We sensitives can get wrapped around the emotional axle because we feel so much. Because of this, we develop unique skills and insights with our emotions that can really help others understand their emotions.
My last post talked about finding body contentment as a sensitive starting on the physical level. In this installment you will get some emotional tips for flowing with your feelings to find more peace and contentment.
Emotional Tip 1: Your Emotion May Be Someone Else’s
Have you ever had an emotion come out of the blue, and when you look for how it relates to your life you can’t see much of a connection? We do our best to make it our own emotion anyway, that’s human nature. However, it may be an empathic bleed-through from someone else.
I use a energy clearing with my clients all the time that is from a branch of energy healing called Access Consciousness:
What energy, space, and consciousness do me and my body be, to be interfering energy and entity free? Anything that does not align and agree with that, I destroy and un-create. Right wrong, good bad, POD POC, all nines, boys and beyonds.
One of the gifts of being sensitive is profound empathy that help us support our friends, and for some of us, it’s too much. It can be confusing until you learn how to separate out other peoples’ emotions from your own. The next step is to gain control of the on/off switch for this extra information. The clearing above works like an attunement, the more often you use it, the more you are programming yourself to be “slippery” to other energies attaching or coming in.
Emotional Tip 2: Your Emotions are Cheaper Teachers than Therapy
It’s human nature to go the easy route and assume your current emotion is the whole story. Actually, some of our emotions are collections of feelings and the one on top can be just the tip of the iceberg.
When I was in love, I experienced some jealousy (you too, huh?). I didn’t like this feeling, so I looked at it closely to see how I could return to the contentment and joy of being in love. Under the jealousy was hurt, anger, and insecurity. These feelings taught me a lot.
I asked myself about other times when I felt these feelings. One technique is to find the feeling in your body, and ask your body for help and more information. I found inner children who longed for acknowledgement, tenderness, and healing. As I honored and loved these younger selves, I became more whole and could see the current situation more accurately.
Applying This Emotional Tip to Myself
My boyfriend was doing something that “triggered” an old memory. My feelings weren’t resolved from a difficult childhood experience of being left alone more often than I wanted. I was hurt because I missed my parents who weren’t around. It made me feel angry and frustrated that I didn’t have anyone to play with. Plus, I felt insecure because I was young and didn’t know if my needs would be met. None of these feelings belonged to the present-day situation, and yet they all clumped together and showed up as “jealousy” in my relationship.
With my new awareness, I could choose how I wanted to respond to the situation instead of reacting from a place of my subconscious hurt child. I wasn’t actually jealous, but I needed a hug and a bit of support from my boyfriend. With this, I could easily find my equilibrium and contentment again.
Emotional Tip 3: Is There a Benefit of Holding Onto Feelings?
Humans are messy and we hurt each other. Then we get dramatic and tell our friends all about it. We get sympathy and attention for being victimized. And we feel better because we humans love to feel “right” and justified through the validation of our peers. Being mad and indulging in our emotions feels kind of like scratching an itch. There’s a magnetic and powerful attraction to staying in it. And just like scratching a poison oak rash, it can be addictive and self-destructive.
Holding on to anger doesn’t allow our energy to move or evolve. From a Shamanic perspective, when energy is tied up like this, we lose access to something we need in order to move ahead in our lives. It may be in a totally different area. Anger that isn’t resolved can also show up in physical symptoms. However, we may not realize the source.
What if the benefit of releasing the feelings was better than all the sympathy, attention, and sense of power we get from holding onto those emotions?
Energy moves when we let it flow. Emotions are energy in motion, ideally. The faster we can let the emotion tell us what it’s about, feel it, and heal it, the more resilient and ready we are to handle life’s challenges.
Letting the energy that’s been tied up go releases a heap of good energy for starting something new, which can give your life new meaning and positive energy.
Emotional Tip 4: Feel Your Emotions All the Way to Completion
What does it take to be complete with an issue or situation that we’re recovering from?
When we’re sincerely ready to move on, but you aren’t sure if there are any residue pieces left to process you can ask. Go into a quiet meditation and ask your Higher Self or your body – it is full of wisdom. Ask, “What do I still need to learn, know, or experience to complete my feelings about XYZ?” I’ve gotten some interesting answers to this question.
Applying This Emotional Tip to Myself
I was in a bad relationship that started out really good. The end was so bad that I pushed away all the good times along with the bad. Fear of the pain returning prevented me from having any thoughts about the good times. The answer I got was my fear of the pain returning was still controlling me.
When I allowed myself to enjoy a few minutes of good memories, I overcame my fear of calling in more pain and I became stronger and freer. That freedom and courage gave me the ability to play bigger in my life.
Anything you don’t allow yourself to feel all the way through is still unresolved. Sometimes we’re more comfortable feeling, healing, and releasing some emotions. Others we don’t want to touch with a 10-foot pole! Beware of dissociation or staying in your head/mind in these situations – be courageous and GO THERE to learn, heal, and find your freedom.
On the opposite end, beware of over-indulging your feelings and wallowing in them for too long – stagnating per Emotional Tip #3.
You can tell when your feelings are fully resolved because the triggers don’t have an effect anymore. Test your reaction by thinking of the yukky situation. When you don’t get much of an emotional bang anymore, you’re well on your way to being whole!
Emotional Tip 5: Forgiveness is for YOU
It’s risky to bring up forgiveness because it’s often packed with a lot of “shoulds.”
Indulge me for a minute. Forgiveness doesn’t mean the other person did nothing wrong. It means that the experience has no more power over you – you are done thinking, feeling, and healing about it. Forgiveness sure as heck also doesn’t mean you’re going to allow yourself to be treated badly again! It’s also not an invitation for a bad situation to start back up.
Often times, forgiveness comes in layers, especially for really difficult situations like child abuse. When we forgive, we are working towards a complete release of the hold something has over us. It means non-attachment.
Stacking together these 4 Emotional Tips will help you get closer to being forgiving, TO BENEFIT YOURSELF. When we are big enough to forgive someone who has done some pretty horrible things, we’re in a good position to forgive ourselves for all the crap we’ve pulled off.
Energetically, forgiveness is cutting bonds and ties. You get your energy back from that situation, person, or thing and become whole and free.
Maybe it’s easier now to see what I mean that forgiveness is for YOU, not them. You’re getting all of your energy, freedom, and power back so you can conquer the world!