Anger, sadness, grief, frustration, anxiety, stress, boredom, fear, pain... These are all bad feelings. Or are they? We label them as such, and when we feel them, we feel bad or wrong and give ourselves a hard time for even feeling them! “I shouldn’t feel angry”, “I shouldn’t feel sad”. However, the resistance to the feeling is worse than the actual feeling itself! Denying and resisting is like an elastic band of energy tied up to the feeling and keeping you in it! The only thing you need to do with difficult feelings is to acknowledge, embrace, and surrender to them. This releases the elastic band and the feeling will magically and immediately dissipate.
Take a deep breath now and notice how you are feeling. Just acknowledge the shades and nuances. Notice any feelings you would label as ‘bad’. This means that you have a judgement against them – essentially, when we judge something as wrong or bad, we push it away from ourselves. We say ‘that isn’t a part of me!’ and it goes into our darkness, into the underground baggage area. Merely embracing and acknowledging and surrendering to how we feel brings it out into the light, allows it to be a part of who we are, and allows us to BE more of who we are. It is ok to feel angry. It is ok to feel sad, it is ok to feel afraid...
I don’t mean that when we are angry, we need to act it out and shout at someone, or be violent. No. Merely, that we need to acknowledge, embrace and surrender to the feeling within ourselves. Any forms of ‘release’ of feelings like hitting a pillow when you are angry do not help. Positive affirmations telling you you don’t have the ‘bad’ feeling or suggesting that you are really having another ‘positive’ feeling do not help. What does help is embracing and surrendering to the feeling you are actually feeling.
Here is a wonderfully practical three step process that you can use any time you are having a ‘bad’ feeling – a feeling you have a judgement against. You simply say the following aloud, once. For example, for sadness: ‘I choose to feel... sad. I love myself when I feel... sad. And I embrace it, I surrender.’* You will find as soon as you do this, the feeling will dissipate. You may then feel another feeling. If it is a feeing that you also denote as ‘negative’ then you may repeat the process on that feeling, until you reach a ‘positive’ feeling – ie one that you do not have a judgement against. One that it is ok to feel.
The essence of enlightenment is embracement. Literally, we embrace, acknowledge, and accept more and more of who we are. Which allows it, and brings it into the light instead of shoving it into a dark cupboard and saying ‘no. that’s not me!’ Yes I feel angry. Yes I feel sad. Yes I feel lonely. Yes I feel upset. And so on. These feelings are all a part of who we are. They contain important information and guidance for us, and it is ok to feel them.
Allowing our feelings
The other thing we tend to do with so called ‘negative’ feelings is to stuff them. Suppress them, using any form of distraction or addiction, many of which are ingrained in society as ‘normal’ behaviour. For example, overeating, watching TV, drinking alcohol, smoking, etc. Alcohol is associated with ‘having a good time’ however the actual effect is to suppress feelings. That is what alcohol does. Ask ‘what feeling am I trying to suppress?’. If we would just embrace how we were actually feeling in the first place, we would not need these props, nor would we suffer the side effects.
The other ‘difficult’ thing about ‘negative’ feelings is... we might need to do something about them. We might need to take action to change our lives. And that can be scary. If we are angry, we might need to communicate with another person about how our needs are not being met, and ask for what we need. If we are sad, we might need to acknowledge how we have let ourselves down in some way, or embrace that there has been a loss and let it go. If we are afraid, we might need to embrace that we feel that way, surrender, and carry on and do what we need to do anyway.
Try to embrace ‘negative’ feelings as your informative friend. Allow yourself to feel them. And use the three step process as often as you want, once per feeling when you are feeling it, to help you remember, allow, and express more of who you are.
*thanks to Phillip Arndt for this process.
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Jelila is an internationally renowned healer presently in London, offering individual transformational healing, past lives, negative belief clearing, and workshops.
Healing CD stockist:: The Holistic Healing Centre, Kuta (Behind Dijon at Kuta Roundabout.) • 766259
Jelila welcomes comments and may be contacted on:
Email: jelila@jelila.com
Website: www.jelila.com or www.imagine-retreats.com
