Well, this should be interesting.  Explaining how to feel your feelings is kind of like explaining how to blink your eyes.  But I’ll try anyway…

Imagine this scenario:

You’re floating in a river.  Gently moving downstream. The water feels warm and nurturing to your skin.  All is right with the world, and you’re having a wonderful time.  You’re letting the current carry you, without a care in the world.  You’re in the flow.

But then you hear someone talking about how there’s rocks up ahead.  You could get hurt, or worse.  And they remind you to watch out for the fish – they could bite you.   There might be poisonous snakes in the water as well.

And while nobody knows for sure, there’s a rumor of a huge waterfall somewhere downstream.  You’d be crazy to stay in this river and risk dying.  You’ll never survive the waterfall.

All of a sudden, you’re not having such a good time anymore.  Every time your foot brushes up against an underwater twig, you freak out.  You start looking for those rocks and those rapids that surely must be around the next bend.  And you could swear you can make out a rumbling sound of a waterfall way off in the distance.

At this point, all you can think about is getting out of the river.  That warm nurturing feeling is long gone.  You’ve got to be on guard!  The river is a dangerous place.  How could you ever have been so complacent?

Well, you’re not going to be a sucker anymore.  Those rocks aren’t going to get you.  Now you know; the river is your enemy.  It’s out to get you.

You start fighting the current.  You don’t want to go downstream.  It’s not safe.  You need to stay right where you are.  You’ve somehow got to take control of the situation.  Soon you’re exhausted.  Your muscles are getting sore.  It hurts.  But you must keep up the fight.

Fighting off the fear and the panic, angry that you have to even be in this situation in the first place… wanting to give up… this is life and death here.  You know the river is dangerous, because otherwise there would be no reason to fight it.

The fact that you’re tired and worn out proves how precarious your situation is and how dangerous the river is.

Before you realize it, you’ve been fighting this fight for decades.  It’s all you know.  You can’t remember when you weren’t fighting.  You can’t remember what it was like before you heard about how dangerous the river can be.  Now, it’s all about control.  You’ve got to control yourself in this flow.  Your life depends on it.

What happened?

You were going with the natural flow.   Life was an adventure.  True, you didn’t know what was around the next bend… but it didn’t matter.   Because you were in the flow.  You were part of the natural order.  Things were unfolding as they were meant to.

You had no need to control.  Control wasn’t even on the radar screen.  But now, it’s all you can think about.  Control is such a huge part of life that it seems natural.  Most of the time you don’t even realize what you’re doing.

Indeed, most people reading this will say, “I don’t control.”  And they could probably pass a lie detector test. That’s great!  Now, let’s get real.

The very first thing that most people think of when they think about their emotions… is how to control them better.  It’s such an automatic response we don’t even recognize it.

Attempting to control our emotions has become as automatic as blinking our eyes.  However, when you attempt to control, you’re not feeling your feelings.  Oh, you might be feeling something, but it’s not the pure natural flow of emotion that’s constantly and continuously flowing into you.

The Reflexive Action

You know how if someone acts like they’re going to hit you, your arm reflexively shoots up to block them?  That’s an analogy of what it’s like when we block our feelings.  Or, it’s like the feelings are walking up to us, and we have a trap door right in front of us that we open up and woosh! the feelings fall through before they can get to us.

This happens in the blink of an eye.  Over time, this ‘blocking action’ forms walls to keep the feelings from entering our hearts.

And remember, we’re only doing this because we think it’s the way to stay safe.  To be normal and fit in and belong.  To be secure.  So that we can get love.  So we can live a good life.

We’re not blocking our feelings so we can destroy the world.  Quite the contrary.  We think we’re helping.

At some point, though, it starts to unravel.  Blocking your feelings will absolutely lead to some sort of emotional pain.  The problem is, most people believe they just need to redouble their efforts.  Try even harder to not flow downstream.  Which creates even more emotional pain.  More outbursts.  More panic.  More depression.  More anxiety.  More pity.  More judgments.  More stories.  More blockages.  And even more pain.

How do you stop all this?  How do you stop fighting yourself and stop hurting yourself?

It starts with recognizing what’s going on.

We’ve been taught our whole lives that there’s something wrong with having feelings.  It’s been so ingrained… that it seems like common sense.  It’s become an accepted truth.  Even reading these words… and truly wanting to change… I would imagine most people are really looking for a way to ‘handle’ their feelings so they can just feel good and not feel bad.  Because there’s something wrong with those ‘bad’ emotions.

“I want to stop feeling lonely.”  Or “I want to get rid of this anger.”  Or “I want to stop feeling so sad all the time.”

And what I’m saying is that loneliness, anger, and sadness are wonderful experiences.  If – IF - IF – you feel them instead of telling yourself stories about them!

If you want to learn how to feel your feelings, if you want to feel wonderful – to feel wonder… if you want to feel love and joy and ecstasy and enthusiasm and all that stuff… then you also have to be willing to feel anger and fear and sadness and hurt and all that stuff as well.

Because it’s all flowing in the same river.

Every true emotion is a wonderful experience.  You let it flow through you, and you feel uplifted.  But if you block the flow then you don’t feel uplifted.  All you feel is the pain and the struggle.

Let me speak from personal experience.  When you open up to all your feelings, open up to the flow – you stop worrying about what’s going to come up.  Because you know – without a shadow of a doubt – that it’s going to be okay.

It’s going to pass through you.  You’ll feel it as deeply and as sensuously as you can, and then those feelings will pass, and new feelings will come in.  Because the flow of feelings is always on!

So the first thing to do if you want to feel your feelings is to adopt this mindset that whatever I’m feeling is okay.  Actually, it’s more than okay.  It’s the very source of my aliveness.

It’s impossible to have ‘bad’ emotions.  There’s no such thing, really.  There’s just ‘counterproductive’ ways to feel.

Now look, we all have walls up to block our feelings.  We built these walls because we thought we had to.  Maybe at the time, we did have to.  Now, we no longer need those walls.  But it’s not a simple matter of tearing those walls down, because we’ll just build them right back if we don’t change our entire mindset.

To start feeling our feelings more completely, we have to look at our feelings in an entirely new way.

Emotions are more valuable than gold.  And I mean that literally.   It’s not a neat expression.  It’s literally the truth.  Or, it’s my truth, anyway.  And it’s worked very well for me.

So, to start feeling your feelings, first understand the programming that’s going on in this world to get you to not feel, then work on getting a new mindset – my emotions are the most valuable thing I own.  My thoughts and feelings are worth more than gold.

Then, you might want to consider listening to a few meditations I’ve recorded to help you along.  Such as – How To Release Emotions and Remove The Wall Around Your Heart.  I also recorded a new meditation on how to feel and release anger safely.  It’s a way to develop an entirely new relationship with anger.  All this and much more is available on the membership site which you can find out about here.

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Emotional Times

Mindfulness is a tool to help you experience ‘the power of now’.  And since ‘right now’ is all we have,  anything we can do to be in the present moment is a good thing, right?

For starters, here’s what you might want to be asking yourself:

Am I present?  Am I showing up in my reality?  Am I here, am I awake?  These are all legitimate questions.  They’re also loving, honoring, and respecting questions.  The more I question myself, the more I love myself.  So the very act of asking these questions is also an act of loving myself.

Just by attempting to be mindful, I am honoring and valuing and loving myself.

