Try The Experiment

Feeling is the New Thinking

It’s weird. It’s real. It works.

Try it right now:

Feel whatever you're feeling.

Don’t fix it. Don’t name it. Don’t try to figure out where it came from.

Simply feel it. For 30-90 seconds.

Still here?

That was The Experiment.

It’s not therapy.

It’s not coaching.

It’s not meditation.

It’s an unfiltered, unpolished, unintellectual practice of feeling what you’re feeling.

No fixing.

No discipline.

Simply feeling.

What Happens on The Experiment call each week?

We get in a zoom room (no one can see anyone else - it feels like it is just you and me).

I talk about the weird, wonderful thing that The Experiment is.

  • feeling

  • feeling whatever is here right now

  • feeling the good stuff and the bad stuff and the big stuff and the small stuff

  • feeling the physical stuff and the stuff you feel that you can’t touch

  • feeling the feeling until you don’t feel it anymore

  • the fact that we have always had feelings and we were born to feel them

  • the fact that you don’t need to ignore your thoughts — they are wildly helpful and welcome

I invite you to feel your feelings (sometimes for a minute, sometimes for 3 or maybe 5).

We talk about what happened (but only if people have something to share).

Then we do that again a few times - until time is up.

Weird, right?

We feel.

We don’t fix.

Because you don’t need fixing.

You might share your experience. You might not.

You might cry. You might not.

You might laugh. You might not.

Something real happens.

Want to Try It?

Please try it right now.

Want to join the call - sign up below.

  • Weekly Calls

    We gather each week on Mondays from 10am-11am CST via zoom. No fee, no commitment, zero chance of doing it wrong.

    Doing The Experiment with others can make it easier for some to experience it. We all learn together for an hour, and if things go right, might listen to a song or watch a cartoon too.

    After you register you will receive an email from zoom. Scroll down to add the event to your calendar. Join the call when you can, don’t when you can’t.

    invite yourself

More Details for People Who Like More Details

The Experiment is simply this: an invitation to feel whatever you’re feeling right now and to feel it fully. I typically know I have felt a feeling completely because a new feeling or thought arrives. Thoughts are a welcome part of The Experiment. When you have a thought, the invitation is to feel the feeling of the thought.

The Experiment is not a discipline. There is no need to stay with a feeling. You simply feel a feeling until it is done being felt.

The Experiment is not a discipline. There is no need to ignore or observe or be separate from your thoughts or feelings.

In The Experiment you feel your feelings fully and they reintegrate themselves into you, they do not become separate from you. You do not need to do anything with them, beyond feeling them. You do not need to let them go, know what they are, know what they are called, know where they live in your body or even why they are there. You simply feel them. 

When you’re doing The Experiment there is no need to have any discipline at all. You simply feel what you’re feeling until you feel something new. Then you feel that. It is that simple.

For some people that simplicity is alarming or confusing. That alarm or confusion is perfect. Alarm and confusion are feelings. The invitation is to feel those feelings. So feel the alarm or the confusion.

Isn’t that funny!

It is such a great method because even if you don’t think you know how to do it, you’re doing it. Even in the not knowing of what you’re doing, the only invitation is to feel that experience.


What We Usually do Instead of The Experiment


Most of us are accustomed to doing the following things with our feelings:

  • Escape from them - we get busy doing something else to escape from feeling our feelings 

  • Suppress them - we stuff them down, box them off, bottle them up instead of feeling them

  • Express them - we talk about them, name them, figure out where they came from and why they are here instead of feeling them

The Experiment is about feeling them. Thoughts are welcome and helpful. 

The point is not to get rid of our thoughts or feelings, nor is it to make them separate from us - the point is to reintegrate them. When we feel them, they get realigned with us. 

I invite you to close your eyes and feel what you’re feeling right now. If you’re having thoughts, feel the feeling of your thoughts.

That is The Experiment.

What the Heck is a Feeling

In The Experiment the definition of a feeling includes a whole bunch of things.

