Emotions are a uniquely amazing tool we have! Our emotions interface our inner world and reality with the other, and services as a communication link between the two.
Thoughts do this too, so do memories and imaginations, and while they can evoke certain emotions, their role in the human experience tool-box are different.
That’s the other cool thing, we have so many different tools to use - to craft, to hone and continually evolve and grow - regardless of age of life experience. These enable and support us to be change-makers in our changing world that has gotten rigid and stuck in many ways.
To work with our emotions is to return to our natural flow.
Feelings & Emotions
These are deeply related, but they aren’t the same thing.
The science-minded note that emotions original in the brain as a response to external stimuli; while feelings are the sensory reactions to those emotions.
In the spiritual and quantum understanding, emotions are energy-in-motion. Many energies fly and flow around us, and when an internal or external experience occurs subconsciously pull in the energy that is resonant, which evokes the emotion. It is a guest and not part of our identity, but it rises to show us where we are vibrating, in a sense. Feelings are sense responses and experiences that often naturally change as we work on our emotional bodies.
We may resonate with type of definition more than the others, but to me they are beautifully complementary, while also being similar.
I know people who describe themselves as ‘feeling calm and at peace’. But they are neither calm nor peaceful - inside them, tornadoes rage. Their words, actions and opinions do not come from a peaceful centre, and if you watch them a little, you’ll notice this too. I’ve found that this comes from a confusion of emotions and feelings. You can see an image of a monk peacefully meditating. You can tell yourself, that’s me - peaceful. And when emotions rise that are not-peaceful, you can bury them, pretending they do not exist.
One can live in this illusion for years, and many do, until it is no longer possible.
Working with Energy-in-Motion
We define energy as a physical, often quantifiable force, activity or attribute; and when it is in motion, it is either on its way in, way out or way through.
Learning to work with emotions then, is a craft that takes us out of the stuck-ness we may feel at times. Sometimes, we tell our selves that we are stuck in an impossible situation with no way out. This, is us being trapped in our self-created mind-castles where finite, narrow and often unideal options exist.
Creative and divine solutions exist in a different frequency that the problem (per Einstein). So, raising ourself to those frequencies requires an tuning to what our current frequency truthfully is.
Working with our deep, raw and intense emotions is not for the faint-hearted. It is a challenge because to work with emotions, our conscious Self has to hold the reigns, i.e. be the Masters of our life experience, rather than allowing the a certain cluster of emotions to rule our Being.
This takes time, patience, learning, practice and courage found in the intimate depths of our Souls & Spirits.
When we experience what we judge as a negative emotion - rage, anger, grief - either it completely consumes us, or we spend sizeable life-force energy pushing it away or burying it. Both may work for a while, but they are not sustainable. They also keeps us efforting, to the point of exhaustion and finding that we never actually get anywhere and you start to believe that ‘nothing ever changes’.
Have you ever experienced immense and deep joy from within? Where, for a few moments you are completely overcome with the emotion?
Maybe tears stream down your face, maybe you laugh in soul-elation and maybe you forget for a few moments that you have a body because you simply float in bliss. Sometimes, we touch this place when we orgasm or are in a meditative embrace.
What happens with joy, is that we surrender to it. This is not the same as being consumed by the energy of joy. Surrender is different art all-together and it isn’t something we are able to work with if we carry pain and trauma - and we shouldn’t because it is not compassionate to our Being. So, certainly, if that is you, acknowledging, releasing and forgiving trauma and sufferings is a necessary first step. Once we can stand in greater peace and power within ourselves, when we aren’t actively triggered by our past traumas and dramas anymore and when they no longer define us; another path of the journey starts, and here we learn the craft of surrender.
Getting stuck in one way or one emotion cluster is a barrier to surrendering.
Ritual Tantrums
We’ve all heard young kids throw loud screaming banging tantrums. I don’t have kids and when I was younger I had zero tolerance for this behaviour, often giving the parents dirty looks. Unhelpful, I know.
But one day, I saw a very young girl throw a tantrum at a grocery store parking lot. I saw her dad, kneel down with her and softly, but firmly talk to her. I understand that she didn’t want to go home and to bed. I assume parents get skilled very quickly in negotiating with their kids, because within minutes, the screaming stopped and was replaced with a cuddly toy and she was neutrally tucked into her car seat.
It’s more common to see parents get angry, flustered, helpless or embarrassed when their kids throw tantrums, especially in public. But this interaction I witnessed, made me see how I handled intense and complex emotions within.
So, I started throwing tantrums!
At the time, maybe it was the freedom to express intense emotions that drew me to it, I'm not sure. I remember not questioning it at all - and I’m glad I didn’t.
Not in public certainly. But when I felt angry, flustered, helpless or lost for more than a couple of days, I’d make a ritual out of it.
I should note that I make rituals out of most things; it is just how I do. But to each their own. Truthfully, whatever returns you into your inner natural peace, power and flow state is amazing!
