The area of emotions is a vital area in the process of development towards freedom and wholeness. You are spiritual beings. You came from a reality plane where the density and drift of earthly reality was unknown to you. Dealing with this has been difficult.
Over many lifetimes, you have tried to express your cosmic energy here on earth. And in this expression, in the channeling of your energy to earth, many deep traumas have developed. The emotional body, which you all possess, is full of hurt and trauma. This is what I wish to speak of today.
Everyone who walks the path of inner growth knows the importance of emotions: that you should not suppress them, that somehow you have to come to terms with them, that you must finally release them, but how all this works is not always very clear.
First I want to make a distinction between emotions and feelings.
I am not interested here in specific terms or classifications, and you can call it by different names, but I want to make a distinction between emotions, in the sense of energies that are essentially expressions of misunderstanding, and feelings, or energies that are a form of higher understanding. Feelings are your teachers, while emotions are your children.
Emotions are energies that have a clear manifestation in the physical body. Emotions are reactions to things that you don't really understand. Consider what happens when you are overcome by an attack of anger. For example, someone hurts your feelings unexpectedly, and you feel like you are getting angry. You can feel this in your body very clearly: in certain places you feel the energy getting tense. This physical tension or stiffness, which follows the energetic shock, shows that there is something you don't understand. There is an energy coming through you that you feel is unjustified. The feeling of being treated unfairly, in short the misunderstanding, is discharged through emotion. Emotion is the expression of misunderstanding, it is an energetic explosion and a release.
When this happens, you are faced with the following choice: what am I going to do with this emotion? Am I going to base my current behaviour on this? Am I going to use this as fuel for my reactions to others or am I going to let the emotion be, and base my actions on something else?
Before I answer these questions, I want to explain the nature of feelings.
Emotions are essentially outbursts of misunderstanding that you can clearly perceive in the body. Feelings, on the other hand, are of a different nature, and are also perceived differently. Feelings are calmer than emotions. They are the whispers of the soul, which reach you through gentle nudging, an inner wisdom or a sudden intuitive action that later seems to have been very successful.
Emotions always have something very intense and dramatic in them. Consider anxiety attacks, panic attacks, anger or deep sadness. Emotions grab hold of you completely and pull you away from your spiritual center. The moment you are extremely emotional, you are filled with a kind of energy that separates you from your center, from your inner clarity. In this sense, emotions are like clouds suspended in front of the sun.
By this, I don't want to say anything against emotions. Emotions should not be repressed; they are very valuable as a means of getting to know oneself more intimately. But I want to express what the nature of emotional energy is: it is a burst of misunderstanding. Emotions essentially take you out of your center.
Feelings, on the other hand, take you deep within yourself, to your center. Feelings are closely associated with what you call intuition. Feelings express a higher understanding, a kind of understanding that transcends both the emotions and the mind.
Feelings originate in a non-physical realm, outside the body. This is why they are not so clearly located in one place in the physical body. Consider what happens when you feel something, an atmosphere or mood, or when you have a feeling about a situation. Then there is a kind of wisdom in you, which seems to come from the outside, and which is not a reaction from you to something external. You take it from the outside, and it comes 'from nowhere' ('like rain' as you so beautifully put it). In such moments you can feel something open in the heart chakra.
There are many times when such inner wisdom comes to you. For example, you may 'know' something about someone without having spoken much to him or her. You may feel something about the two of you, which will later play an important role in your relationship, but which is not easy to express in words - 'just a feeling' - and certainly not easily understood by the mind. (These are the times when your mind becomes skeptical, telling you that you are making things up or that you are going crazy.)
) I would like to mention another energy that has more of a 'feeling' nature than an emotional one. It is joy. Joy can be a phenomenon that transcends the emotional. Sometimes you can feel a kind of inner joy that uplifts you, for no particular reason. You feel the divinity within you, and your intimate connection to all that exists. Such a feeling can come to you when you least expect it. It is as if something higher touches you or as if you touch a higher reality. Feelings are not evoked so easily and seem to come to you 'like rain'.
