Emotional Release · “Die to Be Reborn”
Working With Emotion
To stop suppressing (or blindly venting) emotion and instead fully acknowledge the feeling, then deliberately rechannel its energy into clarity, courage and constructive action — what Mares calls ‘stepping over’ rather than ‘stepping into’ or burying emotion.
Mares’ working with emotion (“stepping over”): The moment a feeling rises, acknowledge it honestly — don’t bury it (suppression erupts later) and don’t be swept into acting it out. Then step over it: use its energy to fuel your clarity, courage and constructive action. For feelings aimed at yourself, turn the energy against the behaviour, not the self. Works for every emotion. Practise it continuously.
What it is
Théun Mares taught that most people handle feeling in one of two faulty ways: they suppress it (push it out of awareness, which builds a “pressure cooker” that eventually erupts), or they step into / indulge it (get swept away and act it out).
The warrior does neither. Mares’ practice — “working with emotion,” which his lineage calls “stepping over” (or lifting) the emotion — is to fully acknowledge the feeling as it arises, refuse both suppression and blind venting, and then deliberately use its energy to fuel clarity, courage and right action.
Emotion is treated not as an enemy to be controlled away, but as fuel to be rechannelled. Read honestly, this is a clean emotion-regulation protocol — acknowledge-don’t-suppress, don’t-act-out-impulsively, redirect-the-arousal — in Toltec dress.
It is one of the four practical tools Mares sets out in Return of the Warriors, alongside recapitulation, stalking and not-doing.
The Method
A faithful step-by-step of Mares’ approach (using anger as his own worked example, which he says “is equally true for all emotions”):
- Catch the emotion as it rises — through self-awareness (the stalking discipline), notice the feeling in the moment it appears, before it either gets buried or takes you over.
- Acknowledge it honestly to yourself. Do not “shift the focus away” from it — that is suppression, which Mares warns builds pressure that later erupts (his examples: road rage, sudden violence). Name and own the feeling: yes, I am angry / afraid / grieving. 3. Do not step into it either. Acknowledging is not the same as venting or being driven by it. You feel it fully without letting it dictate impulsive action.
- Step over it — redirect the energy. This is the pivot. In Mares’ words, “acknowledge that anger to yourself and then USE it to fuel your clarity, your sense of courage and above all, your ACTIONS.” The emotion’s charge becomes fuel for purposeful, constructive response rather than reactivity.
- For emotion aimed at yourself, turn it against the behaviour, not the self. Rather than collapsing into guilt or self-attack, “USE your anger to FIGHT against the behaviour that has made you angry” — directing the energy at changing the pattern, not punishing yourself.
- Apply it to every feeling. The same three-beat — acknowledge fully → don’t be ruled by it → rechannel the energy into action — applies to fear, grief, frustration, “as well as for mental responses and reactions,” not just anger.
- Make it a continuous discipline. Like the other warrior tools, this is practised every time emotion arises, not occasionally. (Sourcing note: faithful paraphrase, with short verbatim phrases shown in quotation marks. “Working with emotion and intent” is named by Mares as one of the four techniques of Return of the Warriors; the suppress-vs-step-over distinction and the quoted instructions are from his lineage’s published teaching on the subject. The honest mechanism is in Section 5.)
Source & Lineage
Théun Mares (1952–2011) introduced “working with emotion and intent” as one of the four everyday warrior tools in Return of the Warriors (1995), the first volume of his Toltec Teachings.
He drew a sharp, repeated distinction between suppressing emotion (ignoring your knowledge of it) and stepping over it (acknowledging, then using its energy), warning that suppression “builds up” until it erupts. → suggested node.
The teaching sits within his broader aim of reconciling “feelings and mind” and achieving balance/impeccability. See companion entries.
The Traditions' versions
Affect labelling / “name it to tame it” — putting a feeling into words reduces its grip; matches Mares’ “acknowledge it to yourself.”
- Acceptance + reappraisal (emotion regulation) — allow the feeling, then reinterpret/redirect it toward action; the modern parallel to “step over.”
- RAIN — Recognise, Allow, Investigate, Nurture: acknowledge-don’t-suppress, same family.
- Somatic / Sedona-style release — feel it fully rather than bury it.,
- Stoic discipline of assent — feel the impulse, withhold automatic action, choose response.
- Castaneda’s “using” of fear and the warrior’s mood — the broader Toltec stream Mares writes from.
Common refinements
Mistaking acknowledgement for venting. “Step over,” not “step into” — feel it fully, but don’t act it out impulsively. Mares is explicit that this is not indulgence.
- Mistaking it for suppression. Equally, this is not “stay calm and ignore it.” The first move is to own the feeling, not push it away.
- Using the energy to attack people. “Use your anger” means fuel your clarity and constructive action — direct it at the behaviour or problem, not at harming others.
- Self-blame loops. With emotion aimed at yourself, point the energy at changing the behaviour, not at punishing the self.
- Only doing it for “big” emotions. Practise it with the small daily reactions too; that’s where the skill is built.