Big Important Feelings

When I talk about feelings I think a lot of people think I’m talking about big scary ones like grief, regret, rage, shame, anger and fear. The ones people like to avoid at all costs. The feelings that are hard to feel. The ones we would rather pretend aren’t there. Those are feelings but they aren’t the only ones we feel in The Experiment. (As a matter of fact we usually don’t start here because that is like learning to swim by jumping into the deepest end of the pool full of alligators, spiders, mice and the ghost that lives in your childhood closet.) Instead, we start with feeling whatever we are feeling right now.

Little Petty Feelings

Often people consider little feelings like annoyance, calm, amusement, curiosity or boredom such minor pieces of their life that they don’t need to be thought about or felt. Many people consider those feelings to be something to be skipped over completely. In The Experiment that is not the case. Little petty feelings are great invitations in The Experiment. They are one of my favorite places to start. 

Negative Feelings

When first introduced to The Experiment people often assume we are going to dig into negative feelings. The ones that feel gross and scary. The ones connected to the death of a loved one or failure or embarrassment. Again, feelings we don’t want to feel or talk about or even remember happened. The Experiment does invite you to feel those feelings but they aren’t the only ones to feel and people often don’t start there.

Positive feelings

When The Experiment invites people to feel positive feelings they are often surprised. Why in the world would we use The Experiment on something as great as a fun day, or the beauty of someone we love, or the fact that we just accomplished something really hard or meaningful. Strangely enough, even though those feelings might feel more attractive, we often don’t start there either. They can be hard and scary too. They are feelings though and when they show up in your life are an invitation to feel them.

Physical feelings

In The Experiment things you feel with your body are feelings too. Afterall, they are something you feel. This is stuff like an ache in your neck, a pain in your side, the chill of a winter day, the warmth of hot soup in your mouth, the way your clothes fit. Any physical feeling is a feeling and an invitation from The Experiment to feel it. 

Feelings you can’t Touch

Anything you might experience but can’t really touch count as feelings in The Experiment too. This includes things you can taste, hear, smell or see. This includes the feeling of a thought, a concept or even more than one thought or concept at the same time. This might be the sense of someone or something’s energy, the feeling of a room, a hunch, love, feeling tickled by humor - they are feelings too.

All of those things are feelings in The Experiment.

And The Experiment is simply an invitation to feel whatever you’re feeling right now.

As you can see, The Experiment is constantly inviting you to feel. Pretty much everything you do or see or think about is an invitation from The Experiment to feel.

The good news is there is no pressure. You can’t do The Experiment wrong. If you never feel anything, ever, you’re still doing it just right.

I encourage you to close your eyes (although that is not required, I often do The Experiment with my eyes open) and feel whatever you feel right now.

The rest of this document is just some more words about The Experiment, but not a single one of those words is more important than you experiencing this for yourself. 

Right now is a great time to try The Experiment.

Custom Built For You, By You

If you try to deal with something that is too big, too scary, too much for you, The Experiment will take care of you by offering you something else to feel - it will bounce you out of that feeling to one you’re able to feel. 

The Experiment always looks after you. It is custom built for you, by you. Your only job, the only invitation in The Experiment, is to feel the feeling that is available right now. So if you try to address something that is too big, too scary, too sad, too happy, The Experiment will offer a feeling or a thought that you are ready for. Go with that thought or feeling. Whatever big, scary, intense monster of a feeling you’re eager to deal with will show up someday and you can feel it then.

Keep Track of your Evidence

The Experiment might change your life. I strongly recommend you keep track of those changes.

Here are a few ways you could keep track:

  • Take notes in your phone

  • Make voice memos for yourself

  • If you have a group of people you do The Experiment with, start a group chat

  • Write it in your journal

Many people notice evidence that things have changed in their life because other people point it out to them. Keep track of that too.

This evidence might be big or small. The first evidence I saw was after a trip I needed to unpack. Before The Experiment the act of unpacking felt as exhausting as climbing a mountain. Since The Experiment, the act of unpacking feels as exhausting as unpacking (not at all exhausting).