Emotions almost always have a clear immediate cause: a trigger in the outside world 'pushing your buttons'.
Feelings originate in the dimension of your Higher Self. You need to be calm inside to catch these whispers in your heart. Emotions can disturb this inner silence and peace. Therefore, it is vital to become emotionally calm and to heal and release repressed emotions. Only from your feelings, which connect you to your soul, can you make balanced decisions.
By being silent and calm, you can feel with your whole being what is right for you at a given time. Making decisions based on emotion is making decisions from an unfocused position. You first need to release the emotions and get in touch with your inner core where there is clarity.
Now I want to go to the question of how you can best deal with your emotions.
I have said that "feelings are your teachers and emotions are your children". The parallels between 'being emotional' and 'being like a child' are striking. Your 'inner child' is the seat of your emotions. There is also a striking similarity between the way they treat their own emotions and the way they treat (real) children.
A child is honest and spontaneous in his emotions, and he does not hide or repress them until adults encourage him to do so. The fact that children spontaneously express their emotions does not mean, however, that the child experiences his emotions in a balanced way. Everyone knows that a child can be driven by his emotions (anger, fear or sadness) and is often unable to stop them. In such a situation, the child can almost become drowned in his emotions and this unbalances him, leaving him outside his center.
One of the reasons for this unlimited emotionality is that the child has recently left a world in which there is hardly any limit. In the ethereal or astral dimensions, there were no such restrictions and limitations as there are in the physical realm, within the physical body. The child's emotions are often 'reactions of misunderstanding' to this physical reality. Therefore, the child as he matures needs help and support in dealing with his emotions. This is part of the process of 'balanced embodiment' on earth.
So how do you deal with emotions, either in yourself or with your children?
Emotions should not be judged or suppressed. Emotions are a vital part of you as human beings, and as such they need to be respected and accepted. You can consider your emotions as your children, who need your attention and respect, and your guidance.
An emotion can best be seen as an energy that comes to you for healing. Therefore, it is important not to get completely carried away by emotion, but to remain able to observe it from a neutral position. It is important to be aware. One could put it this way: you should not repress an emotion, but you should not immerse yourself in it either. Because when you become immersed in it, when you identify with it completely, the child in you becomes a tyrant who will lead you astray.
The most important thing that you can do with an emotion is to acknowledge it, to feel all aspects of it while not losing your consciousness. Take for instance anger. You can invite anger to be fully present, experiencing it in your body in various places, while you are at the same time observing it neutrally. Such a consciousness is healing. What happens in this circumstance is that you embrace the emotion, which is essentially a form of misunderstanding, with understanding. This is spiritual alchemy.
Please let me explain with the help of an example. Your daughter has hit her knee on the table and is really hurt. She is upset, screaming in pain, and she kicks the table because she is angry with it. She considers the table to be the source of the pain.
Emotional guidance at this time means that the parents first help the child name her experience. "You're angry, aren't you? - You're in pain, right?" Naming it is essential. You transfer the root of the problem from the table to the child herself. It's not the table, it's you who are in pain, it's you who are angry. And yes, I understand your emotion!
Parents embrace the child's emotion with understanding, with love. The moment the child feels understood and recognized, her anger will gradually fade. The physical pain may still be present, but her resistance to the pain, the anger around it, can dissolve. The child reads compassion and understanding in her eyes and this relaxes and calms her emotions. The table, the cause of the emotions, is no longer relevant.
By embracing an emotion with understanding and compassion, you shift the focus of the child's attention from the outside to the inside, and you teach the child to take responsibility for the emotion. You are showing her that her reaction to an external trigger is not a given, but a matter of choice. You can choose misunderstanding or understanding. You can choose to fight or to accept. You can choose.