To start the ritual, I picked things I love - blankets, crystals, candles and incense and brought them into a quiet and safe space in my apartment (on a day my roommate would be away for several hours and I would be uninterrupted). I’d meditate or stretch or dance and little to get my mind and body in sync. My intention would often be to ‘feel all my feelings’ in this safe space I created. The first few times, it was a bit awkward, but soon the emotions rose, on cue.
What lives within us often needs our own guidance, attention and love. It’s like an inner child waiting for the warmth of our Consciousness.
Since I was surrounded by loving and beautiful things, I knew I was loved (by me and by the universe). Then I would allow myself to tantrum - I would cry and stomp my hands and feet - to feel into whatever my inner child was having an issue with. If I felt the need to scream, I’d scream into a pillow to respect my neighbours. Sometimes I’d angry scribble on paper. Doing an action with the body, even if it’s a strong exhale is important, because that’s the release - otherwise it stays trapped inside.
It’s funny when you actually face your full emotional depth, you realize the ‘motion’ part of the equation, because it all leaves quite quickly. I think the longest tantrum I had was maybe 15mins!
Then the beauty, safety and support of my surroundings moves in.
One of the things that happens when we allow ourselves a process like this, is that we build a trusting relationship with our raw and full emotional parts. Like any relationship, we ask questions, we listen, we allow, we do not judge what rises regardless of what it looks like, we breathe, we give space and we ask another question. This is important, because we are not simple wallowing in our chosen emotion; we are working with it, so asking ourselves questions that investigate the root or the truth under something is tethered to the intention of ‘feeling all our feelings’.
For example, when the 2015 Paris bombings took place, my friend was taking a train to the city that very evening. I heard about the bombings as they were being reported, and called her many times, but she didn’t answer. I was as panicked as I was angry. So, when when I sat down, my tantrum was more of a rage and hatred-fest. By then, I knew that swimming in rage and hatred would not help me or my friend or really anyone. So, while I allowed the emotions, I had questions for them as well.
This is where our inner guidance comes in and our alignment to our truth.
Underneath my rage was deep grief.
I was raised in the Middle East, and even though I’m not from there, when I think of home, I think of the the Arabian sands and how the desert smells when it rains.
So, there was a pain and grief within me - a deep conflict of loving a land so much, and having it be called' ‘the home of terrorists’ by many.
Working through this and evoking compassion, forgiveness and healing this took longer than just that night. But it was a start. I had to keep asking myself things like:
Why I felt the way I felt?
Is this my feeling, or someone else’s that I’m carrying?
Who am I truthfully angry at?
When was the first time in my life that I remember feeling this way?
Who is with me in these memories and what are they doing?
What am I learning from this? and how?
Is this love? Is this truth? If not, go deeper.
Sometimes it helps to journal, other times taking a bath, going for a walk in nature and sharing with a confidant is what is required to fully release, synthesize and re-pattern the experience.
My friend, as it happens, was fine. Her train was miraculously delayed and so she didn’t get to Paris until much after, but her phone had died, which is why I couldn’t reach her.
I did this for different things and situations for years, and every-time, I felt more spacious and a little more peaceful as new perspectives, creative solutions and deep truths started to rise. I had options and freedom to choose my way forward. I came up with solutions that I never thought or heard of before. This was amazing and I when I acted on those solutions, over the years, all my relationships and how I communicated to people I love, improved so much!
The tantrum - whether an actual 3 year old or adult me throws it - is a massive and deep release of energy we are currently resonating with that feels harsh or uncomfortable to our Being. These so called ‘dark emotions’ show us messages within.
Our emotional body is almost like a layer between our physical body and the rest of the world. It takes in a lot of information and energy, just like our sense-organs do.
That information needs to be processed and released. We take showers and brush our teeth to take care of our physical bodies, right?
Our emotional bodies need love, care, nourishment and maintenance too.
Working with emotions often by-passes the logical and rational mind. This is delightful for me, but can be hard for some folks. Know, that listening with love and neutrality to your emotions is a craft you are honing. It may feel hard or weird the first first few times, but it is like going to the gym. The release and elation you feel after will eventually lower the barriers and excuses you put up.
It is crucial to only work with emotions when you are in a safe and loving space yourself - this is true for your physical room and also within your being. Self-love, self-intimacy and self-respect are pillars for this work. Otherwise, it can be like ripping open an old deep scab and repeatedly hurting yourself. Masochism is not self-love.
Eventually, once we get really good at feeling our feelings, we don’t need to hold ritual tantrums anymore - unless it’s your jam!
It isn’t the only way of course, but I found it a helpful part of my process.
We learn to see, feel and perceive the truth within quite quickly and learn to surrender on our terms, with the guidance of our Soul, Spirit or whatever support looks and feels like to us (it’s different for every person).
From personal experience, the deeper I allowed myself to plunge within the vibration of self-love, the more I found that I had courage to soar, to play and to walk more elated than I have before.
Words do not do it justice, but it is a deep and wonderful space - to know you are your own container, your own Creator and your unique exquisite walking art-piece.