How we Handle Our Emotions Matters
As humans, we are (largely) feeling creatures, and while many of us struggle with how to handle our emotions, they serve an important purpose. They provide us feedback and (ideally) pass through us organically like water flows in a river. In her book “Goodbye Hurt and Pain,” Dr. Deb Sandella points out that “in the same way water moves through the atmosphere, in and out of oceans, over and under land, human feelings continuously precipitate, go underground, rise to the surface, and evaporate through our awareness. Trying to control our feelings through resistance and avoidance is like damming a river to stop the flow. An emotional dam pools feelings. This reservoir of avoided emotion remains in the body until we release it. In other words, the feelings we tried to avoid get held inside us instead.”
Speaking from personal experience, I spent years and years of my life reaping the results of dammed up emotions. Much of my own depression and related drug use was due to being in a constant and never-ending state of anxiety and anger. Early childhood traumas kept me constantly on high alert for threats, as a result I was often irritable, worrisome and fearful. My way of handling these feelings was to seek out numbing behaviors, including drugs (mostly marijuana), alcohol, excessive television and video game use. While many of these things can be OK for many of us in moderation, they were not good for me in excess. These habits impacted my life, and most importantly, my physical health and motivation.
I have come to learn that the greater the emotional intensity of an event, the more strongly the feelings get stuck in the nervous system. Strong feelings create a biochemical change, and when highly charged (negatively or positively) they gain immense stickiness in the body. In his book “The Body Keeps the Score,” Bessel Van Der Kolk notes that “we have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think.”
What is RIM and how does it work?
RIM is a spoken word healing modality that safely allows you to dip into your subconscious to find the root of what’s been keeping you from your unique and wonderful wholeness! So, what does this actually mean?
RIM helps us create a bridge between our thinking mind and our emotional operating system by using our best available tool – imagination. Our imagination is “clever, insightful, unattached to ideology or politics, and able to synthesize data from everywhere including your head, heart/body and spirit to create solutions,” says Dr. Deb Sandella (founder of the RIM Institute), “Imagination is the readily available, no-cost communicator that translates emotion into form for the mind to comprehend or use. Imagination spontaneously unfolds the form of feelings for your mind to grasp; the logical head is compelled to follow these quantifiable clues because it is good at deciphering codes, and it loves to find answers and win the game.”
Our unconscious isn’t trying to hide from us, but the language it uses (metaphor) isn’t easily translated by the thinking mind. “Fortunately, and naturally,” writes Dr. Deb,” imagination is adept at the unconscious language; it loves to express in graphic, sensorial, and metaphorical ways.” Our imagination is always available to act as a translator between our unconscious and our thinking mind.
What Happens in a Typical Rim Session?
RIM sessions are typically done by phone or zoom (we do some in-person sessions with folks in our area). We recommend you find a quiet and comfortable place to sit, where you can minimize interruptions. The process is usually closed eye, but doesn’t need to be. It is all verbal, there’s no physical contact. Each session is client-led and client-generated. As facilitators, our role is to follow your organic process and make sure that you are safe. As the client, you can’t do it wrong and you are always in control. That said, there’s no need to worry about what you do – we trust that your subconscious mind will automatically find whatever is needed to show up.
RIM uses skills, not steps, so no two sessions are alike. Sometimes we start with relaxing breathing and slowing down the brain waves to an alpha or theta state, but that’s not always called for. As we continue through the process, we build emotional safety with every step, so you can do your own work without the facilitator’s direction and -this is important – without reliving traumatic or painful events. As you go through your own experience, we follow your organic sensations and images as they unfold.
For everyone, the session is different. Sometimes a client dialogues with people who have shown up, or with body sensations or images. This process takes you deeper than asking questions of your thinking mind, but it includes your mind as a partner, allowing for and benefiting from new insights along the way. For others, the session might be decidedly “psychedelic” in quality. Nonetheless, your Emotional Operating System (EOS) will find what it needs for you to heal in the moment.
Videos about RIM
For more information on RIM
I recommend to anyone interested in this life-changing process to read “Goodbye, Hurt & Pain,” by Dr. Deb Sandella (you can also get the book from Amazon)
The Rim Institute – The RIM Institute has a broad range of information about RIM including scientific studies conducted by RIM Masters students.
MichaelJKline.com – Mike Kline is one of RIM’s most seasoned facilitators and is a trainer for future facilitators. Though targeted at people interested in learning how to facilitate, his web site includes some excellent information on RIM and his own experience with it as a client and a facilitator.