| 29 July 2009
Your Emotional Guidance System
From early childhood, we are all exposed to negative messages about ourselves, others, and the world. If internalized and believed, these messages can turn into limiting beliefs that rob us of happiness and joy. These negative beliefs include, "I'm not good enough, I'm unloved, I'm inadequate, People are mean, I'm all alone in an uncaring universe, Life is hard, The world is unfriendly, etc." When these beliefs become our truths, we end up only seeing the evidence that supports them. People often spend their entire lives struggling to compensate for or overcome the painful feelings that these negative beliefs create.
Consider the possibility that our emotions are simply a guidance system that lets us know how closely we are aligned with the truth. From this perspective, our natural state is joy, happiness, creativity, and love.
From a practical daily standpoint, I know of three main ways to work when negative emotions arise. The first way is meditation. As we quiet our thoughts, we begin to diminish the grip that negative thinking and beliefs have on us and our natural joy and our well-being begins to flow spontaneously. In other words, if you put your hand over the end of a garden hose, the flow of water diminishes and pressure builds up with in the hose. When you release the resistance, the water spontaneously flows through the hose with ease. Similarly, when we release the resistance that negative thoughts and beliefs create by getting them out of the way, our natural joy flows through us.
The second main way to work with negative emotions is to change the beliefs that give rise to them. Although powerful, this can be difficult when the beliefs are deeply held truths in our subconscious mind. We usually don't question them because "that's just the way life is." Cognitive Behavior methods, The Work of Byron Katie, and other cognitive approaches have us question the validity of these thoughts: "Is that thought true? What other ways of looking at this situation could be true?, what's another perspective on this situation, etc." When we question old ways of looking at life and old stories that do not bring us happiness, and instead adopt more expansive perspectives, our mood lifts and we feel better.
A variation on this approach is given by the Abraham material which asks us to find a 'better feeling thought" in this moment. In this moment, what's a thought that would lead to a slightly better feeling? Once obtained, what's a better feeling thought now, and so on until your 'vibrational focus' is aligned with your desires, with your ideal life, which then manifests automatically.
The third main way to work with negative emotions is what I call 'body-based' methods including Guided imagery, Focusing, Tonglen, Chod, the Sedona Method, Peter Levine's trauma release, and deep breathing. The details of these methods will have to wait for another posting, but the gist of all of them is to create a space of awareness that allows the feelings to be just as they are. The allowing of them releases the resistance in the body and they unwind. It's like those Chinese finger puzzles where the harder you pull, the tighter they get around your fingers. When you relax into it, there is a letting go that brings freedom. In some of these methods, we look for the wisdom in the parts of us that are feeling badly so we can integrate it into the whole of who we are. In other methods, we breathe in the feeling and breathe out compassion or 'feed the demons'. These methods are good for healing deeply held resistance that lies beneath conscious awareness.
The above material is a huge topic that deserves an entire book. What I want you to take away from this message is the idea that negative feelings are not bad things to push away, but rather exquisite indicators that we are out of alignment with our natural joy, love, creativity, and well-being. The easiest way back home is to let the good feelings and choose the 'better feeling thoughts' that guide us back to our true joyful nature.
Whether or not you believe any of the above, if you practice this one thing consistently, you will find yourself feeling better and better, living in more and more joy each day. And, as your feeling vibration improves, you will attract more and more positive things into your life.
Feel free to contact me for more information on this topic.