Hi, I would like to ask something about the intensity of feelings. We are taught that feelings are harmless vibrations in our bodies. I logically get this, but sometimes I found myself not believing it fully. Here is my reflection which came up tonight
Circumstance: History of insomnia of waking up during the night. Feeling restless tight all around upper chest, itchy and pulsing, mind is awake with rapid thoughts.
I did a thought download and I realized I had a stream of thoughts passing by, each creating a different feeling, but there was no dominant one.
So I tuned in to the body and accepted all the feelings that were there. However with those feelings, it was clear to me that I could not go back to sleep, my mind was very active.

I had the impulse to distract myself from these feelings by going on youtube. I watched this and reminded me “its possible that my mind is creating these feelings because it is seeking the dopamine coming from not doing thought work being distracted and entertained”.

But from my experience I also remember nights where I allowed restless to be there, I allowed frustration, and slept nothing.
So my brain believes the thought: “If I allow these feelings and accept to not sleep, accept frustration and whatever comes, still I have no guarantees that my brain will reduce the appearance of these feelings in the long run”.

Conclusion: I better take care of today’s sleep and so in the end I had a teaspoon of olive oil (helps me with restlessness) and watch some distracting videos just for the sake of shifting the emotions and be able to go back to sleep.
So ultimately I am convinced that feeling are harmless, but above a certain intensity still have power over us.

Recap: I have an intense feeling, I see accept it and put it on my side but still interferes with the thing I am doing (restless interf. with sleeping, or anxious interf. with my capacity to study some material). At the same time I know there is something that can help me distract from the feeling and recover my functionality in the given activity. Then, why not distracting? I see I get dependent on it, but I don’t see how other options are sustainable (e.g allowing restlessness with watcher mode for 3 days/ week keeps me not functional). I’d be glad to hear your feedback.