Notice the Invitations

The Experiment gives you constant invitations to feel your feelings.

Even if you don’t feel all of them – notice them.

Even if you never feel them – make a habit of noticing how many invitations you get.

Pause and notice the invitations The Experiment is giving you right now.

My guess is you can find at least six of them. Things like:

  • How your clothes feel

  • The temperature of the room

  • Any tightness in your muscles

  • The feeling of reading these words

  • The feeling of a thought or thoughts you’re having

  • The feeling of any people or plants or animals near you (physically or on your mind

  • The feeling of the crowd you’re standing in

  • The feeling of an idea you don’t like

  • The feeling of an idea you do like

  • The feeling of a person you love

  • The feeling of a person you can’t stand

How to do The Experiment

Hopefully you have already given it a try.

If you haven’t, now is a great time.

Close your eyes.

Feel what you’re feeling. If you’ve having thoughts or pains or aches, or feel the temperature or energy of the room you’re in, or the people around you - awesome feel that. That is The Experiment.

Here is something fun. If you close your eyes and nothing happens you can feel the feeling of nothing happening. That is The Experiment.

The Experiment will likely cause changes in your life. Keep evidence of those changes. Sometimes our egos are not thrilled about the changes The Experiment brings and they want to talk us out of it trying it. Keeping track of evidence can help with this.

Why Do The Experiment - What Happens?

I can’t tell you what will happen for you when you try The Experiment.

I can only tell you that it has been such a gentle and powerful experience for me that I’m compelled to share it with others. For nearly 8 months, I have been trying The Experiment almost daily and it has changed my life for the better. For most of those 8 months I have been sharing it with others. Many of those people have shared that it has brought positive change to their lives.

If I listed off all of the positive benefits I have experienced and seen others experience you might expect that to happen for you. That isn’t how it works though, The Experiment is custom built for you, by you. What happens in your life is likely to be exactly what you need. It won’t be exactly what has happened in my life or anyone else's life. 

My Invitation to You

When The Experiment and I first met, I thought I was being invited to start some sort of new business. What I've discovered now, while doing The Experiment, is that The Experiment wants to run free. It wants to spread from one heart to the next. It does not want to live behind a paywall. It does not want to live behind a train-the-trainer experience. It does not want to require a coach or a teacher. It is built so simply and so elegantly that it can be described here in just a handful of pages. 

Try it in your own Life

My invitation to you is, first and foremost, that you try The Experiment in your own life starting now. If that is all that happens, as the host of The Experiment, I will be thrilled. 

Share with Others

I would be thrilled if you share The Experiment with others by sharing this document. If you feel excited about it, start your own group who tries The Experiment together. 

ONE NOTE: The Experiment is custom built for you by you. It is not custom built for someone else by you and it is certainly not custom built by me for you. The Experiment is not something to prescribe to someone else. It is not something that will “fix” you, anyone else, or anything else. None of us need to be fixed. The Experiment is an invitation to feel your feelings. You can make the invitation to others, but they don’t need to accept it. In my experience, the only thing that works is inviting people to try The Experiment, to offer it in a gentle way, and if they try it or if they don’t feel the feelings you have about that. Whether they try it or not does not matter. What does matter is you accepting invitations from The Experiment to feel your own feelings.

Do The Experiment with Others

I find that doing The Experiment with other people can amplify the experience. Here are a bunch of ways to try The Experiment with others

  • You could also start your own call or in person group by simply sharing this document with the people you invite and doing The Experiment together. You might want to check out how I host the call on Monday before you do your own version – but that isn’t required. If you find a great way to host The Experiment please let me know about it. I’d love to share it with others. Send me a note at me@sarabstern.com

  • You could bring it into your work - whatever your work is. It is a great tool to use by yourself or with others when you’re confused or need to make a big decision. It is a great way to start a meeting or other gathering. You could use it if you have clients or colleagues or classrooms. If you do this - please share with me so I can share with others. 

