The Man Who Taught Me to Stop Fighting My Feelings

Stephen Schwartz’s radical idea: Emotions aren’t problems to solve — they’re energy to allow

AI art created by author on Night Cafe

Most of us spend enormous energy managing, suppressing, or explaining our emotions — Stephen Schwartz spent his life teaching a different way entirely.

Stephen R. Schwartz (1949–1993) fathered the idea of compassionate self-care and was one the most insightful thinkers I have ever come across. His beliefs about emotions — and how they are like electrical wavelengths traveling through the body — completely revolutionized my recovery process.

To Schwartz, the physical body is simply the visible portion of “an invisible field of radiant energy.” This field is made up of incredibly thin filaments, which act as conduits and facilitate the flow of emotions at a subtle physiological level.

Schwartz coined the phrase “compassionate self-care,” which is a path of kindness and respect for one’s self. To him, emotional healing does not depend on the process of figuring something out. It does not exist in some conceptual ideology but is rather an experience of allowing the emotions to be integrated into one’s natural biological rhythms along with breath and heartbeat.

Schwartz purports that emotions are subtle physiological experiences, part of the natural rhythms of the body. In his world, emotions are not overlaid with thoughts and judgements. We merely let them run their course, like electricity, without labeling them, judging them, or fighting against them.

For example, in his workshops, he encouraged participants to identify their emotions at the physical level of the body’s energy, not confine them to the tangled, descriptive words in the mind, where we then judge them and thus effectively shut them down.

The fundamental principle of compassionate self-care reveals that there is nothing wrong, shameful, dark, or ugly about human life, including the emotions. We honor the body by gently turning our attention to it while allowing emotion to flow through our physical being and simply be.

When we allow ourselves to experience emotions in the body — when we turn to the body in order to breathe and allow emotional energy to flow through its conduits or filaments — we say “no” to arguing with our own natural, organic process; we say “no” to forcing back and pushing away something that demands and deserves to have room in our life. We respect the sacred presence that inhabits and radiates from the human body.

In Part 2, I will share how I used Schwartz’s concepts in my healing process.

Note: Schwartz’s books include Doors To Peace and The Compassionate Presence. The books, as well as information on his tapes and workshops, are available from Riverrun Press, P.O. Box 367, Piermont, NY 10968. (914) 353–1677.