Working Through Difficult Emotions All of us to some extent tend to avoid difficult emotions and feelings, because they can be rather unpleasant to deal with. We push the feelings down inside of us. We can easily get caught up in any of a million convenient distractions. And in our wishful thinking, we hope that the problem will just go away. But, that’s not going to happen. Think for a moment. Have you ever walked into a room when someone was angry, and they didn’t have to say a word to let you know they were angry? You could feel it. That’s because our emotions have substance to them. Some people who see auras have referred to what appears to be a fluid medium surrounding the physical body. This level of the aura is know as the emotional body. It’s normal for us to have emotional response to the significant events that take place in our lives. When we suppress our emotions, we shut down the part of our awareness that is having a response to a particular experience. The essence comprising this part of our emotional-feeling awareness starts to become murky, turning into this mass of congestive energy that many people refer to as blocks. This happens because we have allowed part of us to go into a deadened state. The emotional content that has gone into a degenerative state then settles into the body’s organs and tissues. This causes the cells, tissues and organs to become bogged down by the congested energy, which to some degree will impair their functioning. For instance, a large percentage of digestive and eliminative problems have a psychosomatic basis. For some people, the backlog of undigested emotion will manifest symptoms such as irritable bowel, colitis, or create a deadening that results in serious problems digestion or cause constipation. Suppressing emotion narrows the range of our expression. It causes us to lose much of the richness and depth of our experiences. We lose much of ourselves. We become weaker as people, because the more we avoid, the more we diminish in strength and stature. We lose much of our flexibility, because we’re backing up into smaller and smaller boxes. Our mind’s range of motion decreases and narrows the realms of possibility because our physical brain becomes less responsive as a result of our shutting down emotionally. When we shut down emotionally we disconnect from much of our internal processes of thinking and feeling. These processes drop out of our conscious awareness as they recede further and further into our subconscious. This causes us to become more deeply entrenched or stuck in the patterns that constrict our lives and cause us pain. Have you ever considered that emotions and feelings are part of a spiritual process? Our emotions and feelings are a doorway. It’s through our emotions that we become aware of our basic needs and desires. By processing through what we feel we can resolve many of our issues, and integrate the various conflicted parts of our psyche. Working through our emotions allows us to become more grounded, because our sensory capacity opens up and we feel more present in our body and our lives. In addition, we become more resilient, finding it easier to handle the challenges that we encounter in life. One of the most powerful ways to work with your emotions starts with paying attention to what you are feeling. Notice what you’re feeling. What does it feel like? Where is the feeling situated in your body? Now, take your awareness into the part of the body where the emotion or feeling is the strongest. Really experience the feelings and emotions to the best of your ability. Fully immerse yourself in the experience. As you do that, allow yourself to breather very deeply and at the same time so softly. The breath is the medium that allows you to tune into the emotions and feelings. Keep your focus primarily on what you’re feeling. Be present with the feelings and emotions; allow them to be what they are. They will begin to go through a process of change, but allow them to take the time they need. Some of the emotions or feelings that you experience will move through quickly. Other more difficult emotions can take a lot of time. Again, be patient and allow the process to take the time it needs. Sometimes you will go through a whole series of emotions and feelings as you continue to breathe. This kind of practice can be very healing as it softens difficult or painful emotions and feelings. If the emotions are more painful, it will often helps do this process while you take a long and slow walk. This will help to ground you and make the experience more comfortable. By utilizing this practice you will find it much easier to get through many of the difficult emotions and challenges of life. Through this process of breathing into what you feel, you will discover various parts of you emerging. All kinds of creativity, new ideas and new possibilities will open up for you. Your intuition will become stronger. Test it out for yourself and experience how it works for you. |