Here is essential information on discharging bad energy.
Others' articles on "Letting go of stress"
A brief quote, but there's lots more there, from an article called Discharge:
Letting go (i.e. discharging) is necessary for relieving stress. If your nervous system has trouble letting go, the excess energy gets stored in your body, through holding patterns in the muscles and fascia [connective tissue surrounding muscles].
Another brief excerpt from Counseling and Having a Good Yawn (really!):
We want discharge to happen. We feel calmer afterwards. As your comfort level increases in your counseling, you will find it easier to yawn.
It's a good way of tracking your progress in therapy. Finally, being able to have a good yawn in front of your therapist is therapy working well.
You might find it useful to read both articles, especially if you are having trouble with Rub & Yawn.
Alternative discharge mechanisms
There are probably other natural mechanisms to discharge stress. A dog, for example, has three obvious ones, namely:
- Yawning
- Stretching
- Shaking, similar to the action of shaking off water.
How does this apply with people? Probably the most therapeutic action for things that make one really ANGRY is highly physical, subject to the clarification below. Taking care not to damage anything important, do something like smack the heck out of a sofa with a baseball bat or your fists and boots and teeth etc. Yell at it. Whale away at it with your attention on the topic for as long as it takes to cool down. The topic is probably discharging all the time that one is doing this.
And this is probably why intense physical activities can be so relaxing (assuming no injuries): the stress-release factor.
Important: moderate the activity
If you merely let yourself go and act out the aggressive dictates of your topic exactly, this may actually reinforce the topic despite some temporary release. Instead, like in all PaulsRobot modules, a large part of the session has to be you knowingly controlling your topic and manipulating it in various ways, rather than simply letting it control you.
An example, perhaps, with the 6-Direction process: "Put your topic above you." [Does so + Smack!] "Thank you. Put it below you." [Does + Wham!] "Great. Put it to the right of you." [Executes command + KaPOW!] "OK. Put it to the left of you." [Complies + BLAMMO-Grrrr-Throttle!!] etc.
Adopt a clear positive intention while allowing negativity
Let the negative feelings flow as needed, not only anger, but do it in the confines of a therapeutic setting. Always have the clear positive intention that you are allowing this for healing only, not merely "letting it all hang out."
Replace negative with positive
After letting out a bunch of negative feelings it is often a good idea to "fill the space left" with positive ones. The full PaulsRobot3 site gives some ways of doing this, or you can come up with your own ways.
Residual discharges
These are yawns or other discharges that sometimes come off at the beginning of a Rub & Yawn session, formal or informal, that are not connected to any specific topic. These would occur anyway, whatever one's attention is on.
One possible explanation is that the normal functioning energy-exchange mechanism is backlogged, so to speak. Doing some intense rubbing "primes the pump," and gets things flowing again, meaning that now that there is some fresh new energy into the system some of the stale old stuff can get out. People who lead an active lifestyle probably keep things working properly in the regular course of events, but those who are inactive for long periods of time can get behind.
Text adapted from my Rub & Yawn site
Questions?
Feel free to ask questions in the comments, and I'll do my best to answer them for you.
Free sessions
To get free online fully-personalized stress-release sessions 24/7, see the links below.
Disclaimer
I am not a licensed practitioner in your area, and no longer give personal sessions. My works, designed for normal people and not clinical cases or the dysfunctional, treat you as a spiritual being and not mere flesh and blood. Use my free websites and videos at your own risk.
Index of my main Steemit blog posts
Table gives post number, title/link, brief notes about content.
Links to some of my stress-release sites
Yawnguy YouTube videos: Entry level. Since 2007, I deliver sessions directly to you by video on your custom topics. Start with Rub & Yawn 1/3.
YawnMachine.com: Entry level. Mobile-friendly. Text-based Rub & Yawn sessions.
PaulsRobot.com: Entry level (more or less). Mobile-friendly. More options to address your own topics. Sessions use three different Rub & Yawn techniques (Reach & Withdraw, 6-Direction, Rogerian). Includes theory and explanations.
RubAndYawn.com: Entry-level. Mobile friendly. Theory/explanations only, no session delivery.
PaulsRobot3.com: Advanced level. Desktop site. Delivers sessions on your custom topics. 3375 session pages in 31 onsite modules, using over 16 different techniques, none of them simply “talking about it”. Includes all relevant theory.
PaulsRobot2.com: Advanced level. Mobile-friendly. Experimental. PaulsRobot functionality but through icons instead of words. Includes automated session record. Video intro.
Yawnguy.com: Entry level. Desktop site. Links to my other sites. Over 100 testimonials. Includes roll-your-own audio session templates.
Facebook: My FB account, not used much.
Twitter: I have @yawnguy, @paulsrobot, @rubandyawn accounts, now coming out of hibernation since 2009.