We hate people when we feel we cannot express what we feel around them. I think this is close to an important truth, although of course I have a tendency to universalize from my particulars. And this hate of others can easily be redirected into self hatred.
And I feel we become depressed, in the end, from emotions which simply won’t flow, or–perhaps more accurately–which we cannot allow to flow without winding up in jail or a mental asylum. Again, I think this is close, if perhaps not precisely on the mark.
The process of knot-untying, of releasing, of relaxing, is inherently something which makes life easier, since there are fewer emotions you have to control. You can trust in “life” when you can trust in yourself not to feel a spontaneous and powerful impulse to strangle someone.
To let tensions drop away is inherently to become less violent. Conversely, to live in continual tension–as so many Americans do–is to become more violent. And just look at our TV and movies.
Often, to release a feeling, we need someone to release it to, to confess it to. When they then say “yes, I recognize this feeling. I have felt it too”, this often allows you to allow it to fade away, or at least diminish in intensity.
Kum Nye, by focusing attention of feelings, and the sensations and images which precede them, is a sort of internal, non-verbal conversation which I feel over time has the same effect. You can always understand yourself with much greater precision than anyone else, and, having done so, you will also understand others much better too. You will see what they are feeling, perhaps better than they do, because you have gone so deep into the process of emotional awareness.