Reduce Overwhelm and Intrusive Thoughts

(Summary) Unblending starts with a simple but powerful shift: noticing that a part of you is holding an experience, not your whole self. In this video, we explore how saying “a part of me feels scared” creates distance from overwhelming emotions, reducing their intensity and opening space for reassurance. Even this first step can bring meaningful relief and move you closer to healing, while laying the groundwork for deeper unblending practices.

Last week, I focused on the first step for unblending, which is noticing that a part of you is experiencing something that is also affecting you. And I asked if you noticed anything after you identified the experience as belonging to you. What you may have noticed is observing “a part of me is feeling scared” can reduce the intensity of the experience that you’re having. If you’re feeling scared and you have no idea why, you might say to yourself, “I don’t need to be scared” or “there’s no reason to be scared right now.” How much do you think that’s going to reduce the fear? Probably not much. Now if instead you say to yourself, “Oh, some part of me is feeling really scared right now,” you’re very likely to find that the intensity is reduced. That’s not to say that the feeling of being scared vanishes. But maybe if it was an eight out of 10, it’s now a five or six instead. And that’s real improvement. And it’s even possible you might be able to offer assurances and evidence of safety to that part, which would reduce the intensity even further. But simply noticing that another part of you is holding that experience creates a little sliver of distance between you and that intense emotion, urge, or other experience.

I hope you practiced last week and you were able to experience this for yourself. This is just the first steps of unblending. But doing only these is still helpful in moving you in the direction of healing. If you’d like to get a handout summarizing the steps, click here

Would you do me a favor? Would you give this a try a couple of times and then leave comments about your experiences with noticing, that an experience is originating from another part of you. And then saying to yourself that some part of you is experiencing nothing and maybe even trying to help that part I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.