1 result for (book:ecs3 AND heading:"esp class session march 9 1971" AND stemmed:express)
[... 11 paragraphs ...]
I gave you symbolic porridge one night, right? And it did a lot of good. Now, then, relax and be expressive, and you will feel much better. And do not have such a hang up over what I know you have in mind. Let it be. We are not giving away points for secrets.
[... 9 paragraphs ...]
When I said that our simple little exercise last week was a preliminary exercise, that is exactly what I meant but you are the ones who are placing the interpretation upon it that you are. So I have a simple question for you and I will expect an answer. It is a very simple question, there is an implication within it. You do not need to accept the implication, but if you do not, then why do you not? And for all your fine thoughts, why are each of you, in your secret ways, so afraid of the implications of the word love or showing it here? Why do you find it far safer to show love to an animal and pet it, than to a person? Now this is my question for you this evening, and I expect it faced and answered honestly. You are more frightened of that than anything else, not of your secrets. This is a fine blind. Some of you would rather stand up in this class and say, “I killed an animal in hatred” or “I knocked a man’s guts out” or “I shot my neighbor” almost, rather than express a simple statement of love or acceptance to another person in the class wholeheartedly and act, that was not an act, when you are not a star performing. The secrets do not bother you half as much as you imagine that they do.
[... 16 paragraphs ...]
(To Sally.) You project your own distrust upon other people and then react to it and so you close yourself off from those feelings of trust that others would express for you. Now you have a deep distrust of self that you have managed to shove beneath for many years, and it originated before your divorce. Now the distrust was projected outward, and so you found in physical reality those effects that seemed to justify your feelings and, therefore, you hid further and further within yourself, adapting a militant manner to hide the helplessness that you felt.
[... 3 paragraphs ...]
Then express the feelings as they come to you, and there is nothing to fear. This will free you to express joy and love. You cannot inhibit the recognition of one feeling without getting into the habit of inhibiting all your feelings. If you distrust one feeling, then feeling itself becomes fearful, and you inhibit it. It is as if the sky then decided to reject the black clouds and then, through association, decided to reject the white clouds; and, through association, to reject anything at all that might appear within it.
[... 15 paragraphs ...]