That in itself is a good enough reason to practice mindfulness.  But it gets even better. Practicing mindfulness also makes me more ‘present’ in my reality.  And the more present I am… (the greater my presence) then the more powerful I can be, the more alive I will be, and the more I can feel what I want to feel.

You could call it ‘freedom with responsibility’.  That’s my goal, anyway.  And if you think that’s a worthy goal, and you’d like to be more mindful, too, then I’ve got some great news.

“There’s An App For That”

I friend of mine recently developed a really cool app that helps you be more mindful of what you’re thinking and feeling at various times throughout the day.  Her name is Ronit Herzfeld, and you can go to her website at http://ronitherzfeld.com to find out all about it.

Why should you check this out?

Because to me, mindfulness means giving attention now so I don’t have to pay attention later.

“Giving attention to what?” you might ask.  Giving attention to your state of being.  To be more aware of yourself.  And to become more aware of your state of being, it starts with noticing what your thoughts and feelings are at a given moment of time.  (Preferably, at this moment of time!)

Mindfulness means to not be on automatic pilot, but rather to bring conscious awareness to your self.  Being aware of the self.  What better way to start valuing yourself is there, than to be aware of yourself?

In the truest sense of the word, I believe that’s what mindfulness is – an act of valuing yourself.   It’s how you start building personal value.

Applying The Concept Of Mindfulness

First it starts with noticing what’s going on with myself.  Perhaps by keeping the following questions in mind:

• What am I focused on?
• How am I focusing on it?
• What am I thinking?
• How do I feel?
• What’s going on in my body?   Am I tense?  Am I relaxed?

And if you want to get really gutsy, you could always add in:

What stories am I telling myself right now?  What stories am I acting out of?  What stories are influencing my behavior?

In other words, what are my ‘unspoken truths’?  What beliefs and attitudes am I acting out of right now?  What assumptions are running my life?

So if you really look at it, the rabbit hole goes pretty deep.  You can take your mindfulness as deep as you want to go, and you’re not likely to ever hit the bottom.

You could even do what I try to remember to do, which is to question my assumptions on a regular basis.  I’ve found this to be one of the best ways to spur and spark my growth and change.

I’ve also found mindfulness to be a bit confronting at times, since there’s been plenty of things I didn’t want to look at about myself.  And plenty of things I didn’t want to feel about myself.  But you can take this to the bank:

The more I address the uncomfortable parts of me, the easier it is to grow and change.  The more I look at what I don’t want to look at… the more I feel what I don’t want to feel… then the more freedom (with responsibility!) I experience.  And the more alive I feel and the more powerful I become.

Get The Most Out Of Mindfulness

The key to making mindfulness work for you involves using all your senses – rather than just thinking about what’s going on.   What am I seeing?  What am I hearing?  What am I smelling?  What am I tasting?  What am I feeling?

Also, using your imagination.  What am I imagining?  What images are in my head?  What am I projecting?  What am I expecting?  What am I desiring?

Again, you can take mindfulness as deep as you want.

And you can always start with feeling your state of being, rather than trying to conceptualize it.  Feel it as sensuously as possible.  Feeling it, rather than explaining it or defining it or defending it or denying it or discounting it or rationalizing it or nobilizing it or whatever else you can come up with, that doesn’t involve feeling.

As you can see, there’s lots of ways to work with mindfulness.  I only learned of the concept of mindfulness about five years ago.  When I first heard about it, it was like – oh yeah, doesn’t everybody do that?

Apparently not.  We get so wrapped up in pretending what we see in this world is real, that we forget where the real realness is.  Our two eyes only look outward.  Nobody taught us to look inside; to honor our own thoughts and feelings and desires and all the other stuff going on inside ourselves.

Mindfulness – synonymous with awareness – stands as the first step to changing those thoughts and feelings from ones that hurt us and limit us, to ones that uplift us and inspire us and allow us to think and feel as we chose.

It starts with mindfulness, which can be the first step to change.  So again, I encourage you to check out Ronit’s website at http://ronitherzfeld.com.

Because a big part of loving and accepting yourself involves knowing what you’re loving and accepting.  And a big part of change involves knowing what needs to be changed!

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Emotional Times

Here’s a question someone just asked me:

“Use your mind, feel with your heart, use your head; these are all sentences that come up often when discussing the matter of emotion. Would you kindly explain the differences in the above. I know that both the head and heart are physical things but how do I control what I cannot manipulate?”

Those of you who’ve been on my email list for some time know that I’m licking my chops to answer the ‘manipulation’ part of the question… but I’m going to use great restraint and first look at the ‘heart vs. head’ issue.

Let’s start with the basics:

What is an emotion?

An emotion is a package of thoughts and feelings. No more; no less. When I feel the emotion called love, I am experiencing various thoughts of love and various feelings of love. Every time I feel the emotion of love, I may have slightly different thoughts and feelings.

Also, each person has their own unique thoughts and feelings that vary from everybody else’s. Nobody experiences love the exact same way, I would imagine. Therefore there is no ‘right’ way or ‘wrong’ way – there’s just billions of unique ways.

However, since many people experience ‘emotional pain’ to one degree or another, let’s say there are ‘healthy’ ways and ‘non-healthy’ ways to experience emotions.

If I feel wonderful a good bit of the time, then I probably experience emotions in a healthy way. If I feel miserable a good bit of the time, then I probably don’t. The goal, obviously, is to feel as wonderful as you can as much as you can. But again, it’s not about right or wrong. It’s about feeling whatever comes up as cleanly as possible, so it passes through me and I can start feeling what I want to feel.

I mention this preamble because it’s so easy to judge ourselves when it comes to how we feel. But it’s not a question of judgment; judgments tend to make things worse. Rather, it’s a matter of observing the feedback we get from our relationship with our emotions.

Now, as for those first statements:

“Use your mind.”

“Feel with your heart.”

“Use your head.”

I agree whole-heartedly with those admonishments. I do use my mind. Quite a bit. And I feel with my heart. Again, quite a bit.

Thinking is the domain of the mind, and feeling lies in the domain of the heart. If you want to feel good and enjoy good emotional health, then you’ll want to do both. It should be obvious and self-explanatory. But when you see so many people in pain; so much emotional suffering; then apparently it’s not.

Here’s the problem:

Thinking is socially acceptable. Feeling is not. There’s something wrong with you if you have feelings. You’re supposed to be strong, and think strong thoughts. Rather than feel, which means you must be weak.

As I write these words, I’m very aware that more and more people are coming out with information encouraging you to not just think, but feel too. I think that’s great. Just remember you don’t feel with your head.

The biggest stumbling block to feeling wonderful is trying to feel with your head.

If you experience any kind of emotional pain – whether it be depression or anxiety or excessive fear or panic or raging anger or the grief that will not end or anything else, for that matter… and especially if you feel an emotional pain in your chest or even if you feel nothing at all – then you’re probably trying to feel with your head instead of your heart. Which never works.

In fact, we’ve got about six billion people proving that doesn’t work. You can only feel with your heart. There is no substitute for opening up your heart and letting the feelings into it.

Use your head – yes! Think! For that matter, why not start thinking new thoughts? Break out of the thinking rut, and start thinking thoughts you’ve never thought before. Heck, why not go all out and think thoughts that no one has ever thought before? Break with the herd!

But no matter how great your thoughts are, they will never substitute for feeling with your heart. That’s where so many people mess up.

Not that you can blame them. We’ve been taught and conditioned from Day One to devalue our feelings.

