There is nothing more frustrating than someone telling you that you SHOULD not feel something when you are feeling it. Don’t they realize it’s too late now! You are already in the midst of feeling it! Whatever emotion you are experiencing at  the time, someone shoulding on you usually does not help you get out of it. As a matter of fact, just hearing what you should not do will either push you deeper into the feeling or make you feel guilty or ashamed. Guilt implies that there is something wrong with what you are doing. Shame implies that there is something wrong with you because of what you are doing. Since we now know there is no right or wrong, we must also understand that we have a right to feel whatever we feel. Unpleasant or negative emotions are merely expressions. They let us know there is something in ourselves or our lives that is not being expressed at the highest possible level. Since most of us have been shamed or made to feel guilty about what we feel when we feel it, we have become afraid of our feelings. For myself, some of the most damaging experiences of my childhood stem from being told i was wrong or being punished for expressing what i feel. “Shut up! Stop crying! That didnt hurt!” Such comments told me that what i was feeling was not real or important. Emotions, or feelings, as we call them, are the energies that move us in response to our thoughts and experiences. All emotions are neutral. They have no meaning other than the meanings we assign to them. An emotion is like a burst of energy that quickly circulates through the mind and body, indicating that there is an imbalance of energy that needs to be brought back into balance. Balance as used here means neutral or being void of meaning. When a thought or experience impacts the concious mind, the feeling begins to move throughout the mind and body, attaching itself to  every like feeling that already exist. This means that if a thought or experience evokes anger in you today, it will find and attach itself to every thought or experience that ever caused you to feel that same way whether your first experience was at age three or five or ten. It does not matter. That blows my mind! The feelings remain in your subconscious mind. Fear, shame, guilt, love, joy, peace,…all operate in the same way! Talk about baggage! WOW! Consequently the things that evoke these emotions from you today are the expressions of the same things that evoked these emotions the FIRST TIME YOU EXPERIENCED THEM. The normal human response to conflict is blame. Conflict makes us beat  ourselves up. Like attracts like. We look for and point to those people and experiences that have given rise to the imbalance in our emotions that we are feeling. It is then we find ourselves embroiled in fear, anger, more conflict, and inable to express how we truly feel. In worst cases, we express what we feel in inappropriate ways such as violently striking out, screaming, and crusing. Even those expressions are’nt bad or wrong. They are just  inappropriate and socially unacceptable. You have a right to your thoughts and feelings. Just becuase we feel something doesnt mean we have to act on it. Trust yourself enough to know that you can feel anything and recover from it. Stay with it long enough to de-charge. Breath deeply. If you can, write down what you are feeling and thinking, then destroy the piece of paper with all that you have in you. Above all else, for the first 60 seconds of this experience, please practice KEEPING YOUR BIG MOUTH SHUT! Pull yourself together and allow your brain to re-focus! Ask yourself what the REAL ISSUE IS? In 60 seconds or less you will know what to do. The most important thing here is to learn to be still and be quiet!

When you see that what you are doing, what you have chosen is not working, make another choice. When you discover that what you are thinking or feeling is not bringing forth the thoughts and feelings you desire, make another choice. Regardless of how much time you have spent, or how much energy you have expended doing whatever it is that you are doing, if it is not working for you, make another choice! Choosing does not mean you abandon or give up. Choice is not synonymous with being fickle or spaced. Choice simply means that you recognize the conflict, chaos, or pain the first choice created; you choose to eliminate the experience by making another choice. In the presence of love, everything unloving is revealed, providing us with the opportunity to make another choice. When we choose to DO EVERYTHING IN LOVE AND WITH LOVE PRESENT, we are issuing an invitation to the holy spirit to open our souls ands reveal more love in our lives!!

Christian