Scientists now define emotion as shifting patterns of biochemical change through-out the body’s cells. Emotion fuels our visualized creation into reality, be it a home, a symphony, a business or a healthy mind and body. To Be Human then, means to feel emotion fully and deeply.
Sometimes we don’t let ourselves feel much of anything. Emotional resistance blocks creativity. It tends to take on certain behavioral forms, like the belief that showing, or even feeling emotion is bad manners, a weakness or will bring retribution. A distorted desire nature can lead to addictions because choosing not to resolve and handle negative feelings also blocks positive feelings.
It is imperative to recognize when we are resisting emotions. Paying attention to strong feelings reveals a definite pattern. Usually, when having inharmonious feelings, we first try to pretend they don’t exist (denial), or we rationalize them, thinking the negative emotion is based on someone else's behavior or on something beyond our control__ i.e., "not my fault". We then project that negativity onto others.
When a person decides their emotion is “shameful” or “too painful” and avoids feeling it, they cause the body area where the emotion exists to “freeze” or “lock-up”. Basically, the emotion gets stuck at the chakra-center related to that feeling, preventing energy from flowing through it. (Figure 2.) Physical organs near that center become distressed, as life force is closely tied with emotional energy. Long-sustained inharmonious emotions foster poor health. (51)
Get those emotions flowing! Give them full reign. Emotional and physical blockages dissolve when we take full responsibility for how we feel. Every negative emotion is its opposite trying to escape. For example: fear blocks our feelings of safety. Recognizing the fear, allowing ourselves to feel it fully, leads to courage, greater confidence and trust. Hatred dissolves into forgiveness, understanding and cooperation. Completely evoking and accepting emotion is a deliberate move to invoke the healing energies of the Creative Force.
We can perceive our emotionally painful experiences in a completely new way even without knowing how to handle them. The opposite of suppression isn’t negative expression__ it's a deeper experience of the feeling. Instead of suppressing them or harming others by lashing out, it’s better to feel them fully, then dare to calmly make others aware of it.
Understanding comes to us wearing the same face, whether laughing or weeping. We usually learn more from the difficult than from the easy times. There are really only two emotions: restricting, conditional Fear and liberating, unconditional Love. All others are variations on the same two themes. When we fully understand why emotions erupt, we design a quality of life that seldom triggers negative feelings in the first place.
Emotions, Thoughts and Intentions are Creative Energies. Intentionally intensifying emotions during difficult encounters turns on a transmutation process: a shifting of energy from one level to another. Deliberately feeling anger, pain, disgust or fear to the fullest, identifies its origins and resolves it sooner. We can then use emotion to change our mental perception by asking Higher Self: “What is Love trying to show me here?” or, “What would Unconditional Love do now?” Acting lovingly on the answer received creates new views of reality. Emotional intensity breaks us through to completely new, perhaps never-before-known types of creative possibilities. Emotional sensitivity becomes an asset, not a liability, and we develop emotional maturity. Our feeling nature is free to be understood and redirected by higher intentions within a full range of consciousness (36), allowing us to live happily in each moment. We take responsibility for our own emotional experiences__ "we are responsibile for our own wounds, not someone else."
Basic Inner Technologies prepare us to get out of investing in materiality and invest in ourselves instead. Maybe we feel we don’t deserve abundance or success in life, that we must "achieve" something before we can be happy. This attitude never ends, for life shifts, constantly demanding more learning, more re-adjustment, more to achieve. We’re creating our own life circumstances and must give attention to what’s happening in each moment.
From time to time, we need to re-define what we mean by pleasure and just when and why we feel joy. As Joseph Campbell stated: “Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid to follow it.” Do what brings lasting joy. It doesn’t have to be the first thing every morning; it’s only that sometime before we go to bed tonight, the desired activity will be done. That may include breathing exercises, reading, eating healthy food, exercising, talking to friends, gardening, teaching, engaging in creative arts, going to movies, doing charitable or volunteer work or the spiritual discipline of our choice. By doing what we love regularly, we have more energy and we enjoy including those activities when we discover how good they make us feel. (52)
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(36) Self-Realization Fellowship. 3880 San Rafael Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90065.
(51) Iasos. Articles & Interviews. http://iasos.com/articles/#Sound
(52) Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth , PBS interview with Bill Moyers, 1990.