We’ve all heard of ‘great thinkers’ but who in the world has ever heard of a ‘great feeler’?

Once you stop laughing, and seriously considered it, you’d probably come to the conclusion – “What’s the point? I’m not trying to feel – I’m trying to get rid of my feelings. Why would I want to be great at feeling? It hardly sounds bankable. I doubt the Nobel Prize Committee will come knocking at my door because I know how to feel.”

Do you see the situation?

• We’ve been taught feelings are bad.
• But the feelings just keep flowing into us via the emotional wellspring.
• So we come up with clever and inventive ways to not feel.
• When we don’t feel, we end up with emotional pain.
• Then we try even harder to not feel.

We want to stomp them out. Take a pill. Talk our way out of feeling. Heck, we’d cut it out of our bodies in a heartbeat, if only we could find something to cut.

It’s all because we’ve bought into the Big Lie about our emotions: There’s something wrong with us if we have feelings.

Which is kind of like saying there’s something wrong with us because we’re in a human body and we have a heart.

“My heart? That’s the fist-sized muscle on the left side of my chest that pumps blood throughout my body. It doesn’t feel anything. Unless I get chest pains…”

And I would say we have an invisible heart inside us whose job it is to feel whatever comes up – whatever bubbles up from our emotional wellspring. Of all the human gifts we possess, none is more devalued and underappreciated than the invisible heart inside us that allows us to feel.

Once you know this then the whole question of manipulation and control of emotions becomes laughable. It’s insanity to try to limit what you feel. My goodness, you should be going the other way!

What more can I feel? How much more deeply can I feel?

That’s my perspective. Because I’ve seen the rewards are endless. But I also understand how people can want to manipulate and control their emotions. They just don’t know how wonderful it is to feel. They think feeling is the problem instead of the solution.

In truth, blocking your feelings is the problem. Feeling your feelings is the solution. That’s how you end emotional pain. That’s how you stop feeling bad. And that’s how you start feeling wonderful.

Look, if your drain is stopped up, then stopping it up even more is not going to make things better. That would be crazy. Same here.

I understand when there’s a lot of gunk stopping you up, then at first when you start opening your heart and feeling deeply, it will be a little unpleasant. But it’s going to be more unpleasant tomorrow if you don’t. Besides, you can clean out that gunk in rather short order if you don’t fall back on the knee-jerk reaction to block the feelings by telling yourself stories about those feelings.

I also understand it can be a challenge to start opening up your heart and start feeling more deeply simply because it’s a new experience. The habit and the pattern and the program is to block those true feelings, and instead think about them. Think about what it means when you get angry rather than simply feeling the anger. Which is what almost everybody does.

If you’ll break from the herd, and starting thinking and feeling for yourself, the rewards will be immense. There is no end to how deeply you can feel. It just gets better and better… if you will just muster the courage to break from the erroneous beliefs that have been pounded into you about your feelings.

What more can I say? Does this make sense? Do you have any questions or comments?

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Emotional Times

Maybe you know what it’s like to be stuck in an emotional rut. No matter what you do, you just can’t break out of it.

It’s like you’re stuck in a bubble which surrounds you. You try to reach the edge of the bubble, but it moves as you move. Try as you might, you can’t grab hold of the edge and rip it to shreds. It’s always just out of reach.

It might be a bubble of pain. It might be a bubble of sorrow. It might be a bubble of lack. It could be anything, really. A bubble of depression. Or anxiety.

The common denominator is that you’re powerless to do anything about it. Not just pretend-powerless, where you play some sort of game with yourself. That’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about being stuck in a fishbowl with slick glass sides that you can’t get a grip on.

You can flail and cry and thrash about, but it doesn’t do any good. You’re trapped. Stuck. Imprisoned in the truest sense of the word.

Sometimes, when you’re at this point of powerlessness, you can simply feel the energy of powerlessness, and that will be enough to lift you out of it. I always recommend this to people: feel your powerlessness!

The problem is, we often get stuck in the thoughts of powerlessness, rather than truly feeling it. When you think about powerlessness, without feeling it, you’ll end up with rage.

When you think about your powerlessness, such as by blaming, or explaining, or rationalizing, or justifying, or doing something else other than simply feeling it – then you will stay stuck. And you will be producing rage.

If you will truly feel the feelings of powerlessness, sometimes it will indeed lift you out of it, and it will help you get unstuck. Especially if you can feel the feelings without going into self-pity.

Feeling your powerlessness – cleanly – will tend to make you more powerful. Strange, but true. Because feeling anything cleanly will tend to make you more powerful.

Sometimes, however, feeling your powerlessness is not enough. Because when you’re stuck in an emotional state, there’s a lot more going on than just powerlessness. And that’s what I want to talk about today.

There’s other energies at play here, that mix with the powerlessness. Such as despair, loneliness, anguish, frustration, and other similar feelings. Sometimes, there’s a whole bunch of unidentified feelings all mixed together and it forms a synergy.

A synergy is when different energies or objects come together in such a way that their very combination creates something new. Something that is more powerful than the individual components which make it up.

It becomes like a bubble that surrounds you. Powerlessness is part of the package, yes. But that’s not the only thing in the bubble. There’s all kinds of stuff. They end up forming a type of prison.

Now, of course, the normal reaction at this point is to distract yourself from it as long as possible. Watch TV. Get on the computer. Play video games. Work harder and longer. Play harder and longer. Pick a fight with somebody. Create chaos in your life. The possibilities are endless.

We live in a world overflowing with distractions.

You see people like this every day. Always doing something. Always busy. No time. That’s the way they’ve created it. No time for themselves. No time to sit and think and feel about their situation.

Eventually, something happens. Wherever the weakest link is. Something breaks. Either you get a whisper or a shout. Something demands you pay attention. Then you have to work even harder to avoid dealing with the energy that’s keeping you imprisoned!

I’d like to offer another option. Because avoidance and distraction only work for so long. Besides, wouldn’t you rather be proactive? It seems like such a smarter alternative.

You Can Heal

See, the energy that surrounds you – that synergy of negativity – that resonance of limitation and lack and pain and suffering – it can be changed. It can be broken apart and reformed into a new resonance.

That resonance of negativity that’s dragging you down – the resonance that’s more powerful than you – there’s a way to break it like an egg. Once you’ve broken it apart, a new one is going to form. Guaranteed. Because you’re always surrounded by some sort of resonance. Always. There’s no way around it.

But you can actually put whatever you want into that new resonance. You get to choose!

You put in the energies you want – and then it forms a new resonance which is stronger than even the wonderful, uplifting energies you contributed. You put in love, for example, and the new resonance has an even stronger energy than the love you added.

I hope you can appreciate how profound this really is.

Just as powerful as that old resonance was at dragging you down, that’s how powerful the new resonance will be at lifting you up.

That’s exciting! It means you don’t have to stay stuck. It means you have much more say-so in your emotional state than you might imagine. It means things can change, and nothing – nothing – has to stay the same.

There are no limitations on the power of resonance.

Your reality precipitates out of your resonance.

If there is such a thing as ‘law of attraction’ – then it’s resonance. Your reality is created out of your resonance. 100% of the time. Reality precipitates out of resonance.

And you can choose what to put into your resonance!

You already have. You already are. Now, you can do it consciously. By choice, rather than ‘just letting it happen’. Rather than letting the world or circumstances dictate what happens to you.

You can consciously choose your resonance. It’s not even that hard. You just have to know how to do it. You just need to follow the process.

