To heal, feel - by Asha Hawkesworth

To heal, feel by Asha Hawkesworth
While training to be a hospice volunteer, I was taught never to offer a grieving person a tissue. The reason? Doing this conveys the hidden message, "Stop crying"—and grieving people need to cry in order to heal. People don't like it when others cry, or are hurt, depressed, or angry. It makes us uncomfortable. We don't know what to do. The reason we don't know what to do is that we are uncomfortable expressing these emotions ourselves. There are many so-called negative emotions: anger, sadness, grief, disgust, and rage, to name a few. They may make us uncomfortable, but they do serve a purpose. And if we can't allow ourselves to feel these, then we cannot experience ANY emotion, such as joy, happiness, and peace. Some people believe that they never get angry and that their lives are calm and happy. Unfortunately, when we don't feel any negative emotions, it is usually because we have cut off all of our emotions. When this happens, our calm, quiet life is based on a subconscious determination to feel nothing at all. And without our emotions, we aren't living. Without our emotional body, our emotional selves, we literally cannot heal, and we cannot evolve spiritually. In order to progress on our own unique spiritual paths, we must be able to feel. This is at least of equal importance to any mental understanding; in fact, it may even be greater. When we learn a new spiritual concept, we first understand it mentally. We say to ourselves, "Ah, yes, that makes sense. I see." And yet, we do not see. Knowing something in our mental body means nothing until we understand it in our emotional body. This leads to integration of the concept into our lives and world, which then propels our spiritual growth. Intellectual understanding alone is not enough. In our society, we are taught to live "in our heads." We value intellectual processes, and we are taught that emotional processes lead to irrational, or even hysterical, thinking. Women in particular are discouraged from expressing emotional intelligence in the workplace. As a result, a lot of people have trouble with emotional understanding, because they have never experienced it. We are not taught what sadness, grief, anger, or even joy looks like. A person can literally be depressed their entire life and not know it, because they have never experienced what real happiness is. We assume that our personal status quo is normal, and that we are happy, even if we are deeply angry or sad. So, if we don't know what our true emotions are, or if we are unaware that we have chosen not to feel them, how do we start to feel again? The answer lies with God. The Universe conspires continually to help us return to God, and emotional understanding plays an important role. Naturally, the Universe is going to help us reach that goal by giving us thoughts, ideas, friends, or a book falling off the shelf. Our challenge is to pay attention to these answered prayers and choose to open the door to our emotional selves. When we first open that door, we are going to feel our negative emotions—the ones we've been avoiding. The anger, the hurt, the grief, the sadness that we've bottled up inside for who knows how long. The power of these feelings may feel overwhelming at first, but it is essential that you move through them. Negative feelings are not forever. They are not bad. They will not kill you. They are just your feelings. They are part of you. Once you have honored your negative feelings, you will be able to experience all of the "positive" emotions in the human spectrum: happiness, joy, contentment, and many others. They do exist for you. But the key is that you must be willing to experience your negative emotions. By doing so, you will be able to release them. This doesn't mean that you will never feel sad again. It does mean that you will know it when it comes, feel it, and move past it back into joy. Joy is always available to us when we allow ourselves to feel. Joy is also how we connect with God, because it is our natural state. But we must walk through the emotional door to get there. Related articles: In a lifeless birth, a midwife's opened eyes (New York Times) Healing your inner child Opening the heart What is God? Psychic warfare

To heal, feel
by Asha Hawkesworth

Mayan calendar

While training to be a hospice volunteer, I was taught never to offer a grieving person a tissue. The reason? Doing this conveys the hidden message, "Stop crying"—and grieving people need to cry in order to heal.

People don't like it when others cry, or are hurt, depressed, or angry. It makes us uncomfortable. We don't know what to do. The reason we don't know what to do is that we are uncomfortable expressing these emotions ourselves. There are many so-called negative emotions: anger, sadness, grief, disgust, and rage, to name a few. They may make us uncomfortable, but they do serve a purpose. And if we can't allow ourselves to feel these, then we cannot experience ANY emotion, such as joy, happiness, and peace.

Some people believe that they never get angry and that their lives are calm and happy. Unfortunately, when we don't feel any negative emotions, it is usually because we have cut off all of our emotions. When this happens, our calm, quiet life is based on a subconscious determination to feel nothing at all. And without our emotions, we aren't living.

Without our emotional body, our emotional selves, we literally cannot heal, and we cannot evolve spiritually. In order to progress on our own unique spiritual paths, we must be able to feel. This is at least of equal importance to any mental understanding; in fact, it may even be greater.

When we learn a new spiritual concept, we first understand it mentally. We say to ourselves, "Ah, yes, that makes sense. I see." And yet, we do not see. Knowing something in our mental body means nothing until we understand it in our emotional body. This leads to integration of the concept into our lives and world, which then propels our spiritual growth. Intellectual understanding alone is not enough.

In our society, we are taught to live "in our heads." We value intellectual processes, and we are taught that emotional processes lead to irrational, or even hysterical, thinking. Women in particular are discouraged from expressing emotional intelligence in the workplace. As a result, a lot of people have trouble with emotional understanding, because they have never experienced it. We are not taught what sadness, grief, anger, or even joy looks like. A person can literally be depressed their entire life and not know it, because they have never experienced what real happiness is. We assume that our personal status quo is normal, and that we are happy, even if we are deeply angry or sad.

So, if we don't know what our true emotions are, or if we are unaware that we have chosen not to feel them, how do we start to feel again? The answer lies with God. The Universe conspires continually to help us return to God, and emotional understanding plays an important role. Naturally, the Universe is going to help us reach that goal by giving us thoughts, ideas, friends, or a book falling off the shelf. Our challenge is to pay attention to these answered prayers and choose to open the door to our emotional selves.

When we first open that door, we are going to feel our negative emotions—the ones we've been avoiding. The anger, the hurt, the grief, the sadness that we've bottled up inside for who knows how long. The power of these feelings may feel overwhelming at first, but it is essential that you move through them. Negative feelings are not forever. They are not bad. They will not kill you. They are just your feelings. They are part of you.

Once you have honored your negative feelings, you will be able to experience all of the "positive" emotions in the human spectrum: happiness, joy, contentment, and many others. They do exist for you. But the key is that you must be willing to experience your negative emotions. By doing so, you will be able to release them. This doesn't mean that you will never feel sad again. It does mean that you will know it when it comes, feel it, and move past it back into joy. Joy is always available to us when we allow ourselves to feel. Joy is also how we connect with God, because it is our natural state. But we must walk through the emotional door to get there.

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