Emotions are really here to serve us. They are like messengers letting us know are we happy or sad, hot or cold, hungry or full, safe or threatened. But in our society if we have an emotion we don't want to feel we can go to your local doctor and get a pill to suppress it.
What if we allowed our emotions to come up. What if we didn't try to run away from our uncomfortable emotions and push them back down?
Maybe they are there to tell us something. Most of the time we try to distract ourselves from our so called undesirable and 'bad' feeling emotions by cleaning the house, calling someone to commiserate about them, or my personal favorite, go to the kitchen and look for something to eat. And of course, it's not something nutritional!
What if all along the emotion was a gift that is hidden deep within us?
What if we were just to find a quiet place to sit for just a few minutes and completely allow the feeling to take us over and just feel it?
We won't die from it, I promise. Just feel it. And it's not what we probably think it is. We are all too quick to label it, because I'm mad at my spouse or kids, or because someone was rude to me, or my lover left me...the list goes on and on. But what if we didn't label it and just sat with it. Instead what if we ask it, what do you have to tell me?
We may not get an answer right then and there, but probably when we least expect it a thought or idea will pop into your head.
I will share what recently happened to me. I have had this really long standing deep feeling of sadness come over me even when nothing seemed to be going on. It might be triggered by a TV commercial or I'd be sitting in a seminar and someone would say something and here comes this intense deep sad feeling.
Well on this particular day while I was home alone it started to happen. So I decided to go over to the chair and just sat down. I let the feeling and tears come. Interestingly enough there were no thoughts accompanying it. I just sat there feeling sad with tears running down my face. I asked it, what do you have to tell me? What is this all about? But no answer came, so I continued to sit there. In a very short amount of time the feeling seemed to pass. So I got up and just went about my day. A little while later, out of the blue this thought popped into my head; that I was left to cry in my crib. I was my mother's seventh child and she probably thought that was the thing to do, just let them cry it out and they will get over it. Do I really know if it is true? No, not particularly. But since then, a really deep sense of calm has come over me. Can I change what happened even if it's true? No.
What I came to realized is once you get an answer just ponder it for a few minutes, but then just let it go. It's like releasing a trapped emotion. I acknowledged it. I pondered if there was a lesson in it for me and decided that if I have grandchildren and they begin to cry that I would comfort that child. Sometimes we just need to be held. I did not come from an affection family. Far from it.
If on the other hand, you feel upset by what you have discovered, there is a great meditation I was taught to confront and get closure with an old unfinished event. You can just use your imagination to do this exercise because your subconscious mind does not know the difference between something experienced in the here and now or something that you are making up in your mind.
Find a quiet comfortable place to sit or lie down, and let yourself know that you are safe and in total control. Then bring the person into your imagination and remember they cannot do anything to you because you are in total control here and you can do or say anything that will make you feel better. Yell at them, tell them what you think and how you feel, or cut them up in 100 pieces. Do whatever feels right to you. And when you feel complete, come back into the here and now and leave it behind you. DO NOT continue to think about it. It's very important that you just let it go and decide that it's done and does not affect you any longer.
It does not serve us to hold on to old hurting memories and build castle in our mind out of them and justify how we are a victim from them. Because we are not. We are now empowered to set our self free from this incident or situation and move forward in our life.
As a side note, it might be more comfortable to have a friend nearby or contact a mental health practitioner or a coach like myself. Just do what seems right to you. Only you know what is right for you.
I hope you have found this helpful.
Jini
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Coaching by Jini © 2013