I’ve been working with resonance for years. Many times I’ve forgotten how powerful it really is. I’ve forgotten how well it works to change me. But when the chips are down, I always come back to it. And it never lets me down.

If anything, it’s become more powerful of a technique over the years.

Sadly, those who need to do this the most, are the ones most likely to say “I’ll bet this won’t work for me.”

And I would say, “You’re already proving resonance works.” Every second of every day.

Who do you think created your current resonance? Mickey Mouse?

If you’ll just stop for a second, and get clear inside yourself, you’ll realize you created your resonance. And you’re recreating it (or, repeating it) all the time.

All I’m saying is, you can consciously take charge of what you’ve already been doing less-consciously.

Take charge consciously, of what you’ve been doing your whole life.

The voice that says, “This won’t work for me” is part of the resonance that needs to be changed.

The good news is, I’ve recorded a meditation you can follow along with, so you don’t even have to wonder or worry if you’re doing it right. Just follow along.

It’s already there in the membership site. Look for the link that says, Healing Yourself With Resonance.

(There’s also another meditation in there called Breaking The Resonance Of Fear And Anxiety – if that’s an issue for you.)

If you’re not yet a member, you can still sign up here -

http://www.people-healer.com

Or, if you prefer to just have this one meditation by itself, you can do that as well. It’s available here -

http://www.join-the-fun.com/resonance.html

(Note: if you already have a copy of How To Create Your Own Reality, it’s now included on that download page.)

The important thing to remember, you are always surrounded by resonance. And you get to choose what’s in your resonance.

In fact, you already have chosen.

And it’s your resonance that determines your emotional state, as well as practically everything else about you.

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Emotional Times

I went into meditation this morning to better understand the differences between doing and being. I came out with a profound understanding of ownership and what it means to ‘own’ myself and to own my state of being.

See, I’m a doer by nature. Even when it comes to the most important thing in my life – my meditation practice. I don’t go into meditation to achieve some state of being. No, I ‘do’ meditation. It’s active. Even when it seems passive.

And in living my life, good grief! I’ve got a million things to do. I don’t have time to be. Which results in an imbalance inside me. It’s like I’m always a little off-center. Always tilted in a certain direction.  Seemingly dependent on which way the wind blows…

“Always on the go, seldom in the flow.”

As the saying goes… (the saying I just made up.)

Actually, I do feel the flow a lot. A lot more than I used to. But not enough to really balance out my intense fiery energy of doing. There’s too much fire inside.

Too much of the masculine energy of doing; not enough of the feminine energy of being. But as my unseen friends tactfully pointed out, being comes before doing. Which is why I wanted to better understand the imbalance inside me between the doing and the being.

The problem is, I tend to think that I have to do it all. “I’m all I’ve got.” That’s a little story I seem to have a hard time dropping. It’s all up to me. If I don’t run faster on this invisible treadmill every day, then my business will fall apart, my life will fall apart, and, I suppose, the whole world will somehow fall apart. (Talk about a story!)

It’s not enough to run on the treadmill. No. I have to run faster than I did yesterday. Because if I don’t, bad things will happen. It’s like I’m fighting for my very survival here. (Which puts me in the classic trap of domination and chauvinism; believing the lie that says I have to fight to survive.)

Luckily, I was able to recognize this after my unseen friends hit me upside the head with a 2-by-4. And thus my goal for the morning’s meditation was to learn how I can ‘be’ more and ‘do’ less. Without the whole world falling apart.

It’s funny because they showed me my attitude here was “how do I start ‘doing’ my being-ness?”

“What do I gotta do to be?” In other words, it’s just one more thing I’ve got to do. One more thing I need to accomplish today so I can check it off the list.

“I have to do it all – and now I have to do ‘being-ness’??? When will it end? When will I get there? When will…?”

They pointed out I’m already ‘being’. I’m just not owning it. And now we’re getting to the heart of the matter.

Everybody has a state of being. Everybody is in a state of being. It’s not something you have to conjure up with sweat and blood and tears and harder work. Your being-ness is already there.

Out of your being-ness, comes everything else. Which would tend to make it a worthy area of focus.

I’m trying to ‘do’ – to compensate for who I ‘am’. No wonder I’m so intimate with that treadmill! No wonder I’m running so hard. No wonder life is a bit of an uphill battle.

And sadly, no wonder my life isn’t changing as much as I want. It’s like I’m a dog tied to a pole in the backyard. If I’m on a six foot rope, no matter what I do I’ll never be more than six feet away from that pole in the ground. That pole is my being-ness. I can’t escape myself.

You can see the problem here. I want to change things – I want things to be different – maybe I even want to change myself – but I’m tethered to a six foot rope. I’m tethered to my own being-ness. “It’s who I am.”

Now, I love doing. I LOVE doing things. It makes me happy to accomplish goals. And I find myself being pretty happy a lot of the time. But there’s only so much I can accomplish. There’s only so much I can achieve before I reach my boundary. And that’s why I need to also focus on my being-ness.

However, I had a fundamental problem that prevented me from focusing on it. My problem was, I refused to own my being-ness. The ownership was lacking. Not because I didn’t want to own my being-ness, but because I didn’t want to own anything.

The problem was I blocked any and all ownership. Which explains a lot. Such as, why I wanted to pretend I was a Native American when I was growing. “Because they don’t have to own anything.” I was wrong, of course, but that’s a different story. The point is, I had an arrogant refusal to feel the energy of ownership.

Ownership is an emotional experience. And out of feeling the energy of ownership… well… you own things. But not me! I’m going to block that emotional experience as much as I can.

Now, when I came to this realization, I could have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what happened in my past to get me to deny such a wonderful energy. Instead, I chose to go right to the bottom line. Here’s that bottom line:

What is the story I am telling myself which creates the blockage to feeling my ownership?

What’s the story here? In my case, it went like this – “If I own something it will be taken away.” That simple little story encompasses not just belief, but also attitude, thoughts and feelings, and choices and decisions.

Again, I could have spent a lot of time processing this out. And if there was a lot of ‘emotional charge’ behind the story, then I would have. But in my case, since I’ve spent so much time working on myself to reclaim my emotional energy, there was no need. Instead, it was a simple matter of dropping the story. With a chuckle, I might add. Since it was kind of funny!  In a sad sort of way.

But do you see how easy it would have been to hang on to the nobility of that story? Milk it dry? Then breathe life into it, and milk it some more? Believe me, I’ve been there! I KNOW how easy it would be. Hell, I’d probably do it now, but I just don’t have time to play those games.

So I decided to flip it around. Tell myself a new story.

“If I own something, that means I can do whatever I choose with it.”

In this instance, I was able to change this story, and the blockage pretty much just went away right then and there. And then I was flooded with the energy of ownership. Yes, it was a powerful experience.

So now I’ll just start ‘being’ – right?

No. I already am. Now, maybe I’ll just let it in a little bit more. Let in my being-ness. Feel it a little more. And then feel it even more; let it grow. Be in touch with it.

Because the more I own myself, the more I can choose what to do with myself. The more I own my thoughts and feelings, the more I can choose what to think and feel.

So what can I learn here?

