Some recommend positive thoughts to chase away the negative. Not so simple, and not so efficient in my opinion. To live well with them, you have to recognize them, tame them, as you tame certain parts of yourself.
Emotions are the object of much attention because they are the source of many ills. We understand their importance better and better, they are in the front line in many psycho-energetic modalities. I come across them on a daily basis with the people I accompany and it seemed important to me to take stock of them, to propose an approach to better live with them and not to let their negativity invade you.
After years of questioning, practicing yoga, meditation and qigong, my practice as a healer, it appears to me that emotions are the link between the body and the soul, a sacred link. It is through emotions that we feel all the dimensions of the human being. Moreover, our capacity to remember the past and to project ourselves into the future with these emotions, makes them have an impact that is probably more important than they should be. Also, they can persist beyond incarnations, making their treatment more complex. Finally, the changes in our lives over the last century, the access to information, personal development and the need to find one's place, one's way, the place of women, all of this has given a lot of room, and sometimes freedom, to emotions. At the same time, we still find it difficult to give them a place, without letting them run our lives.
We often want to control them, to forget them, so that they stop hurting us. In reality, they should be encouraged rather than controlled or hidden.
The nature of emotions
They can be positive or negative. Negative in the sense that they get in the way, instead of elevating us, moving us forward, like those that are positive (joy, laughter, gratitude, hope, motivation, interest, pride...).
The negative emotions are anger, fear, (the two main negative emotions in my opinion), contempt, shame, jealousy ... These are the negative emotions which curiously have the beautiful part, we naturally tend rather towards it in general, they are they present blocks and which make turn our thoughts in loop.
Emotions are sensations, as explained by Peter Levine, a trauma specialist. You can feel it yourself: when you are aware of an emotion, close your eyes, take the time to feel it by breathing slowly and locate it in your body. You can also describe this sensation.
Emotions have the particularity of provoking physical reactions: fear will make us 'freeze' or not move, or increase our strength to run; some fears will put our heart to the test. In some cases, we may hear an unpleasant comment about ourselves and feel it in the solar plexus, like a blow that has been dealt to us.
But also chemical reactions, such as the release of adrenaline - or oxytocin for positive emotions - often necessary to accompany a physical response such as fight or flight.
Sometimes, these feelings are expressed more by physical symptoms without being able to analyze them: something goes through us, an emotion that makes us laugh or cry, that touches us, without being able to put words to it. Or, the emotion can be a tangle of emotions, which makes words get confused and cannot be articulated.
Negative emotions have the capacity to crystallize in the body, especially in the organs but not only. Chinese medicine corresponds an emotion to an organ (then also to an element, a season, a color).
Unexpressed emotions, locked up, may develop into pain such as a blocked back, a painful knee etc... The body needs to speak sometimes to make itself heard, even if it means degenerating into a disease if it is not listened to. It often happens to me in care to release blocked emotions; it is by passing the hands over the chakra related to such or such organ or such part of the body, that the emotion will come out. Thus sadness is often blocked on the lungs.
en freeze somewhere, and perhaps wait for another occasion, another layer, to express their overflow. This may hurt....
On the contrary, I would say to let this emotion cross us. Sometimes, a rainy winter day will bring us to melancholy for example, a music will transport us and make us live something, without we can identify it. Then we can realize that we like to visit this aspect, this moment. I suggest you live it. Sometimes by going to the end of what is going through us, we will be able to find the way out, and get out. It is likely that there has been a healing of something. Sometimes it is also the spirits of nature that cross us. We can be lulled by this or that emotion, without needing to understand it, to know where it comes from, or to articulate it. This brings us closer to what we are, this multidimensional complexity.
This does not mean that we should complain all the time that things are not going well!
Negative emotions easily make us loop on what we didn't do, what we would have liked to do if x or y, and leave us frozen on a moment of the past, on something that weighed us down. And finally they prevent us from seeing what was positive. Nobody goes around in circles on positive emotions! And that is where they affect us.
It is also important to know that sometimes emotions come from elsewhere and are due to karmic (past life) or transgenerational (from our ancestors) blockages. This shows the depth of the pain they can create and how they can mark us.
So how do we go about it?
Welcome them to tame them
When you feel or sense an emotion, take the time to identify it, express it out loud. You can share it with a trusted friend (we don't always want to share them with everyone).
I recommend a compassionate meditation: while meditating, imagine that a friend shares this emotion, this difficulty with you; you are benevolent, you listen to her and you recognize this emotion, you welcome it with compassion. You can visualize her hand in yours to support her, to tell her that this emotion is real and that it will pass, like everything else. Tell her that you are there to support her in this moment.
At the end, integrate this by holding your hand, know that you are the one who has been told all this, in compassion.
This little exercise is because we are often much gentler with others than with ourselves... it's time to change that, don't you think?
Also, if it's advisable to be aware of what's going on and if you really want to turn on those negative emotions... Ask yourself if you're going around in circles about things that have happened that you regret not having done? and try to look at the bright side. Regrets are expressed, that's important; on the other hand, when they overshadow the positive elements, it's a real shame. It doesn't help to focus on them, on the contrary. And it is there that to take the opposite side, and to look at what one has, the moments which one spent, which were good, is important, to allow these regrets, these remorse, not to remain frozen.
With emotions, as with many things in life, it is important to accept them, to accept what is, what has been. We did our best, we could have thought of this or that at that moment, but here we are, we didn't. If you 'go round in circles' about things from the past, you would have liked that, or you were annoyed by something, and you are rehashing these thoughts, learn to accept your weaknesses, those of others; sometimes we forget to do better, that's for sure, but in the end, isn't there one or more positive elements that you would prefer to stay on about this episode?
If you feel invaded by emotions or pain without being able to make a link, an energetic work or a soul reading could allow you to find its root, transgenerational or from another incarnation - in order to defuse it.
Finally, I can only praise the merits of meditation which teaches us, among other things, equanimity: observe, remain neutral, do not let ourselves be overwhelmed by emotions, but welcome them and let them pass. We now know how much emotions can crystallize in the organs in particular, creating blockages that become diseases. Equanimity allows us to see things as they are and thus defuse many conflicts.
Seeing things from the good side, staying on emotions more positive than negative, can be innate, but it can also be learned! Habits can be changed, even if there is resistance. You will see that as you go along, the small constraints of life will seem lighter.
Namaste,
Claire
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