  • Every once in a while I host longer, live or virtual events to try The Experiment in a group. If you sign up for my Monday calls you’ll be on the list of people who hear about the longer events.

  • I also post invitations to try The Experiment on Instagram. Find me and follow at try_theexperiment

There are a couple of tools I have considered making to help with The Experiment. Let me know if any of these would be helpful:

  • A set of cards to get you going with The Experiment - they could be used on your own or in a group

  • A text prompt to remind you to try The Experiment throughout your week

  • More than one call per week

  • A group on MarcoPolo or Signal where people can share their evidence

  • A place where people can share how they are using it

Send Feedback

If you see ways this could be shared in a better way I’d love to hear from you. All ideas are awesome. 

Add to this

If you feel like adding to what The Experiment has to offer please share. This might include:

  • Translation to other languages and cultures

  • Ideas for how to spread it in schools and work places and prisons and beyond

  • Ideas for how to talk about it more clearly in this document

  • A website or WhatsApp group or app or some other cool place where people can share about how they are experiencing and sharing The Experiment

  • A better format for this document

  • Editing ideas

  • Something else even more expansive and glorious than the above items

The Funniest book I have ever read.

On a rare Saturday night when I had the house to myself, I decided to treat myself to a THC & Lion’s Mane-infused beverage and listen to David R. Hawkins’ Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender. Just a few minutes into the foreword, I was utterly stunned. By the time I hit 1 hour and 16 minutes—still before the second chapter—I was in hysterics, sitting on my couch in pajamas at 7 PM, laughing without stopping. I had found the funniest book on the planet.

A few hours later, a friend said to me me, “It’s not a funny book. It’s David Hawkins’ very deep shit.” Sure, the THC & Lion’s Mane probably contributed to my laughter, but in the days and weeks since, I’ve realized that his book really is hilarious—in its simplicity, its bold directness, and the sheer ease of the discovery it offers.

Let me share why I still find Letting Go utterly hilarious—and the experiment I invite you to run in your own life.

The foreword, written by Fran Grace, PhD, states:

“What convinced me of the truth of his work, ultimately, were the transformations in my own physical and nonphysical consciousness. There were empirical facts I could not deny: healing from an addiction that had been impossible to overcome despite many sincere attempts; freedom from allergies; letting go of long-standing resentments; alleviation of lifelong fear and anxiety; resolution of inner conflicts related to self-acceptance and life purpose.”

I remember thinking, How could all this change fit in this one book? I was hooked.

The very next paragraph contains this bold statement:

“Letting Go: The Pathway to Surrender provides the roadmap to a freer life for anyone willing to make the trip. Your life will be changed for the better if you apply the principles described in this book. They are not difficult to understand or implement. They cost nothing. They require no special attire or exotic travel. The major requirement is willingness to let go of attachment to your current experience of life.”

I sat up straight, sipping my beverage with wide eyes, waiting for what was to come next.

I imagined something gut-wrenching, complicated, nearly impossible to accomplish—something requiring a medical degree or enlightenment beyond my reach. Surely it would take all 347 pages or over 12 hours of listening to describe this life-changing method, which would probably take a lifetime to master.

That night, having the whole evening to myself, I was ready to listen, take notes, and study with the hope of experiencing just a fraction of what the book promised.

Hilariously, Hawkins spends two full pages in the introduction listing all the ways we try to alleviate pain and stress—methods so familiar I giggled. I’d tried so many, yet I was still stressed and anxious. How bizarre and frustrating that at 50 years old this was still true.

He writes about the great sages who achieved enlightenment through years of effort, then asks, “What about the average person who isn’t a spiritual genius?”

“Yes! What about her?” I thought.

He says:

“What’s in the book? It tells of a simple method to reach great clarity and transcend your problems along the way. Not by finding answers, but by undoing the basis of the problem. The state of the great sages is available; the solutions are within us and easy to find. The mechanism of surrender is simple and the truth self-evident. It works during daily life. There is no dogma or belief system. You verify everything for yourself, so you cannot be misled.”

