CCI World News Service   mechanism  diagram   emotions   pre-conditions   history   network   home

the mechanism
Expression of emotion is healthy and healing. Emotion that is blocked or bottled up for too long becomes 'frozen' and unhealthy. For example, it is natural to feel grief and tears at the loss of a loved one. If that grief is blocked and not allowed enough expression it is likely to remain deep inside - we may feel an ongoing sadness or even depression. Or we may feel nothing except numbness and be unaware of its origins, which may be rooted in an experience we had many years before! There may be sudden unexplained release of tears at unexpected times, or perhaps we are no longer able to weep at all when we feel we would like to, or we may become intolerant of others who grieve 'too much' around us!
We see in this simple example how unexpressed emotion can become buried and can effect behaviour. The answer to being healthy in this situation is to begin to carefully explore and express the blocked emotion, and thus complete the unfinished grieving process. To do so will change both our feelings and our behaviours. CCI provides a mechanism and a safe environment where exploration and expression of emotional processes and behaviours - frozen or otherwise - can take place. 'We need to create safe places where people can express their pain, sadness and anger, while simply staying with them with attention and love' (Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, speaking about the grief process).3

comments and summary
Emotions or feelings lie at the base of what it means to be human. To be fully alive we need to be emotionally expressive and free. The examples above are of awarely opening up and exploring emotional patterns and releasing frozen emotions. CCI has developed an effective mechanism for doing this - a safe environment, a range of skills and techniques, and a network of like-minded people involved in the same processes. Some tech-niques are illustrated in the examples above - they can be cognitive, or in the body, they can involve thought or action or feeling, speaking or moving or expressing emotion - quite a creative range of modalities in fact, a mix of both rational and emotional intelligences. This business is mostly done in pairs, one person 'working' while the other supports or simply gives attention, each taking a turn and then swapping roles. Respect and confidentiality are of crucial importance.
Please note: These skills and practices are taught first of all, and exercised in a CCI training workshop - this ensures that people are able to use them most efficiently to get results. There is a worldwide network of CCI communities where this training is offered.
Emotional release is a practice that continues into our everyday life. Hurt may have been caused in the past, release may be in the present, and the out working of it may still be in the future. Emotional release commonly generates insight (an 'Aha' experience), and it is useful to actively celebrate this new awareness, and to plan how to integrate it into our lives. This brings ongoing results.
The examples above all describe emotional pain caused by people hurting other people. The CCI approach to this type of hurt is called co-counselling. However, there are also people within CCI (including the first present author) who believe there can be pain within us that arises simply from being human, and is not necessarily caused by other people. Here the inner need is experienced as spiritual or as a longing for re-connection with 'the beyond'.
The CCI format is wide enough to allow room for working within fields such as these. All kinds of activities can be used within the CCI format to heal hurts of this kind - activities such as meditation (of various schools) or yoga or prayer; music, drawing, dance, and other forms of creativity; rituals or ceremonies, either spontaneous or intentionally designed, or creative mythologizing. Such activities may help transmute spiritual 'pain' or other feelings by making sense of them in a greater context.4

we can summarise these thoughts in a series of diagrams, like this:
1. a normal healthy expression of appropriate emotion

life event        generates     healthy                  the life event is
      or              a  an                a  emotional       a    'completed', the   
human need   emotion       expression             human need is fulfilled

e.g.: it is healthy and appropriate to cry at a funeral;
       or to express joy at a marriage;
       or to experience frustration when missing a bus!

2. sometimes a healthy expression of emotion may need to be de-
    ferred until later

life event        generates       emotional            healthy 
      or        a an              a   expression   a  emotional    a liberation human need  emotion           is awarely          expression             
                      postponed
                      until a more
                      appropriate time

e.g.: an overworked nurse        the frustrations of the day are released by
        has a stressful day     a         *  a good workout at the gym
       dealing with a series                *  thumping cushions at home
       of difficult individuals                *  soaking in a sauna 

3. emotions which are habitually blocked or unexpressed, become
    'frozen'

life event   generates   emotional       the emotion 
     or     a an          a  expression   aremains un-    a a 'pattern'
human      emotion      is blocked       expressed; the   of distorted
need                            indefinitely     human need       feelings
                                                           unfulfilled; we    and be-
                                                           become stuck     haviour
                                                           and 'frozen'

e.g.:  a child might learn that it is 'weak' to cry ('big boys don't cry'), and
         later in life he cannot bear to watch 'weepy' movies and becomes
         angry or intolerant if his partner or child ever shows tears.
note:      a pattern of frozen behaviour can be necessary 'survival' mecha-
              nism developed early in life; e.g. a child growing up in a violent
              home may learn to always 'obey', or perhaps to be super-macho
              tough. This pattern of adaptive behaviour however may well have
              outlived its usefulness when adulthood is reached.

4. the CCI mechanism for 'unfreezing' patterns of blocked emotions

exploration     frozen         emotions       *  insight or new awareness
of patterned aemotions a are           a       * original human need  may
feelings or       are un-        expressed;      be  fulfilled
behaviour        covered      'discharged'   * new behaviour becomes
                                                                   possible
                                                                 * new energy and creativity

e.g.:
the inability to receive thanks or praise is a common pattern. You may have heard someone (or yourself) dismiss a compliment such as 'You cooked a wonderful dinner', by saying 'Oh, it was nothing' or 'Anyone could have done it'. The pattern underlying this sounds like 'I am not good enough' and probably arose from repeated experience where the basic human need to be loved was not fulfilled - and thus we came to believe that we were unworthy.
The original experience could have been any or all of: a parent telling us to stop showing off; bigger children at school laughing at our efforts; a teacher telling us to always put others first, etc.
Unblocking this common but painful frozen pattern could take several forms (depending on the individual - CCI is always respectful of the individual.) There may be need for tears  to be shed, there may be need for anger to be expressed. Or sometimes both - whatever helps to get rid of years of pain and hurt. Also we may experience old embarrassment or shame - it may be helpful to try standing up and physically shaking that off. And it could be helpful to experiment with self assertion - making statements that counter the pattern, such as 'I am very good at what I do'.
All these approaches and others can be used to release underlying frozen emotional patterns and generate new ways of behaving. The end liberation is when we can receive and enjoy a compliment, genuinely to take it in at a deep level, and reply 'Thank you. I went to a lot of trouble to cook the meal and I am delighted that you enjoyed it'.
And we find this ability to believe in ourselves generalises into other areas of our life.                         

notes: click here, bottom page

top