• I was seeking to understand my being-ness on a deeper level. Because I knew I was out of balance by focusing too much on doing. Doing is not a substitute for being, and being in not a substitute for doing. They’re designed to work together. The masculine and the feminine need each other.
• I can be more than what I do, but I can’t do more than what I am.
• The more I feel my being-ness, the easier it will be to open to receiving help from above.
• I love doing – and I’m always reaching and stretching for more. But I can only do so much. Then, I need to turn it over to a Higher Power. That’s where the receiving comes in. And I can’t ‘do’ receiving.
• I had a blockage to owning my ‘being-ness’ because I had a blockage to the very energy of ownership. Once I chose to end that blockage, I quickly changed.
• That change caused ripples in my reality. And here it is a few hours later, and I am still very much feeling those ripples.

And lastly, I reaffirmed what I already knew – choice overrides everything.

My old mantra – “You can do this”
My new mantra – “I am being this”
We’ll see how it goes…

Oh, one last point: To change your state of being, the best way I know is by using the power of resonance.

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Emotional Times

Might shame be an issue with you? Read this article to find out.

Have you ever felt repulsive energies inside of you that you just couldn’t seem to get rid of? If so, there’s a very good reason why you feel almost possessed by negative thoughts and emotions that won’t go away, no matter how hard you try to end them.

You could be suffering from shame that was dumped on you by someone else. Some other person tried to get rid of their garbage by getting you to take it. Which never works, by the way. You can never end the awful feelings of loathing and defectiveness by dumping it onto someone smaller and weaker than you.

In fact, it only spreads when you try this. And that’s why shame gets handed down from generation to generation. Not necessarily the physical actions, such as abuse, or even psychological abuse, but the energies behind the actions.

It’s the energies that get handed down, not the actions. Energies such as feeling not good enough, like you don’t deserve, and feeling your unworthy. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

It becomes part of the heritage and the legacy. Parents learned it from their parents, who learned it from their parents. Who learned it from your great, great grandparents.

It’s tradition, not genetic. Nobody knows where it started from. You can only know where it ends. And that’s right here with you. The ongoing and seemingly endless cycle of shame can end with you.

I’ve been a little reluctant to record a meditation on this, because it’s such an individual experience, and I can only provide a ‘universal’ audio. I finally decided there’s enough common ground to the technique, that just about everyone can benefit.

I encourage you to experiment on your own with this exercise. (Now available on the membership site.) I would suggest listening to it once or a few times, to lay the groundwork (the neurological pathways). This exercise will ‘get you there’. It blazes a trail to where your shame is located, and shows you exactly how to get rid of it.

And if you’re not sure what I’m talking about, here’s a list of articles I’ve written on the topic of shame - http://www.emotional-times.com/category/shame

Shame is the driving force behind almost all emotional problems. It’s an issue for about 90% of the people I consult with. It usually (but not always) starts early in childhood, as we soak up the energies of our parents. And I’m talking about the intensely negative energies.

Not good enough, unworthiness, fears and anxieties, intense hate and self-loathing, feelings of separation and feelings of being flawed and defective – these are all common energies that certain adults around you felt, and may have dumped on you. Overall, it creates the feeling that -

“There’s something wrong with me and I can’t be fixed.”

And little ‘ole you – being a little sponge – took on those energies.

See, you can’t just process out these energies, because they’re not yours. They belong to the offender. And they need to be returned to that offender. Or offenders – since it’s often both parents. And it doesn’t matter if they’re alive or dead at this point. Because you won’t be talking to them about it physically. That doesn’t really heal much. The healing doesn’t happen on the physical level. (Oh, if only it were that simple!)

No, it has to be done internally, in meditation. In a ‘more real’ state of consciousness. You need to close your eyes and focus and go to a certain place inside, to be able to adequately grab hold of these energies. Once you’re in touch with the energies, then you can return them to the offender. It’s easy once you know how.

The other day, someone asked me if they have to return the shame to the offender. Can’t you just turn it over to ‘the universe’? She asked because she didn’t want to put any more burdens on her abuser. I suggested that if she really wanted to use this option, then she choose an ‘unseen friend’ to take the shame from here. Cause somebody’s gotta hold the bag!

An unseen friend would be any consciousness who’s never been in physical form who has your best interest at heart. A spirit guide, a guardian angel, or whomever you feel most comfortable working with. Believe me, no matter who you are, you’ve got many unseen friends ready and eager to help you.

Nobody is so wretched that they have no unseen friends who love them unconditionally. Just remember, somebody’s gotta hold the bag. And you’re not going to hurt your unseen friend by asking them to take the shame from inside you.

Keep in mind, though, at some point it must go back to the offender. There’s no way around it. Everyone will ultimately be responsible for what they’ve done. Your unseen friend would be doing a huge disservice to that offender if they did not return the shame to its rightful owner.

The main thing, however, is you’ve got to get it out of you! And that’s what this meditation is all about. If you’d rather not deal with the abuser at this point, then in the mediation when it’s time to return the shame, you can simply ‘mentally substitute’ one of your unseen friends in the picture, to take the place of the actual offender.

Why We Resist Healing Our Shame

The main reason people don’t give back their shame, even once they know how, is not because it’s too intense or too frightening or too painful. Those are the obvious reasons, and while they may play a part in keeping you imprisoned, they aren’t the main reason.

Another slightly-less-obvious reason is because we still want to punish someone else in our lives. Sometimes, we still want to punish the actual offender, but more often we want to punish whoever is closest to us right now. So we’ll project the offender onto this other person we’re closest to, and keep our shame to punish this person. Because it’s safer than punishing the actual offender.

And another reason people won’t give up their shame is because they want the world to see what mom or dad or some other offender did to them. “Look at how I turned out.” But that’s still not the main reason why they hold onto their shame.

No, the main reason is because the shame has become too much a part of our identity. It’s who we are. “I am the person who is filled with shame.” And if I give up that shame, I won’t know who I’ll be. And that’s way more scary than the shame is painful.

So I think I’ll just stay the way I am.

Well, I’ve got a safe solution for that. It’s a meditation that’s already in the membership site, called Changing Your Self Image. It gradually shifts your self image, over time, so it’s not threatening or scary.

Because, after all, do you really want to stay imprisoned? Do you really want to stay in pain? Do you really want to let that poison fester inside you? It’s not going away by itself.

I know we tend to think the shame is keeping us safe, and it’s better to stay hidden under a rock of shame. Then nobody can ‘get us’. I know what that feeling is like. I really know!

And I also know what it’s like to be free of that prison, to end that pain, to release that poison. And I could kick myself for waiting so long to do it. It’s freaking crazy to keep the shame inside you! The only thing you could possibly be getting out of it is a false sense of security.

“I think it’s safe hiding in my shame.”

But it’s NOT safe. That shame is like a magnet that draws unsafe and unsecure things towards me. Which, sadly, makes me want to feel the shame even more, in a failed attempt to find some sort of safety and security. It’s a downward spiral.

It’s like eating more and more donuts to try to lose weight. It’s that crazy. “If I can just eat enough donuts, the weight is bound to come off.”

Listen, this is serious business. Your shame plays for keeps. It chokes you and imprisons you and slowly squeezes the life out of you. And the whole time you’re in pain.

The craziest thing of all is you never realize how wonderful it will be once you’ve given up the shame. You just can’t see it from the shame side of the fence. The shame robs you of the very wisdom and vision and perspective to see what a life without shame would be like.

I can tell you what it’s like to step out of prison. Because I’ve done it. It’s like heaven on earth. When you’re in the shame, you tend to feel like you don’t deserve to feel so good. Once you step out of it, though, you realize ‘deserve’ has nothing to do with it.

