~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emotions. We all experience them. Sometimes to our pleasure, while at other times to our chagrin. To start, if any of you feel as though your emotions are YOU rather than more of an outfit you choose depending on external stimuli and their interpretation, I highly recommend watching “Inside Out.” It’s a pixar movie and I found it entirely enlightening! Any of you who know me personally are aware that I almost only watch entertainment fit for children. We are what we consume, in every way; I find our everyday world chock-full of trauma so I avoid intentionally putting more of that into my conscious and subconscious. Personal choice.
In any event. Emotions! I have come to see them as kind, little (or large) mirrors into our internal truths. Are we feeling happy? This is due to the fact that we have a feeling of peace within our environment (present company, location, internal thoughts, perspective on reality, choices, etc). One can also think of this feeling of relaxation as a signpost for alignment. Same can be said for the inverse (dis-ease=lack of alignment). This is a primary tenent of the wisdom channeled by Esther Hicks in her and her husband’s works on the law of attraction. (Side bar—I’ve also really appreciated the discussion of this philosophy within Napoleon Hill’s “Outwitting The Devil”; highly recommend.) Our bodies, specifically our hearts, connect us to infinite wisdom that knows and sees more than our minds can comprehend in any given moment. While the dominant conditioning within our society often teaches adages like “no pain, no gain,” this is not the sole reality. That is absolutely one way to lead ones life. Another way, my preference, is closer to the Daoist philosophy of “wu wei” which teaches that to live in harmony with nature we must move like water, and flow. The river does not try to make a B-line through the mountain because it measured and found that it’s “faster.” The river meanders and flows around it—likely getting there more quickly than it would have had it determined to go through solid rock. Does this make a river lazy and weak? I would say it makes it wise. And funnily enough, doesn’t the image of a “lazy river” make you breathe a deep sigh as your mind conjurs images of floating down one, beneath the suns warm glow on a glorious “day off”? May we all be lucky enough to be likened to a lazy river. Rivers are POWERFUL forces. With seeminly little effort, they carve the landscape, provide habitat for endless numbers of flora and fauna, and participate in the necessary water cycle by returning snow melt to the ocean. I digress…
Emotions. Recently I have been listening in on a conversation within the “spiritual community” about negative emotions and a critique of people who condemn negative emotions, citing that it is only human to have them. I do agree that it is human to have them. As a Pisces sun, Scorpio moon woman, I am certainly no stranger to the whole spectrum of emotion. I also agree that it is important to refrain from judging our own and others negative emotions; judgement only gives them more focus and, hence, more power. That said, I think a better point of concentration than creating space for our upset, is to look at how to use all emotions for our benefit and then practice letting them go. There are so many reasons to be “upset” and “distraught” and “angry” at this time. Yet, while this moment in our human story is certainly pivotal, I would argue that there are no more reasons to be upset this day than any other day. Suffering is a natural part of this reality in which we live. Countless genocides have taken place, our own country (USA) has been exploited by our home-grown companies and left no better off (and in sometimes less) than some so-called, third-world countries. More sand on Hawaiin beaches is plastic than sand in many parts! Sheesh! (Please check out “The Story Of Plastic” documentary to learn more about that issue and what’s being done to address it.) Conversely, I would also say that there are no fewer reasons to be happy today—babies are being birthed, pears are ripening, many ecosystems are faring better with our little hiatus from industry, creative minds have been given more “free-time” and are a-bustle with solutions to the challenges our current day faces. Rather than looking at this moment in time with anger and judgement from the narrow perspective of the infinitely finite self existing in this blip of a moment in time, we can choose to observe from a macro perspective. We have been living in a collective state of suffering for centuries! Some of the roots of this suffering are being unearthed and, better yet, uprooted! This, to me, feels like a time to celebrate and add more joy and love to the pot and continue to uplift and celebrate each person’s bravery who stands up for the values we hope to embody within whichever reality we wish to create together. Even though it is at times far more challenging to maintain a positive attitude, it is imperative that we endeavor to do so. This is not because “you’re not spiritual if you have negative emotions” but rather because our health (individually and collectively) depends on the state of our consciousness! How does it help the world to make ourselves angry and ill?
