GUIDANCE FROM WITHIN FOR HEALTH AND HEALING
No one wants to suppress happiness, joy and love. And yet many hold in anger, sadness, tears and other, so called “negative emotions.”
Children are born knowing how to feel emotions; it is standard equipment at birth. But we are often taught early in childhood to break this natural mindbody release with dysfunctional beliefs, such as “little girls shouldn’t be angry,” and “boys shouldn’t cry.” We go about our days numb to the pain in ourselves, our family, our society and our world. The pain moves into the body and we develop dis-ease.
However, emotions are the rich, vibrant part of life and they make life worth living. Indeed, the purpose of our work, relationships and life in general is to feel happy, excited, passionate, joyous and loved.
Emotion is e-motion, or, energy in motion. Like water, emotions need to flow. If they are damned up, then just like a stream flowing out of the mountains, they will disturb the terrain. You cannot suppress anger and tears and expect love and joy to flow naturally. All emotions are part of life. Releasing the painful ones is part of healing and enjoying the good ones is the purpose of life.
Indeed, your emotions are your personal, built-in, navigational system in life. Just as an automobile navigation system will take you to your destination, your emotions will guide you in finding happiness and fulfillment in your life.
Not only will they guide you to fulfillment in your life, they will help you heal your diseases. According to Candace Pert, in her book Molecules of Emotion:
Mind doesn’t dominate body, it becomes body – body and mind are one. I see the process of communication . . . the flow of information throughout the whole organism, as evidence that the body is the actual outward manifestation, in physical space, of the mind. Bodymind, . . ., reflects the understanding, derived from Chinese medicine, that the body is inseparable from the mind. And when we explore the role that emotions play in the body, as expressed through the neuropeptide molecules, it will become clear how emotions can be seen as a key to the understanding of disease.
The following is a powerful and refreshing look at this timeless requirement for health and healing: responsible expression of emotions. It is quoted from a book written by Neale Donald Walsch and titled, Conversations with God, an uncommon dialogue, Book 3, (page 24).
Grief is a natural emotion. It’s that part of you which allows you to say goodbye; to express – push out, propel – the sadness within you at the experience of any kind of loss. It could be the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a contact lens.
When you are allowed to express your grief, you get rid of it. Children who are allowed to be sad when they are sad feel very healthy about sadness when they are adults, and therefore usually move through their sadness very quickly.
Children who are told, “There, there, don’t cry,” have a hard time crying as adults. After all, they’ve been told all their life not to do that. So they repress their grief.
Grief that is continually repressed becomes chronic depression, a very unnatural emotion. People have killed because of chronic depression. Wars have started, nations have fallen.
Anger is a natural emotion. It is the tool you have which allows you to say, “No, thank you.” It does not have to be abusive, and it never has to be damaging to another.
When children are allowed to express their anger, they bring a very healthy attitude about it to their adult years, and therefore usually move through their anger very quickly.
Children who are made to feel that their anger is not okay – that it is wrong to express it, and, in fact, that they shouldn’t even experience it – will have a difficult time appropriately dealing with their anger as adults.
Anger that is continually repressed becomes rage, a very unnatural emotion. People have killed because of rage. Wares have started, nations have fallen.
Fear is a natural emotion. All babies are born with only two fears: the fear of falling, and the fear of loud noises. All other fears are learned responses, brought to the child by its environment, taught to the child by its parents. The purpose of natural fear is to build in a bit of caution. Caution is a tool that helps keep the body alive. It is an outgrowth of love. Love of self.
Children who are made to feel that fear is not okay – that it is wrong to express it, and, in fact, that they shouldn’t even experience it – will have a difficult time appropriately dealing with their fear as adults.
Fear that is continually repressed becomes panic (anxiety), a very unnatural emotion. People have killed because of panic. Wars have started, nations have fallen.
Love is a natural emotion. When it is allowed to be expressed, and received, by a child, normally and naturally, without limitation or condition, inhibition or embarrassment, it does not require anything more. For the joy of love expressed and received in this way is sufficient unto itself. Yet love which has been conditioned, limited, or warped by rules and regulations, rituals and restrictions, controlled manipulated, and withheld, becomes unnatural.
Children who are made to feel that their natural love is not okay – that it is wrong to express it, and, in fact, that they shouldn’t even experience it – will have a difficult time appropriately dealing with love as adults.
Love that is continually repressed becomes possessiveness, a very unnatural emotion. People have killed because of possessiveness. Wars have started, nations have fallen.
And so it is that the natural emotions, when repressed, produce unnatural reactions and responses. And most natural emotions are repressed in most people. Yet these are your friends. These are your gifts. These are your divine tools, with which to craft your experience.
You are given these tools at birth. They are to help you negotiate life.