Not because you always deserve (even though you do) but because you see the power of free will, and the power of choice. It’s not a matter of deserving. It’s a matter of what you’re willing to have and do and be.

I’ve got a killer new meditation in the membership site that will show you how to give the shame that’s inside you back to its rightful owner.

Life begins where shame ends.

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Emotional Times

I just finished reading a really good book by Maureen Minnehan Jones, called Wisdom To Wellness.  The book is based on her own method of healing others, called the MO (Modus Operandi) Technique.  I like it because she explains the whole technique and you can follow it yourself at home, if you wish.

As she explains The Modus Operandi Theory -

How and why disease develops in the body:

• Our programming from conception throughout life determines our Modus Operandi, the way we think and feel about ourselves, and the disease we might develop.
• Our programming is determined by first asking, “What did my soul sign up to learn or discover in this school of life?”
• Life goals are selected by a person’s soul, which refers to individual agreements we decided to learn to fulfill our divine potential before coming into this world.  At conception, we begin the journey of meeting those life goals.  Our families and life experiences give us the opportunity to understand and achieve the goals we’ve selected.

When we go off course and our life goals are not being met, the body reveals it in many ways.  One way is through disease.

The first part of the book lays the groundwork for her healing technique, and covers such topics as the common thread of disease, the role of chakras in health and healing, and using the infinity symbol as a way to break down the barriers between the self and the ‘source energy’.

Along the way, you’ll learn about the concepts of

• signature emotional suffering (of a disease),
• unique emotional suffering (how a disease affects each unique individual),
• and the universal soul discovery (the message of a disease).

When you use the MO Technique, you’ll be working with the following three principles:

• Self love
• Not being a victim
• Releasing anger and resentment

In chapter seven, Maureen reveals the entire 12 step process of releasing the emotional suffering with the MO Technique.  I found it to be very practical, easy-to-follow, and effective.  It’s quite similar to healing steps I do with myself and others.  She’s managed to put it all together into a user-friendly system that you can learn at home, and apply to yourself, if you wish.

The other half of the book, which I found quite fascinating, covers various diseases and ailments and how they’re connected to the thoughts and feelings and previous events of our lives.  Everything from allergies to Parkinson’s disease is explained in terms of emotional suffering, and the soul’s discoveries.

In other words,  what events in our lives occurred to create various emotional problems, which eventually ended up manifesting as the particular disease.  What happened in the past?  What set the stage?  What types of emotional responses and emotional baggage must we have, to end up with our unique ailment?

And what is the message this disease can teach us?   What is its wisdom?

These questions and more are answered for 18 specific ailments and diseases.  If you want to learn the messages behind cancer, heart disease, and AIDS, this is the book you’ll want to read.  It’s backed up by numerous case studies, and years of work in her private practice.

I love her technique, and I heartily recommend you buy this book, and apply the knowledge in your own life.

To find out more, go to the author’s website – http://maureenminnehanjones.com/

When you go there, make sure you tell her I sent you.  Maybe I’ll get some sort of store credit or something!

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Emotional Times

Maybe you’ve noticed what seems like an inconsistency. I’m always saying to open up your heart and feel all your feelings…

But then on the other hand, you know darn good and well there’s a lot of painful stuff locked up inside. And you don’t want to feel that pain – for good reason.

Not to mention the fact there may be pity, guilt, martyrhood, victimhood, panic, a raging anger that just won’t stop… all kinds of stuff may be in there.

Who wants to feel panic? You know how intense those imaginary fears seem to be. And who wants to get swept up in all that anger? It’s not very endearing to start screaming at your co-workers. They’ll talk about you behind your back.

And pity? Everybody knows when you’ve stepped into it. You don’t have to say a word. They can smell it on your shoes. They’re just not saying anything, out of politeness.

Why in the world would anybody want to feel all that stuff?

It seems so much smarter to just box it up and put it on the shelf. And yes, there may be some value in not eating your lunch, but rather placing it in a shoe box and setting in under the table. Although I’m yet to find that value…

I’ll admit, I see the allure. It seems like such an elegant and wise decision to containerize that ugliness. Especially since we’ve already been doing it for most of our lives anyway. There’s nothing new about managing your emotions. Every child does it. We’re taught and conditioned almost from the day we’re born to filter out our feelings.

Now I suppose, in certain desert environments – or maybe if you were living on the moon – then you could get away with putting your food in a box and leaving it in a corner of the living room. Maybe it could freeze-dry and not start smelling or causing any other problems. But you need to take a good hard look in the mirror and admit to yourself that you’re not living on the moon.

And even if you were, that’s not the optimum response.

Let’s start from the beginning. You have a heart. Your heart is the center of your consciousness. Your heart – among its many other functions and attributes – is a processor of feelings.

Your heart processes input. That’s what it does. Energy comes in, and your heart works its magic to transform that energy. And in the process, you become more. In the process, you are in the flow. What flow? The flow of energy that is your destination. The flow is the destination.

When you allow your heart to do its job, you are living your dream.

Your heart wants to heal your pain. And it can. It has the ability. That pain in your chest… that aching… it’s not coming from feeling too much painful emotion. It’s coming from a lack of feeling. It’s coming because you’ve blocked your true emotions from even getting into your heart.

It’s coming from a dearth of sensation, from a lack of emotion, from a blockage of feelings. That pain in your heart is not there because you’re feeling too much – it’s there because you’re feeling too little.

“But Mark, you don’t know! I’ve got all sorts of crazy stuff inside that I can’t possibly feel. It would be too… too something. Maybe too intense. Maybe too painful. Maybe I’m not sure. But I do know something bad will happen if I let those feelings in.”

And I’m saying, when you are truly letting in blocked intense feelings, the worst that will probably happen is that you might get a little light-headed and a little tingly in your body. You can handle that.

Here’s the thing:

When most people talk about feeling their feelings, what they usually end up doing is entertaining their thoughts. And certainly, entertaining has its place. There’s nothing wrong with throwing a party. As long as you’re responsible for it! Otherwise, your house is gonna get trashed. It happens every time.

Now, when I talk about feeling my feelings, what I mean is opening up my heart, and letting the feelings in. It’s just not possible to feel with your head. Trust me on that. I’ve tried. I mean, I’ve really tried. I’ve done the legwork on that one. It just doesn’t work.

An emotional experience is one that engages both your thoughts and your feelings. An emotion, remember, is nothing more than a package of thoughts and feelings that flows through you. The thoughts are processed by your mind and the feelings are processed by your heart. Not your physical heart, but an invisible, esoteric heart that science has yet to measure or observe.

There is no substitute for opening up your heart and letting the feelings flow in. Let your heart do its job. It knows what to do. Just as your mind knows how to think, so your heart knows how to feel.

I read a fascinating article the other day which said the stronger the neural connections in your brain, between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, the more resilient you are to emotional stress. This resiliency is part of your emotional style.

There’s a connection between your esoteric heart and your mind. I believe they’re designed to work together. Most of us allow the thoughts into our heads, less of us allow the feelings into our hearts.

Which brings us back to the original question. What about those imaginary, man-made, fabricated emotions? The artificial stuff. Like imaginary fear and righteous anger and pity and guilt and martyrhood. What about that stuff?

Should I just go around feeling like a martyr? Or scared to death? Or consumed with guilt?

