posted August 16, 2007 07:17 AM         

A Healing Place

As we know, emotions come in all sizes and shapes; from the power of rage to the rush of joy, from the sweetness of contentment to the darkness of despair. Whether positive or negative, they can make us feel so alive! When we are fiercely angry, the adrenalin flows and our bodies are alert and charged. When we are elated with anticipation of a joyful event, we feel light and buoyant.
Positive emotions generally expand our energy. If we are happy, for instance, we have feelings of expansiveness and our hearts are open to all that is around us. We connect with nature more intimately, we are more spontaneous, and we feel comfortable and balanced as we go through our daily lives. The roots of our relationships grow deeper when we are expanding our energy.

When we experience negative emotions, our energy is generally contracting. If we are frightened or guilt-ridden, we close in towards ourselves, blocking out others and losing energy and vitality. When we are angry we may expand our energy for a short time during an outburst, but generally our angry feelings quickly fold back into contracting energy states of depression, resentment, and feeling misunderstood.

Sometimes, we may contract our energy inward in order to be quiet and focus on ourselves. This feels very different because we are choosing this direction to build energy, rather than experiencing the energy contraction of negative emotions.

Although our emotions may change drastically from day to day and experience to experience, we each have an underlying emotional tone. Our basic emotional tone varies for each of us and is set by a number of factors. One factor is the nature of which we were when we were born. Did we come into this world angry, calm, or happy? Did we bring in a personality that has aggressive or passive tendencies? Is our nature that of an extrovert or introvert?

Perhaps the most important factor in setting our basic emotional tone is the extent to which we trust or mistrust the universe and our place in it. If we believe that we are at home in a universe that operates to support our growth; that we are connected to our deeper, wiser self, to others, and to the whole of the universe; we will have an underlying emotional tone that is positive and expansive. The most basic expansive emotion is contentment.

If we feel unsafe and view the world as a hurtful and dangerous place, a cold place devoid of meaning and filled with pain, we will tend to experience more of the contracting, negative emotions. The most basic contracting emotion is fear.

None of us carry pure trust or mistrust, so none of us experience only positive or negative emotions. We are all a mix, and this is good. In order for our human experience to be complete, we need all the emotions.

All of our emotions, expanding and contracting, are necessary for processing and moving through life's most significant experiences. Joy allows us to open our hearts to positive experiences, and grief helps us release what we have lost. Guilt allows us to move toward acceptance. Contentment gives us connection to our surroundings. Despite the fact that emotions can bring us pain, they are as important to our human function and growth as anything we do is.

The bad news is that in addition to the positive emotions, each of us will experience the gamut of contracting emotions as we navigate rough times. The good news is that if trust is the emphasis of our approach to life, we will move through and gain from our negative emotions more easily from a place of centeredness.

In addition to being necessary components of our process, emotions are important messengers that can provide us with a great deal of information about ourselves. They are energy signals that communicate among our physical, mental, and spiritual aspects. When we are locked in a strong negative emotion, for instance, we are receiving the clear message that we are somehow out of balance.

Although we tend to cling to positive, expansive emotions and avoid negative ones, it is important that we allow ourselves to experience them all. The more we learn about our emotions and develop trust in our growth process, the more we will be able to move through them and find their value. They serve not only to illuminate our bright side, but to give us insight into our shadow side as well.

Sometimes rather than moving through negative emotions and using them as part of our growth process, they become stuck within us and become part of our self-definition. We all know, for example, people who have gone through a divorce. Some remain permanently locked in the emotion of bitterness, while others move on with their lives.

Negative emotions are here to give us information and help us move through experiences. We do not want them to become locked within us. We want to use them for the processes they provide and the lessons they teach, and them allow them to go.

posted August 18, 2007 10:32 AM         

To have the courage of our convictions has long been an ideal I admire.

I think this article is really good at getting a little bit deeper into the ideas of "feeling the fear and doing it anyway" instead of being trapped by fear.