This also applies to relationships with your own emotions, your own inner child. Making room for your emotions, naming them and making an effort to understand them means that you truly respect and appreciate your inner child. Making the shift from the 'outer' to the 'inner', taking responsibility for the emotion, helps to create an inner child that doesn't want to hurt anybody else, that doesn't feel victimized. Strong emotions - whether anger, grief or fear - always have the component of powerlessness, i.e. feeling that you are the victim of something that is external to you. What you do when you focus, not on the circumstances outside yourself, but instead on your reaction and your pain, is that you 'dismiss' the outside world as the cause of your emotions. You do not care much more about what caused the emotion. You turn completely inward and say to yourself: OK, this has been my reaction, and I understand why. I understand why I feel the way I do, and I will assist me in this.
Turning to your emotions in this loving way is liberating. This requires a kind of self-discipline. Releasing the outer reality of being the 'source of evil' and taking full responsibility for yourself means that you recognize that 'you choose to react in a certain way'.
You stop arguing about who is right and who is wrong, who is guilty of that, and you simply release the entire chain of events that happened outside of your control. I now experience this emotion with full awareness that I choose to do so. This is taking responsibility. This is courage!
The self-discipline in this is that you give up being straight and being the helpless victim. You give up feeling angry, misunderstood and all other expressions of victimization that may feel totally good at some times. (In fact, you often estimate the emotions that most lock you.) Taking responsibility is an act of humility. This means being honest with yourself, even in your moments of greatest weakness.
This is the self-discipline that is asked of them. At the same time, this kind of inward turning requires the greatest compassion. The emotion that you are frankly prepared to face as your own creation is also considered with tender understanding. ‘You choose anger this time, isn't it?’ May be what you discover about yourself. Compassion tells them: "Very well, I can see why, and I forgive you." "Maybe when you feel my love and support more clearly, you won't feel inclined to take that answer next time."
This is the true role of consciousness in self-discipline. This is what spiritual alchemy means.
Consciousness does not fight or reject anything; It surrounds darkness with understanding. It surrounds the energies of misunderstanding with understanding and thus converts the metal into gold. Consciousness and love are essentially the same. Being aware means letting something be and surrounding it with your love and compassion.
You often think that ‘conscience alone’ is not enough to overcome your emotional problems. You say: I know that I have repressed emotions, I know their cause, I am aware, but this does not happen.
In that case, within you there is a subtle resistance to that emotion. You keep the emotion at a distance, for fear or for feeling overwhelmed by it. But you are never overwhelmed by an emotion, when you consciously choose to admit it.
As long as you keep the emotion at a distance, you will be at war with it. You will be fighting with emotion and she will turn against you in several ways. In the long run you can't keep it out. She will manifest in her body as pain or tension, or as a feeling of depression. Feeling exhausted or fatigued is a clear sign that you are repressing certain emotions.
The point is that you need to allow your emotions to enter your consciousness fully. If you do not know exactly what emotions are there, you may very well begin by feeling the tensions in your body. This is a door for emotions. In your body everything is accumulated. For example, if you feel pain or tension in the area of your stomach, you can go there with your conscience and ask what is there. Let the cells of your body speak to you. Or imagine that, right there, the child is present. Ask the child to show you what emotion is predominant in him or her.
There are several ways to get in touch with the emotions that are within you. It is essential to recognize that the energy that got stuck in the emotion wants to move. This energy wants to be released and therefore knocks on your doors as a physical complaint or as a feeling of stress or depression. For you, it's a matter of really opening up and being prepared to feel the emotion.
Emotions are part of their earthly reality - but they should not dominate them. Emotions are like clouds for the sun. Therefore it is so important to be aware of your emotions and treat them consciously. With a clear and balanced emotional body, it is much easier to get in touch with your soul or inner core, through your intuition.
In your society there is a lot of confusion around emotions. This is evident, among other things, from the amount of debate and confusion that exists regarding how to raise your children. Children are clearly much more emotionally spontaneous than you are as adults. This creates difficulties. What happens if some of your moral boundaries are exceeded? What happens if the situation gets out of hand and chaos erupts? Do you have to punish the children or allow them to express themselves freely? Do your emotions have to be controlled or not?
What is important in a child's education is that he learns to understand his emotions. Understand where they come from and be responsible for them. With your help, a child can learn to see his emotions as 'bursts of misunderstanding'. This understanding prevents him from becoming 'stuck' in his emotions and losing control. Understanding releases and brings them back to their center, without repressing the emotion. Parents teach their child to deal with emotions in this way by being the living example of it.