No. Cause that sucks. Literally. It sucks your energy and your vitality and your aliveness and your wisdom. Among other things…

But the martyr, the pity, the raging anger and the panic – those are mostly thoughts. Mental constructs. Now yes, they do need a smidgen of real feeling (and a whole lot of effort from you) to make them come alive. But mostly, there is no true feeling in them.

When you go back to the original equation -

Opening up your heart = the answer to all your emotional problems…

When you get back to that fundamental truth, and actually apply it, then magic happens in your life. If you will feel the guilt instead of only thinking it… if you will feel the anger instead of just blaming it on others… if you will feel the martyr without trying to make it so noble… then a funny thing happens.

You discover for yourself there’s very little realness to any of it. It holds very little substance. You got a hundred pounds of fluff, and an ounce or two of realness. Put it all in your heart. Let your heart separate the wheat from the chaff. That’s what I do. That’s how I know what’s real and what’s not.

So yes, feel everything. Just like you think everything. Do both. Your heart just happens to be a little smarter than your mind, that’s all. It can discern what’s real. It’s not fooled like your mind can be.

The problem is we’ve been taught that thoughts are good and feelings are bad. We’ve learned to block the feelings from entering our hearts. However…

The more willing you are to feel everything that comes up – truly feel it with your heart as you’re willing to think it with your mind – then the easier it becomes to feel whatever you want, almost whenever you want.

And you can take that to the bank. I did.

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Emotional Times

I’m a little surprised by the number of people who say self-hate is an issue for them. On the face of it, it makes no sense. Why in the world – when you have the entire range of emotion at your disposal - would you choose to hate yourself? I can see hating injustice; that’s how things change around here. But hating yourself?

As you’ll see in a minute, though, it makes perfect sense when you look at the big picture. But first…

Maybe you heard about Masaru Emoto, the Japanese man who figured out how to photograph water crystals. He wrote several books, filled with pictures, of how water changes when you hate (or love!) the water which is then captured on film.

He shows without a doubt your energy directly influences water. When you hate water, it becomes ugly and distorted. Conversely, when you love water, it becomes quite beautiful.

It’s fascinating to read the books and look at his pictures. But the point is, you’re mostly water. And if you hate yourself, that’s going to change things inside you. Which you probably already knew.

But many people just can’t seem to stop. And they don’t need evidence – in full color pictures – to tell them they’re hurting themselves. They’re living it every day. Their misery is evidence enough.

Well, I’m here to tell you self-hate can be ended one hundred percent. I’m living proof of it.

The first thing to understand is that you were injected with a seed of self-hate. That’s where it always starts.

You were fertile ground. All sorts of things were planted in you in early childhood. Soon, those seeds grow into plants, and it becomes much harder for new seeds to be planted in you, the older you got. Because all the ground gets covered up. There’s no more room.

Hate, being as destructive as it is, usually has to get planted early if it’s going to sprout and root and take hold and grow into the self-hate you know today.

Because if someone tried to plant it into you as a grownup, you’d probably just blow it off, unless it was accompanied by strong psychological coercion. Sure, we could probably all be brainwashed as adults, but not without a lot of effort.

But a young child? You don’t stand a chance. If someone wants to plant their hate in you, it’s as easy as falling off a slippery log.

Not that anyone actually chose to make you feel a lifetime of self-hate. But certain people, very influential people in your life, had their own issues of self-hate that you may or may not have even been aware of. And they did inject a seed of hate into you. A seed of self-hate. That’s where it always starts. With a seed.

What you do with that seed is up to you. How you nourish it; how you feed it; how you keep it alive and let it grow and blossom and mature and eventually let it kill you.

Here’s the thing: As a small child, with fertile soil, any seed will likely root and take hold and start growing. That’s a given. Seeds of love, seeds of hate, seeds of anything. Even contradictory seeds can grow side by side. It happens all the time.

And the greater the intensity of the seed, the stronger and more powerful the plant will become. Hate has a lot of intensity. That’s its nature. When planted, it tends to grow strong.

Curiously enough, sometimes that seed may even lie dormant for a while, but sooner or later, it will grow. It has to. Because of the intensity. And when it does, you start to feel like you’re possessed.

The hate almost takes on a life of its own. It becomes more powerful than you. Or, it can seem that way. But the funny thing about a plant – any plant – it has to be nourished or it will die.

Any plant needs water and nutrients to survive. Every plant needs certain ‘energy inputs’ or it won’t make it. Same way with the hate. You have to feed the hate, or it will start to shrink.

Sure doesn’t seem that way, does it? It seems like it has a life of its own. And it almost does. But it doesn’t. And that’s an important distinction to make. Your self-hate would start to wither and die if you stopped feeding it. Your self-hate could not exist without your care.

“But I’m sick of hating myself! I don’t want to hate myself anymore! But I can’t stop!”

If this is the boat you’re in, then it’s time to take a good hard look at who is ‘you’. On the one hand, yes, there’s a part of you who wants the hate to end. Even if you’re not it touch with that part, and you think you want to feel the hate, I can absolutely guarantee you, there’s a part of you who wants the hate to end.

And, no matter what you feel about your hate, there’s also a part of you who does not want the hate to end.

No matter how badly you want your self-hate to end, there’s a part of you who wants to keep that hate alive. Usually, for very predictable reasons. There’s no rocket science going on here.

Your job, if you find yourself with any self-hate at all, is to get to know yourself better. You need to know which part of you wants to keep this self-hate alive, that’s slowly killing you. Because you’ve got better ways to die. Such as, peacefully in your sleep, after a full and rich and wonderfully-lived life!

So it starts with knowing yourself. And while there may be different elements at play here; different parts of you who want to keep the hate going to one degree or another; I can almost assure you, it all comes down to one particular aspect of you.

The part that is closest to you, besides the ‘conscious you’ reading and (hopefully) pondering these words. (The ‘conscious you’, I refer to as the ‘self I’.) The part that wants to feel hate, and is feeding the hate, I refer to as the ‘ego I’.

Who am I? Well, that’s a complex topic, but where it hits closest to home – you are divided into the self and the ego. The ego has been mightily misinterpreted by many great minds of the past and present. You could write a book just on the confused concepts out there. But…

If you want to know who’s been feeding your self-hate when your back is turned, then look to your ego. Period. It may not be the only one holding the bucket of food, but it’s certainly the main one. It’s where you need to start. Assuming, of course, that you want to end the self-hate.

If you don’t want to end the self-hate, then just keep doing whatever you’ve been doing. And your hate will stay like hot iron. Maybe even get stronger and hotter. I don’t recommend that option. Self-hate is too painful. It’s too unnecessary.

You’re shaming yourself when you hate yourself. That’s what self-hate is all about. Worst of all, you have to go around looking for other people to plant your self-hate in. Since it’s hard to plant it in grownups, you start looking for those weaker than you. Those of fertile soil. If you have kids, then you don’t have to look very far.

You know what I mean?

Much better to handle this head-on. Like, um, an adult. The place to start is with your ego. And, ironically, it’s your ego that will do all it can to get you to not look at it. That in itself should be a very strong clue as to how important this is!

Learning about your ego goes way beyond healing self-hate.

If you want to know yourself, then you need to know all you can about your ego.

I’ve been working directly with my own ego for many years. Not only was I able to end a very intense self-hate, but also I know peace. I know inner peace. I know what peace of mind is all about. Because I learned how to harness my own ego. I let it be an ally, the way it was meant to be, instead of an enemy, which it has become for almost every person on this planet.

