IKVaS: Letting Emotions Move Through Us
IKVaS, bringing feeling into the heel.
The IKVaS Method is a compassionate four-step approach to emotional healing that transforms overwhelming emotions into clarity, resilience, and peace.
The word emotion comes from the Latin emovere, "to move out" or "move through." In these hard times, I built IKVaS on the understanding that emotions are not meant to be ignored, fought, or carried indefinitely but rather, move through us. Each step of the process encourages emotional movement and healing through a gradual process until the emotion naturally softens, resolves, and is released.
One
First, you Identify (name) the adverse emotion a part of you is experiencing in the present moment.
'Unblend' by 'looking at' and identifying that a part of you is feeling something (anger, fear, shame, hurt, sadness etc) as well as look past the surface for underlying emotion. “A part of me is feeling rejected, and underneath that rejection is fear (e.g. of being unwanted, that I’ll be left alone, that I don’t matter)."
Two
Next, you acKnowledge the emotion by allowing yourself to genuinely feel it rather than suppressing or resisting it.
Once you identify the part and its feeling (and the accompanying underlying vulnerable feeling), acKnowledge 1) its presence spatially in your body and 2) allow its expression to be present (emote). Let the part know that you see it and are willing to hear (emotions are self-communication) what it is experiencing rather than ignoring, suppressing, or arguing with it. "I see you. You feel rejected and scared right now. I know you’re here, and I’m listening.” The goal is not to change the feeling at this point.
Three
Then, you Validate the emotion by exploring the thoughts and circumstances that show how the response is rational.
Validation is the opposite of the self-critic. Instead of telling the part, “You shouldn’t feel this way,” “You’re overreacting,” or “What’s wrong with you?” you become curious about why its reaction makes sense. What is this part afraid of? What did the situation mean to it? What past experience or deeper fear did it touch? You might say, “Given what you experienced, that makes sense.” Validating a feeling this way doesn't mean every belief attached to it is accurate, or that every impulse it brings up should be acted on, it means acknowledging that the feeling itself makes sense, so you can respond to it with care instead of judgment.
Only on the guilt path
The lowercase a is deliberate. It applies only when the S stands for self-forgiveness, not when it stands for self-compassion.
Guilt resolves through self-forgiveness, and you can only forgive yourself for real once you have done what there was to do. If I offended someone — or myself, by not taking care of myself well — I say I am sorry, to them or to me, and I commit to trying not to repeat it. Then forgiveness is actually available.
Four
Finally, you respond to the part with either self-forgiveness, when guilt is present, or self-compassion when there is emotional pain present.
Forgiveness: If you have made amends and the guilt is still there, release the blame, judgment, and shame directed toward the part with self-forgiveness, saying simply, "I forgive you."
Compassion: Shame isolates; compassion connects and anti-shames, releasing the pain. Use your Self to stay with the pain of the part rather than leaving it alone in its suffering. Let it know, “I’m here with you. You don’t have to carry this alone.” This connection creates the safety and love the part needs to soften and release.
IN MORE DETAIL
Every step is there to help the emotion move and release, because the way past a feeling is through it.
You have to actually feel something before it can let go. Denying a part's emotion, judging it, or shaming it only leaves that part more isolated and alone.
Ignoring a feeling can work for a while. But if it works, it puts distance between a part of you and the rest of you; and if it doesn't, the part feels unheard, and a part that feels unheard feels unsafe, so it gets louder.
So read every step below as an invitation to genuinely feel what is there, and then to let it move. When the emotion releases, the force it had over you goes with it, and the choice comes back to the part of you that decides.
IIdentifyKacKnowledgeVValidateaamendsSSelf
amends belongs to the guilt path
Two movements, not one.
The first is your first impression, what you notice the moment you become aware of it. You name it from the Self: "A part of me is feeling anger."
The second goes underneath, to the deeper why. Not the feeling on the surface, but what the part is really feeling. When you understand the why, you understand what you are actually feeling, and it is that underlying, vulnerable feeling that is really going on.
Find where it lives in the body.
Spot the fear somewhere specific in the body, and let it be there — let it express, emote, flow.
The more cognitive a person is, the harder this step tends to be, because it is the one that connects thinking to the body. It asks you to get in touch with the inside of yourself and sense the sensation and the emotion where it actually sits. Doing this fully matters, because the next step depends on it.
Said toward the place you found.
From the Self, simply: "That makes sense."
Say it toward the place in the body where the feeling is. When you talk to someone, you can close your eyes and still direct your attention to where you sense they are. A part works the same way. Feelings do not happen outside the body, they happen somewhere in it, so you turn toward that somewhere and validate the part as though it were a person sitting there. That is why acKnowledge has to come first.
Small on purpose: it belongs only to forgiveness.
The lowercase a is deliberate. It applies only when the S stands for self-forgiveness, not when it stands for self-compassion.
Guilt resolves through self-forgiveness, and you can only forgive yourself for real once you have done what there was to do. If I offended someone — or myself, by not taking care of myself well — I say I am sorry, to them or to me, and I commit to trying not to repeat it. Then forgiveness is actually available.
Two different answers, for two different feelings.
Self-forgiveness is short. You say it plainly, using your own name: "I forgive you, [your name]."
Self-compassion is more involved, and it is specifically for a part that is in pain. You tune in, approach the part in your mind's eye, and ask it something: “Can I do something?” “Is there anything you need?” Then you wait, your heart will tell you what the part answers. You respond the way it asked, and you keep the conversation going: “Can I sit next to you?” “No? How about I stand close by?” “Too close? How about here?” You sense where the part wants you, whether it will let you put a hand on its shoulder, or would rather you simply stayed nearby.
This can be the hardest step of all, because accepting compassion means admitting you need it, and if someone is guarded, that admission is exactly the one they are trying not to make.
Try it
Every feeling goes through the same first three steps. What changes is what it asks for at the end. Carry the right answer to each one and it ripens.
Drag an answer onto a feeling. Or tap one, then tap where it goes.
0 of 7 ripened
Or: Tab to an answer, Enter to pick it up, then Enter on a feeling.
A note on pacing: this process often unfolds gradually, sometimes over several passes through the same feeling. If an emotion doesn't fully resolve the first time, that's a normal part of the process, not a sign that anything is broken, or that you're "doing it wrong."
Ask About Working Together →One more thing
Not mine, and not specifics of the IKVaS Method, but worth a listen to get acquainted.
