Feelings vs Emotions
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| Ivan Rados |
by: Ivan Rados
We want to know the Universe and we send expeditions into space. However, the answer is right here, in each of us. To be able to reach it, we need to wake up, to integrate all the disowned and fragmented pieces of One Self. We need to begin to cultivate awareness of our consciousness. The majority of people go through their days in a semi-alive state, detached from their feelings, shut off, numb, deadened, incomplete. Our feelings are our guides, they tell us when something needs attention and we need to be able to listen to them. Feelings are different from emotions.
Emotions rest below the level of ordinary thinking. People can be angry without realizing it. Even when they realize their anger, they may or may not acknowledge it.
Thoughts are linked with your emotions; your emotions are linked with your body. Emotions can change the entire chemistry of your physical self. Fear can make your heart race. Stress can cause skin rashes. Anxiety can cause migraines. The list goes on and on.
The endocrine system is comprised of glands producing various hormonal secretions with the specific functions that go directly into the bloodstream and lymphatic system. The hormones are then circulated to every part of the body. “Hormone” is taken from the Greek word for “excite,” and means “to set in motion, excite, stimulate”. Excitement is linking endocrine hormones to our emotions. Excitement comes out of pleasure.
The mind looks constantly for pleasures. The excitement you like you call pleasure; and the excitement you don’t like, you call pain, disease, suffering and illness. Both are excitements and both are pleasures. Both positive and negative pleasures go on changing into each other. Both are not real; beyond is real.
Feelings are more subtle than emotions. Feelings are authentic. They develop with your consciousness, the moment your soul enters into the body. Emotions develop later, as the mind begins to cover your consciousness, as a cloud covers the sky. Without awareness of your consciousness, your feelings become lost within your being.
Feeling love is not the same as the emotion of love. Feeling joy is not the same as the emotion of joy. Feelings are eternal, as your consciousness is eternal. Feelings can never be destroyed. They are sleeping, just beyond the shadow of your ego-mind. Emotions compensate for these hidden feelings. However, emotions are not feelings; just as thoughts are not you.
All authentic feelings – unconditional love, utter bliss, unlimited freedom, absolute joy, immense compassion – are part of one feeling; the feeling of being alive. To have the feeling of being alive is what Love IS (Love means total acceptance of all that is in your reality). That aliveness is the small light inside of you, if unconditionally accepted by your consciousness, it will explode into the brightness of a thousand suns. That is unconditional love shining through unconditional compassion. That is what bliss or enlightenment is.
Most people are so afraid of emotions that they continually invest an enormous amount of energy to keep feelings at bay, out of their awareness; therefore, the emotions remain stuck in their bodies and their unconsciousness, driving and controlling from there, causing discomfort on all levels. The blocked energy used to keep emotions “away” will eventually cause physical sickness. Usually, this is the point when a person will realize that something is wrong and even then, many people will not admit the connection between their disease and their blocked energy caused by unacknowledged, stuck emotions. Paradoxically, only when we allow ourselves to experience emotions in their full intensity, do the emotions actually go away, and in their place feelings start to emerge.
Only when we stop guarding against our emotions, when we drop our usual defenses and allow ourselves to be fully present to any emotion, only then will the emotion dissolve and disappear. So, there is no way around; the only way to the other side is through the experience. The more we do this, the more the toxic, intense emotions that have a tendency to control us will dissolve and the more space and energy will be freed up for the higher feeling of deep compassion to One Self and the Existence. When we allow the emotions to emerge fully and we move through them with responsibility and ownership, a true desire to experience, understand and move on, then we can break the genetic code that keeps us an easy target for manipulations.
Why are people so often so afraid of their own emotions?
Our primary, low order emotions can be very intense and their purpose is to inform us about our inner states and our environment. We are all born with the capacity to experience the full spectrum of human emotions. In the optimal early social environment, children gradually learn to accept their emotions and to deal with them – to self-soothe, contain, ground, to stay present when experiencing an intense emotion, to learn from it, and to move on. Children master this through the acceptance of their emotions by the primary caregivers. The adults in charge will tolerate the children’s strong emotions, will stay fully present, will not crumble, retaliate, reject or withdraw. With a stable presence, the caregivers will provide the containment, soothing and eventually the understanding children need.
Children will internalize these interactions and they will become the matrix for their own management of later emotions. So, what happens when the adults are disconnected from their own emotions, and consequently horrified by their own emotional reactions to children’s feelings and emotional needs? They withdraw, perhaps punish or shame, and induce a sense of guilt in the simple, developing, pliable minds of children. Children quickly learn that feelings are too dangerous; they confuse feelings with emotions, and adopt the defenses against them that have been modeled by caregivers.
From the shadow of one inadequate parent, the next generation of poor careers emerges, so the chain continues. Well, you can break the chain of denial, deadness, unconsciousness, disconnection. Start now. You can only start feeling safe if you allow yourself to feel afraid; you can only find forgiveness if you allow anger to emerge; you can only become truly strong if you let yourself be vulnerable. To feel love you must allow yourself to hate and to experience happiness, you have to pass through the sadness of loss. To find self acceptance you must first find your anger, as deep shame is anger turned inside.
Shame is a sense of the wrongness of the core self, the most painful emotion of all. It’s a result of original legitimate anger in response to the humiliations and non-acceptance of One Self being turned against self in an unsafe environment. If you feel angry too easily in the present, you can be sure that it’s not an authentic feeling. It’s a defense, usually against ‘softer’ feelings of vulnerability, disappointment and sadness. The same applies to all other feelings. Our feelings exist in layers. For example, if vulnerability felt unsafe for you as a child, you might have become emotionally angry, hiding behind your anger your true feelings of being hurt. Or if emotional anger was not allowed, you might be hiding it behind your helplessness, and so on.