I searched “emotions and health” and one of the first search hits I encountered was a persepctive shared by Ekhart Tolle. This is how he defined negative emotions:
“What is a negative emotion? An emotion that is toxic to the body and interferes with its balance and harmonious functioning. Fear, anxiety, anger, bearing a grudge, sadness, hatred or intense dislike, jealousy, envy—all disrupt the energy flow through the body, affect the heart, the immune system, digestion, production of hormones, and so on.”
So, this is less about it not being safe to express a negative emotion, or anything like that. It’s more the recognition that untimely processing and clearing of these negative emotions adversely affects our health! Our health is ultimately our greatest treasure and asset. If we lose our health, we are unavailable to work as effectively towards our goals, both personal and collective. The idea of putting on your own mask before assisting others (even your child) is highly relevant here. If we all run around depleting ourselves, whoever we are, whatever we’re working for, we are not looking at our goals with the longterm in mind. Further, by acting in the present while motivated by fear, hate, etc., we re-create those types of energies in whatever type of regime we usher in. It is impossible to change the world if we do not first address ourselves. For, we are the world. And if we ourselves harbor the seeds of that which we do not want to see cropping up in our garden, there is noone to blame outside of the self.
So! What do we do! Emotional energy starts with the mind. An example. A mug is only a cup. But when we remember it was a gift from someone no longer with us (perhaps an ex lover or recently passed loved one) and veer off down memory lane, that is where the thought becomes embodied in the physical and we have an emotional reaction. This emotion (or perhaps a cocktail of sadness, anger, and grief) is directly related to a host of physiological changes which create REAL systemic changes in the body. Hormone cascades are activated; we experinece symptoms from irregularities in heart rhthym, blood pressure and digestion; our bodies inflame and we often find ourselves in physical pain. In Chinese Medicine, one of the chief sayings is “bu tong ze tong, tong ze bu tong” or, “free flow, no pain; no free flow, pain.” Outside of acute injuries, majority of energetic blockages in the body are self-generated via emotion. From my studies and personal experience, I find that the place physical disease most often begins is in that moment when the pernicious thought gets through our barrier, drawn in by the grativy of the attraction that we hold for it. In my view, this gravity or attractive force comes from both the frequency of the thoughts’ occurence in the mind mixed with our belief in its veracity. There’s no moral high ground to fight for. It’s not about being more spirittual than someone else. It’s a simple matter how to best live in the world amidst all the myriad facts of reality (Joe died today, I want a sandwhich, our President is Donald Trump). Do we want to permit the negative realities (via the thoughts we think) to become our point of focus, thus becoming vibrationally ingrained in our psyches and bodies? Or do we want to endeavor to become more aware and thus healthful, by allowing our unhelpful thoughts to run off us much like rain off a slicker? Again, this is a choice which has nothing to do with the facts of reality. It has everything to do with whether we choose to allow or disallow the interpretation of these facts to control our emotional landscape, and thus, our health.
One of the reasons I love healing modalities such as Bowenwork and acupuncture, is that they function in a primordial, universally applicable way; on the simplistic level of, “free flow, no pain; no free flow, pain.” The aim is clear. Unblock energy flow. How? Both by helping the self restore its own natural flow of energy through the rivers of the body. How? By physically removing blockages (using methods to break up scar tissue, fascial gummies, adhesions and the like) and by helping the body and mind reprogram itself to stay at a higher frequency in a state of parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system dominance. Our bodies are wise. They understand the mechanisms by which healing takes place on a microscopic, cellular level. Our best bet in addressing our health is to LISTEN to our body’s innate knowing (yes, our intution which is made clear by our emotional responses to our reality) and do all we can to calm and still our our meddlesome minds.
I think I’ll leave my musings here for now. I’d love to know if this share is helpful! If so, I may continue to offer my perspective more freely in this context.
Wishing you all so much love! And fortitude in the journey towards taming the mind. Hey, no pain, no gain, right? ;-)
-Rachael