All the questions you ask yourself about how to deal with your child also apply to yourself. How do you deal with your own emotions? Are you hard on yourself? When you feel angry or sad for a long time, do you punish yourself by saying, "Come on, keep walking, and don't get hung up"? Do you suppress the emotion? Do you feel that punishing yourself is good and necessary? Who taught you this? Was it your parents?
Or do they go to the other extreme? They 'wallow' in their emotions, not wanting to let go. This is often the case too. You may have felt for a long time that you were a victim of a situation outside of yourself, for example your education, your partner or your work environment. At a certain point, it can be very liberating to come into contact with the anger within you related to the negative things that influence you. Anger can allow you to escape these influences and go your own way. However, you can fall so much in love with your anger, that you no longer want to give up. Instead of being a door, it becomes a 'way of life'. Then the role of the victim arises, which is anything but healing. This prevents you from standing in your own power. It is very important to be responsible for your own emotions and not to make them 'absolute truths'. When you give them the status of truths, instead of considering them as 'bursts of misunderstanding', you will base your actions on them, and this will lead you to make unfocused decisions.
The same is true for children who are allowed too much emotional freedom. They 'run wild' and become uncontrollable; they become little tyrants, and that is not right. Emotional chaos is just as unpleasant for the child as it is for the parents.
In short, you can be both strict and overly lenient in dealing with your emotions (and, in analogy, your children). I want to examine the 'forgiving' mode a bit more, because that seems to be more of a topic of discussion today. Since the 'sixties' there has been a collective understanding that their emotions would not be suppressed, because then their spontaneity and creativity, indeed their very soul, would be stifled. Society would produce obedient and disciplined children who would pay more attention to rules than to whispers from the heart, and this would be a tragedy - both for society and for the individual.
But what about the other extreme: what about justifying emotions in such a way that they take over the direction and govern their lives?
You can see very well within yourself if there are emotions that esteem them in such a way that you are actually considering them as truths (rather than what they really are: outbursts of misunderstanding). You have identified with these emotions. The paradox is that, very often, these are emotions that cause you much suffering. For example: victimization ('I can't do this', 'I can't help this', leadership ('I'll take care of this', 'I'll handle it'), sadness, fear, anxiety, and so on. These are all emotions that are painful but still, on another level, they give you something special to hold on to.
Take the 'victim feeling'. There may be advantages to this pattern of feeling. It can give you a sense of security. It frees you from certain obligations and responsibilities. I can't help it, can I?' It's a dark corner you're sitting in, but it seems like a safe place.
The danger of identifying or 'merging' with such a pattern of feeling for too long is that you lose touch with your own true freedom, your inner divine core.
Things may have entered your life path that have justifiably provoked emotions of anger and resentment within you. This may have happened during your youth, later on, or even in past lives. It is very important that you contact these emotions consciously, and that you become aware of anger, sadness or any other intensely charged energy within you. But at a certain point, you need to take responsibility for your emotions, because they are your reactions to an external event.
To be centered, to be clear and powerful and to be in balance spiritually, means that you take full responsibility for all the emotions that are in you. Then you can recognize the emotion of (for example) anger within you and at the same time say: this was my reaction to a certain event. I surround this reaction with understanding, but at the same time I intend to release it.
Life is ultimately not about being right; it is about being free and whole. It is very liberating to let go of old emotional responses that have become a 'lifestyle'.
One could say that it all revolves around the subtle middle way between suppressing emotions and immersing oneself in them. At both ends, you have been brought up with opinions and ideals that do not agree with the nature of spiritual alchemy. The essence of spiritual development is that you do not suppress anything, but at the same time take full responsibility for it. I choose this reaction, so I can heal you.
Perhaps it is not really a middle way, but a different way.
All this has to do with spiritual alchemy. By accepting all that is within you, you rise above it and become its master. Mastery is both strong and docile. It is very tolerant and yet it requires great discipline: the discipline of courage and sincerity.