Wow! I thought, how does he fit this powerful tool into a small book? Twelve hours should be barely enough to explain it all.

Then he says something even bolder:

“It works for the cynic, the pragmatist, the religionist, and the atheist. It works for any age or culture. It works for the spiritual and the non-spiritual alike.

“Because the mechanism is your own, nobody can take it away. You are safe from disillusionment. You will discover for yourself what is real and what are mind programs and belief systems. While this happens, you become healthier, more successful with less effort, happier, and more capable of real love.”

Who makes such wild claims? I laughed. This book was utterly bonkers and I was still in the introduction.

I double-checked—David R. Hawkins really has a PhD and an MD. How was this book not a bestseller? Maybe it was brand new?

Funny.

This all felt utterly impossible, bizarre—and of course, hilarious.

Sure the THC & Lion’s Mane had kicked in. But I’d like to think I would have been just as stunned and eager to hear more without it.

And then, in what I believe is the funniest paragraph in history, he says:

“This book is written with you constantly in mind. It is easy, effortless, and enjoyable. There is nothing to learn or memorize. You will become lighter and happier as you read. The material will automatically start bringing you the experience of freedom as you read through the pages. You are going to feel weights being removed. Everything you do will become more enjoyable. You are in for happy surprises about your life! Things will get better and better!”

A wild statement from a book published by a major publisher—not some self-published hack job —promising that just reading the book would vastly improve your life.

The beverage and I buckled our seatbelts, eager to see what came next. This was a bold and wild claim. We were ready, giggles and all.

On page 19, Hawkins begins to describe how to do this method. A mere three paragraphs later, he stops describing. You heard me right, in only three paragraphs, he describes this life-changing method, the method he claims will automatically start working and will make you move successful and happy. Too good to be true? Not at all. I have found this simple method so wildly helpful, so brilliant in its simplicity and so utterly remarkable that I can’t stop talking about it.

Here is the method, described in three paragraphs in his words.

“Letting go involves being aware of a feeling, letting it come up, staying with it, and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about it. It means simply to let the feeling be there and to focus on letting out the energy behind it. The first step is to allow yourself to have the feeling without resisting it, venting it, fearing it, condemning it, or moralizing about it. It means to drop judgment and to see that it is just a feeling. The technique is to be with the feeling and surrender all efforts to modify it in any way. Let go of wanting to resist the feeling. It is resistance that keeps the feeling going. When you give up resisting or trying to modify the feeling, it will shift to the next feeling and be accompanied by a lighter sensation. A feeling that is not resisted will disappear as the energy behind it dissipates.

“As you begin the process, you will notice that you have fear and guilt over having feelings; there will be resistance to feelings in general. To let feelings come up, it is easier to let go of the reaction of having the feelings in the first place. A fear of fear itself is a prime example of this. Let go of the fear or guilt that you have about the feeling first, and then get into the feeling itself.

“When letting go, ignore all thoughts. Focus on the feeling itself, not on the thoughts. Thoughts are endless and self-reinforcing, and they only breed more thoughts. Thoughts are merely rationalizations of the mind to try and explain the presence of the feeling. The real reason for the feeling is the accumulated pressure behind the feeling that is forcing it to come up in the moment. The thoughts or external events are only an excuse made up by the mind.”

That quiet Saturday night, as the beverage kicked in, I paused the book.

Having expected 12 hours of instructions, I was stunned to find the invitation to try it myself had arrived well before my bedtime.

So I did.

I accepted the invitation.

I closed my eyes and looked my feelings straight in the face.

I wish I could remember the first one. But I know I looked at it briefly—and it let go of me. Just like that.

And I laughed.

What had been bothering me was simply gone.

In its place came another thought, connected to another feeling.

I looked at that one—and it quickly let go too.

And I laughed again. What had been a real blocker was now simply nothing.

It had let go of me.