If you want to end the self-hate, and get some peace of mind, then I strongly urge you to check out this little package I put together about your ego -

http://creative-visualization.com/healing-your-ego.html

And, finally, let me say I’ve also recorded a new meditation recently that will take you out of self-hate in a matter of minutes. It’s not a permanent solution, but it works quick and dirty. It’s almost a sneaky way to get you feeling much better right now. If you’re interested, it’s available on the membership site.

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Emotional Times

I love intensity and I love getting intense. There’s a rawness to it that really appeals to me. Most people don’t share my love. It fact, it would seem intensity scares most people.

How do you feel about it?

And before you answer, let me explain what I mean. See, I’m not talking about such things as ranting and raving or (usually) being ‘intensely’ scared. Those actions may be inspired by intensity, but that’s not really ‘being’ intense.

Intensity is deep, not loud. Very rarely could you really be intense while putting on a show – either to yourself or others. Showmanship is not intensity. It’s acting. And acting has its place. I mean, who doesn’t love a good movie?

Intensity, though, is usually quiet. Almost eerily quiet. It’s dense. It holds a ton of energy. It’s complex. It’s not simple. There’s a lot going on inside intensity.

The energy that comes into you – that bubbles up in the so-called ‘emotional wellspring’ – that energy is intense. It touches you and it moves you, to one degree or another. Depending on how willing you are to be touched and moved.

Because, remember, we all have filters in place that block the touching and moving – filters to impede the flow of energy in one way or another. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

If you’re an actor, then you want to take a little bit of real intensity and mix it up with some mental stories, and create a Meringue pie of thespian drama. But if you’re not an actor, and you’re creating Meringue pies… well… it’s still acting.

And you’re missing out on a lot. A lot of realness; a lot of aliveness; and a lot of experience of what life has to offer. Which, again, isn’t necessarily all bad.

We learn very early in life that it’s not ‘smart’ to feel intensity. We’re taught by all facets of society that you shouldn’t get intense. “Bad things happen.” People will talk about you. They won’t like you. You’ll be different. You’ll be excluded. (Unless you find other weird people like yourself to hang out with!)

You’re a ‘problem child’ if you get ‘intense’. Which probably isn’t intensity at all – rather, it’s just being a kid. Children and adolescents are supposed to be melodramatic and emotional and silly and all that other fun stuff grownups don’t get to do.

If I’m a miserable adult, and I see my kids having fun, it’s going to get under my skin. It’s going to confront me, and I don’t want to be confronted. It’s so much easier to yell at my kids and try to get them to stop doing what comes natural to them. That way I don’t have to look at my own miserable life. And if they grow up to be miserable adults… I can always apologize later. That should be good enough…

You see? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. And that’s not even real intensity. It’s rare that I talk to someone who was really allowed to be a kid when they were growing up.

And no one – to my knowledge – was ever taught what intensity is or how to access it and let it be a natural part of living life. As it was intended to be.

Intensity is a source of power and strength.

It’s thrilling. It’s fun. It’s real. It’s alive. Who wouldn’t want that? Just about everybody, apparently.

Because we’ve been programmed to stay away from intensity at all costs. But it’s hard to be alive without intensity. It’s hard to stay alive. There’s just not a whole lot of sustenance in Meringue pie. Maybe it’s okay every once in a while when you’re in one of those moods. But not as a daily diet.

Your heart craves intensity. Well, mine does, anyway. And I would imagine yours does as well. We’re probably not that different in that regard.

See, intensity is the energy behind… what? Behind everything! Intensity is just a word – which does no justice to what intensity is. Or maybe I could say the energy behind everything is intense. Intense energy. Energy of intensity. Again, just words. Trying to describe something I can’t possibly describe.

‘Raw power’ would be another way to put it. ‘Aliveness’. Or, the energy that makes you feel alive. That lets you live.

It can be an adjective, as in – “Man, that dude’s intense.”

Or, it can be a noun, as in – “Can you feel the intensity?”

The question is, do you want to be more alive? Do you want to feel more power? Do you want to really live – rather than just exist, taking up space and waiting to die?

Sadly, many people who write me would rather wait to die. I get a new letter saying as much, almost every single day. Because, when it comes right down to it, they’ve made a rather bitter Meringue pie. It doesn’t taste good. And that’s all they’re eating. And they’ve forgotten – or they never knew – they’re the only cook in the kitchen.

Look at the facts:

• Your heart longs for intensity.
• You’ve been taught and conditioned to not feel intensity – almost as a survival mechanism.
• When you don’t feel what your heart longs for, that creates pain.

When you don’t feel intensity, you start to deaden.

Because, basically, intensity is aliveness. That’s how you know if you’re in touch with intensity or not: by how alive you feel.

Which will probably be accompanied by feelings of thrill and happiness and wonder and joy and love and so forth. Not all the time, but at least intermittently. At least some of the time.

Along with sadness, fear, hurt, anger, and yes, some pain. You’re in a human body, right? Fear and pain are part of the feedback mechanism of being in a human body. They are as natural as joy and peace and love. If you didn’t feel pain when you placed your hand on the hot stove… or if you didn’t feel pain in your heart when you blocked intensity… how would you know something needed to be changed?

Pain is a message to let you know something needs to be changed. Right? Pain is not punishment. Not really. That’s not what pain was intended for. Pain is feedback.

And emotional pain is feedback to let you know you’re lacking intensity of emotion.

So what’s the answer? What’s the solution to this problem?

First, recognize how strongly – how intensely – we’ve been programmed to not feel intensity. ( And it’s okay to notice the irony there!) Intensity is like ‘the forbidden zone’. You’ve probably picked up a ton of beliefs about how you should never ever ever feel intense.

You’ve got intense programs that block intensity. (Again, notice the irony.)

Because intensity is so strong and powerful, those beliefs aren’t going to just change on their own. They’ll last a lifetime if you don’t change them. Conversely, if you’re willing to feel the intensity, any belief can change.

In fact, that’s the key ingredient as to which beliefs change, and which ones don’t.

Do you see the Catch-22 here? Do you see the trap?

You need to feel intensity to change the belief that says you shouldn’t feel intensity.

But how are you going to feel the intensity, though, if you have a belief that says you should not feel intensity, no matter what? It’s a conundrum. And that’s where many people stay stuck. Slowly, painfully, waiting to die. Or, living a life much less than it could otherwise be.

Fortunately, you can feel as much aliveness as you want. You can heal that negative programming. And there’s more than one way to do it.

You could just take baby steps back and forth between feeling a little bit of intensity, and changing a little bit of belief. That’s how I started. Which all starts with processing – writing down your thoughts and feelings.

Or, you could accelerate the change by doing some Power Processing. That way you’d be making a lot more progress a lot quicker. Feel better and smarter. Win-win!

Or, you could start by working with your subconscious mind – perhaps by going to those subconscious blockages and releasing them. Sure, they were necessary as a child – to survive. But you’re no longer a child. All they’re doing now is making you miserable.

At the very least, though, you’d want to get out your trust paper and pen and start ‘bleeding on the page’ as I like to say. Get the yucky ugly stuff – the vile stuff – the smelly stuff – out of you, and onto the paper. Get the toxins out. That in itself will help you heal and help you get in touch with your own intensity which is already there inside you.

It’s your birthright to be and feel all the intensity (aliveness) that you want.

What is intensity? It’s the energy keeping you alive.

And where is your intensity?  For the most part, it’s in your shadow.  Until you bring it forth and let it start healing your life.

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Emotional Times