Our emotions are our guide to the areas of our lives that need to be addressed and changed. We need to embrace them, learn from them, go through them, and eventually let go of them, replacing them with true feelings. Letting go happens naturally once we have allowed ourselves to feel and process the emotions. Letting go is important, for, as essential as they are for our personal growth, emotions at the same time disconnect us from the state of Oneness.
Emotions are mainly based in the unconscious, which keeps us disconnected from the Infinite Universe within ourselves. Feelings are based in consciousness. This is why it is essential to accept our emotions and move through them consciously. For consciousness is our connection with the Oneness, with the Divine Creation, which is a pure state of love (compassion), joy and bliss.
Unresolved emotional issues or emotional traumas, which are not processed, acknowledged or allowed to be experienced, can obstruct the free, healthy flow of energy in the body-mind-soul system. That energy is not flowing freely and pain is created in a particular weak part of the body, the organs, joints, bones or muscle. Those areas of stagnant energy contain a negative emotional charge that literally fragments the human energy field into separate compartments without any or with very little communication between them.
The body is not only feeling the real pain, but you are adding more layers of negative traumatic energies with daily attitudes, self-condemnation, anger, guilt, or fear making the situation even more complex and more traumatic. Expressions of resistance, fear, anger, guilt, shame, envy, resentment, and all other forms of negativity are distorted energy of your One Self.
When we go through a negative experience, usually we form a belief, such as; “I’m not worthy,” or “I am not able to make it” or “I’m stupid” or “I am in pain.” Infinite negativities. If we believe in those statements, we are allowing imprints in our energy field and they start having a separate life from the rest of our being. It is dissension or conflict that has never been resolved in our system; friction that was never observed or allowed and transformed, but rather stored and put on hold.
The only place that it can be stored in is our own being. Every single cell of our body holds the unprocessed painful emotions, and the more effort we make to keep it at distance from our awareness, the more it controls us. It keeps triggering intense emotional reactions of being flooded, in between being numb and unable to feel fully alive; it keeps reinforcing non-thriving, untruthful negative believes about us and life; it motivates destructive maladaptive behaviors.
For example,
when you feel pain and want to get rid of it, or forget it, or “kill it” with “painkillers”, you just have to remember one thing:
The common perception of pain is one of the `problem`. The mind becomes preoccupied with thoughts and ideas to avoid or forget or run away from the problem. You will not extinguish fire with petrol; sometimes even water can not do it. You need knowingness, and understanding of the fire. Real knowingness is that the fire is not the problem, but ignorance of the fire is. With knowingness you change your perception of the ‘problem’ into a ‘situation’.
When you change the ‘problem’ into a ‘situation,’ a whole new paradigm will happen. With the ‘situation’ your mind starts shifting, opening and yielding to the consciousness. With the situation there is a chance, an opportunity, a moment to consider… and in that state it is easy to see the pain as something that can unite or integrate us rather than separate us; something you can experience, you can resolve. The pain becomes not your enemy, but your friend, showing you the neglected part of yourself. That part needs your attention, love, and care.
When you stop defending against pain by stifling your own growth and choosing a lesser pain, you will become more connected to One Self. When you numb your pain and remove it from your awareness, you become disconnected from parts of One Self. Your energy and psyche become compartmentalized. In contrast, when you connect with the energy of pain, you are connected with One Self. Nothing exists that is not connected with something else.
In relating to One Self you are also relating to the outside of One Self through a creation of choices. Everything you do is by choice, often unconscious. We are naturally striving towards joy, pleasure, happiness, love… Every single moment, on the basis of your definition of yourself and your belief system, you are determined to choose what feels the best choice at the particular moment, even if that choice is pain. Something in you, your definition, and your belief system is telling you that to continue having pain is the best choice available at the particular moment. That chosen pain seems less painful than the actual general change of your health.
Change is scary, change can be very painful. You are assigning pleasure and pain all the time: This choice is more pleasurable than this one, or this choice is less painful than that one. In our psyche, pleasure and pain are perceived relatively. If the situation instantly changes, offering the choice of less pain, we will instantly choose and change. Every living organism functions on this basic principle: seek pleasure and avoid pain. This is unconscious, it’s survival. However, we human beings can and need to evolve beyond this basic animal principle.
We can learn from pain, we can learn from emotions and let it guide us in becoming healthier and whole. Just embrace the pain, embrace every emotion and in doing so, you will embrace all the disowned and abandoned parts of One Self. You will become more integrated, more wholly.
RePrinted from an article by: Ivan Rados
http://ivanrados.com/
~o§.§o~
Consultoria Astrológica e Numerológica
Mapa Natal, Retorno Solar, Trânsitos, Progressões, Sinastrias
Mapas infantis (de orientação educacional) e Orientação Vocacional
Consultoria Astrológica e Numerológica
Mapa Natal, Retorno Solar, Trânsitos, Progressões, Sinastrias
Mapas infantis (de orientação educacional) e Orientação Vocacional
Encomendando os seus trânsitos astrológicos pessoais e seu mapa numerológico, você acompanha a dinâmica planetária que descreve o seu cotidiano e a frequência vibracional do seu dia pessoal - e assim você poderá exercer o seu livre-arbítrio com muito mais consciência! A análise dos trânsitos, progressões, lunações e eclipses sobre o mapa natal permite uma antecipação das crises, que podem então ser aliviadas com um tratamento de apoio e prevenção.
Rômulo Grandi
Mestre em Reiki
Consultor em Astrologia e Terapias Holísticas
Consultor em Astrologia e Terapias Holísticas