This was what David R. Hawkins described but in my experience I was not letting these feelings go, they were letting go of me. I wasn’t doing anything other than feeling the feelings. When they were done being felt, they were gone along with all of the stuff that comes with them. And now I see they weren’t gone, they were simply back in alignment. Like a dislocated shoulder, they stopped getting my attention and taking my energy because they came back home.

Many feelings arrived in the form of a thought, I simply felt the feeling connected to that thought and when I spent time with them and felt them, they became a part of me I didn’t feel was uncomfortable or noticeable anymore.

Thoughts and the feelings that danced around them lined up in front of me like people waiting in line to use the bathroom at a concert—patiently (or perhaps not so patiently) waiting their turn. One by one, I felt them, and they relieved themselves.

Sometimes I let one relieve itself and then, others ran away with it. Like a group of tweens, traveling in a pack. One was done with me and the rest left with it.

I laughed and laughed.

Some of my laughter was inspired by how big those problems had seemed, and how small they really were. Like the warning on car mirrors: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. I realized that feelings when felt are smaller than they appear.

This went on for quite a while before the feelings I sat with brought tears—tears of joy, pain, grief, relief.

I won’t write more about that night because I now see the beauty in the experience itself. As Hawkins says, “you don’t need dogma or belief systems. You get to learn for yourself.” That’s all I want for you. Learn for yourself, not from me.

This is my invitation to you: simply experiment with feeling about your feelings. Allow your thoughts, allow your feelings. Feel the feelings you have, fully, until they pass.

My ideal scenario? You read these simple instructions, close your eyes, and start feeling about your feelings. You follow this experiment and find all of the answers available to you.

If you would like more, or to do this with other join me to run your own experiments. We meet weekly, we gather on MarcoPolo, we run experiments, we talk about our evidence. This powerful tool works well when you’re alone, when you’re in a crowd and, for some mysterious reason seems easier to access with a group. I hope to see you on a call soon.

Check out the info below on the difference between The Experiment and David Hawkins’ Letting Go Technique.

The Letting Go Technique vs. The Experiment

Letting Go Technique

Notice that you have a feeling.

We were born with only feelings, no words. We are always having them. Step one is noticing that you have a feeling. It might be positive or negative.

Feel the feeling

Be with the feeling and surrender all efforts to modify it in any way. Let go of wanting to resist the feeling. It is resistance that keeps the feeling going. When you give up resisting or trying to modify the feeling, it will shift to the next feeling and be accompanied by a lighter sensation. A feeling that is not resisted will disappear as the energy behind it dissipates.

Ignore all thoughts

Ignore all thoughts. Focus on the feeling itself, not on the thoughts. Thoughts are endless and self-reinforcing, and they only breed more thoughts.

Let go of the feeling.

Let go of or surrender the feeling.

Keep track of your evidence that this is working.

Keep track of your evidence that this process is working.

What will happen.

He has oodles of books about what will happen.

The Experiment

Notice that you have a feeling

We were born with only feelings, no words. We are always having them. Step one is noticing that you have a feeling. It might be positive or negative.

Feel the feeling

Feel the feeling you’re feeling. Feel it until it is done being felt. Like a person waiting in line for the bathroom at a concert, it simply needs its turn to relieve itself. It does not need to be explained or talked to or made sense of. It simply needs to be felt. If you don’t fee it — it is likely to go pee elsewhere— perhaps on your kid or your colleague or your dog.

Let your thoughts be thoughts, focus on the feeling

Ignoring thoughts often makes me think them more. Let your thoughts be a sign that it is time to feel the feeling around them. Don’t waste energy trying to ignore your thoughts.

The feeling will get into alignment

You don’t need to do anything. When the feeling is fully felt, like a shoulder that was dislocated, it will get back into alignment and you won’t notice it anymore. There is nothing to do but feel the feeling.

Keep track of your evidence that this is working.

Write down or capture evidence that this process is working. My favorite place to do this is on MarcoPolo the app.

What will happen.

You get to find out. I can hardly wait to hear what you discover.