The skill that eliminates human suffering and restores a sense of wholeness
How could we be connected to ourselves, our truth, intuition and guidance and make good decisions for ourselves as long as we are disconnected from our emotions? The only problem with emotions is that from very early on we learn that some of them are acceptable while others are deemed inappropriate, unmanly, unfeminine, rude, undesired and utterly unwelcome. This belief and false judgement leaves us feeling scattered, unseen, disconnected, undignified and unlovable. But let me tell you a thing or two about emotions. They are our compass for life. If we learn to properly allow, feel and process emotions (all of them!) we become whole again.
Feeling only half of human emotions = feeling half human.
Feeling all human emotions = feeling like a whole human.
Simple, right?
It is important to understand that as long we deny one half of the spectrum of human emotions, they inevitably must manifest subconsciously in one way or another. Suppressed anger will likely manifest through passive aggressive behaviour, words and comments, shooting out of us like poisonous little arrows, often directed towards the people closest in our lives. The sea of sadness that we refuse to feel will fester inside if it has nowhere to go, numb our sensitivity and erode our hearts, leaving hardly any space for the one thing that we as humans crave the most: connection.
We would not have such a vast spectrum of human emotions if just one of them did not serve a purpose. But our nasty little minds like to divide everything in good and bad for that is what they have been taught. We end up worshipping the day but fearing the night. We strive for an ever blue sky but despise the storm. We say yes yes yes to the light but are too ashamed to look at our own darkness. But let me fill you in on a little secret. The day does not come without the night. HA! A blue sky only appears as the grey clouds are allowed to pass through. The brightest light can only ever emanate from someone who has taken a plunge into the depths of their own darkness.
You cannot have only part of it.
You cannot be part human.
Half human.
You cannot have the day without the night.
As the name suggests, e-motions are energy and they need to be in motion. If we do not feel them, they solidify and sink into the body where they remain safely stored away until different people (and situations) come into our lives and happily and merrily push our buttons that will relentlessly trigger every stored emotion for the sole purpose of us having another chance to process what has been waiting to be processed for… ages? decades? The German life teacher and speaker Robert Betz lovingly calls these people “Arschengel” translating into arse angels who truly are angels in disguise. They are in fact required because without them we would not have another chance to process and heal that which could not be processed and healed before. God bless arse angels!
So, first we need to free ourselves from the very limiting and painful belief that only some emotions are fine. We have to see it as what it is, a tremendously detrimental belief that is nothing but simply that, a belief. The moment we stop dissecting emotions into good and bad, ok and not ok, positive and negative, we are granted instant relief.
What I would suggest to everybody who has a desire to become free is this: the next time when an unpleasant, painful emotion arises, pause. Catch yourself in that very moment. Our default reaction would be to suppress, deny, minimise, overlook, look under, above and away, run away, drink away, sex away, gamble away that very emotion. But this time I want you to pause and remember what I am sharing here with you right now. As you pause, you are already creating a new pathway, new neurons in the brain that will set up a new pattern. You are literally creating a new behaviour for yourself in this moment. I want you to breathe. Please breathe into the emotion that you feel. As you breathe into it, you perhaps for the very first time allow yourself to actually feel. Breathing into it means feeling it. Can you locate it in the body? What sensations arise as you breathe? This varies from person to person and could look like a raising heart, heavy chest, a sensation of “falling apart” in the belly, a lump in the throat, hot/cold sensations, shivering etc. All of which are wonderful and a sign that the energy is moving = processing = releasing. Emotional pain that we have carried all our lives can be excruciatingly painful, so do not fall into the trap of believing that you are going mad or that something is wrong with you because of the intensity of the feeling. The deeper the hurt was, the more painful it will be to feel. There might be resistance in your system because you have learnt that it is (was) unsafe to feel these kind of emotions. Welcome it. Stay with it. Be present with it and remain very clear about who you are and what the pain is. Do not confuse yourself to be the pain and do not believe the pain to mean anything about you. Oftentimes we will have created stories in our heads that if we feel anger, rage, aggression, sadness, despair, hopelessness, that we are a total failure. Allow me to be your Queen Failûre in this case! Do not buy into that. These are all stories of the mind, a mere and desperate attempt to understand and somehow make sense of the pain. Having these kind of emotions does not mean anything about you. None of the emotions mean anything about you.
You will see that as you slowly and very gently open yourself up to feeling the emotion, something truly remarkable happens. The more you learn to allow these emotions to simply BE here, the more they will lose their grip on you. Every time we turn towards the pain instead of away, it can start to release and dissipate. Little by little. Bit by bit.
This internal process and the infinite intelligence of our bodies is everything we need to process difficult emotions. And mastering this skill will free us from denial, disconnection, addictions, antidepressants, shallow connections and will fill us with the light of presence instead. And guess what! The best part is that this process is already innately known by a higher intelligence accessible in and through every human being. I believe this also to be reason for the large number of people’s aversion to antidepressants. The ones who are ready for true healing and stepping back into their power, can feel something deep inside guiding them away from antidepressants and towards something more sustainable that will actually resolve the root of the issue. This process is not something we have to do or make happen. It happens all by itself, if we let it. It is in this very process that we, by including the darkness, the pain, the seemingly most unlovable parts of ourselves, become whole again.
Wholeness.
Love always,
Lana