Problems arise when we fail to listen to them, when we develop the habit of tuning them out. As one example, what woke me up was a sense of anxiety. It’s still dark in my room, I figure it must be the middle of the night. I look at my clock: 15 minutes before I was going to get up anyway. I have a past history of going back to sleep, so some part of me was saying: dumbshit: why do you set the alarm if you are going to ignore it? This is not good for you. You would be happier and healthier if you consistently followed through on everything you imagine.
This is positive self talk, unquestionably. It is on the side of my better self.
Or take hate. It is likely the social equivalent of the felt sense of burning your hand on the stove. That sense makes sure you never do it again. We are social animals, and tend by nature to forgive and forget. But some people we should never allow back into the fold, like psychopaths. Hate enables us to remember this, and thus protects us. Can and has it been abused? Of course. Of course.
And I think I see now Peter Levine’s genius is separating emotions and sensations. What an emotion wants is to be HEARD. What we resist, persists, as the saying goes. If you consistently go into the sensations that lead to the emotion, you can learn to hear emotions before they are even born, and thus make it unnecessary for them to grow to full expression. You can do this consistently.
And by going into sensation often, you build up a sensitivity to all the things they are trying to tell you. You feel something, and then BAM you see what it saw, you see what you otherwise would have missed if it hadn’t been there like an alert guard dog.
All of these ideas are strongly positive, and I would encourage you to consider them carefully.