be. This is a crucial element of the upset clearning process.

4. Re-experience the Earlier, Similar Incident through to Completion

If you feel like crying, cry. If you feel like shouting and can shout, then do that. Etc. Remain there, being with and observing the feeling and the incident for as long as required until you feel it gradually lift. Continue to remain with it until you’re completely restored to Self.

When it lifts you’ve completed the experience – this time. You may have to repeat it, but at least once you’ve allowed it to play itself out it may loosen its grip on you. And it may not. It may require a number of repetitions of the process but the upset will finally lift and you’ll be rid of it. If you project your feelings onto others and act out your upset, you just energize the upset and hold onto it for the next time. But this way, you’ve taken a step towards completing it, “sourcing” it, or “flattening” it.

No emotion or thought lasts forever. All have a beginning, a middle, and an end, which is why sages say “This too shall pass.” If we allow an upset to pass through us without getting behind it, acting it out, and projecting it onto others, it will complete itself, disappear, and release its grip on us. Doing that is the way to complete unfinished business and, in this instance, Mimi, free yourself from hatred of the dark and vengefulness.

Now that’s easy to say, but the fact of the matter is that it took me 23 enlightenment intensives, several repetitions of the est Training, three months of encounter groups, and numerous other workshops to release some of the major upsets in my life. So it isn’t necessarily something we can accomplish overnight. But it is the road out of the forest and with the energy rising on the planet it just may be that clearing upsets becomes easier as we go along. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. Moreover, the galactics will assist us to release our unfinished business; I’m sure of it.

One last thing: karma and issues are different. Our karma will be forgiven us; our issues perhaps not. Our karma is the lessons that are destined to come to us later in this lifetime or another lifetime. But our issues are right here with us now. It’s the difference between the movers saying they will move your household furnishings (karma) but not your backpack (issues). If you have a heavy backpack, then there may be effort involved.

So, whether you can make this process work or not, whether you can’t make it work right now but will be able to later, this is the way out of feelings like vengefulness and hatred.

Now I’ll list a few other articles on this site that look at the matter:

The Upset Clearing Process

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