We humans have set all kinds of parameters around what kind of person you are supposed to be. It varies a little from culture to culture but on the whole, we all know we should be kind, generous and considerate of others. We should abhor violence, greed and cruelty of all sorts. Considering the popularity of TV shows that glorify violence, that is a long shot — and yet we seem to fall for it, doing our best to live up to the standards our culture has set for us.
The problem is that we do not always feel kind, generous and considerate, and I very much doubt that there is a single person on this planet who has not behaved cruelly at one time or another. In other words, our efforts to live up to the culture’s demands often mean that we are living a lie. We are not only lying to others, we are lying to ourselves. We employ every tool in the box (the rational brain, that is) to convince ourselves that we are justified in feeling angry towards certain people, and that we are not really feeling savage delight when they get what they “deserve.”
The problem is that everyone in the world feels justified — those whom we feel justified in hating feel just as justified in hating us. It’s a vicious circle. It’s up to you to break it — and you can only do that by acknowledging to yourself that your feelings are your feelings.
Rationalizing your so-called negative feelings achieves no good at all, since they have nothing to do with the rational brain. You need to have the courage to admit to yourself what is real — that you have so-called negative emotions. Fear often hides under anger. I am not recommending acting on those feelings, nor that you push those feelings away. You are not being authentic when you are in denial. You must acknowledge what you feel, forgive yourself, and find a safe space in which to vent. All feelings (or emotions — I am using the words synonymously here) want to be expressed. Once they have been allowed, they can and will dissipate — but until then, they will always be waiting for acknowledgement, leaking out around the edges of your personality, so to speak.
This process involves specific skills, the first of which is the willingness to admit to yourself that you are feeling something that you wish you didn’t. Ground yourself in this time and place, in a safe space. Then allow that feeling to arise with the intention of letting it pass. Feel it in your body, let yourself shake, tremble, cry, shout, and so on. That can happen quite quickly once you gather the courage to commit to it. Never waste your time trying to work out why you feel it or where it came from — there is no need for any of that and it only prolongs the process. A feeling is. That’s all. It doesn’t benefit from justification.
Most of us have a backlog of feelings that we have been denying for a long time. It is necessary to deal with all of them to become a clear channel — then the emotions that arise can be very useful indicators of what is right and wrong, what is real and false, what you need and what you don’t need. A number of methods are available today, such as the Emotional Freedom Technique, to help move old stuff out of your aura and body.
Our determination to pretend that we don’t feel what we do feel makes us vibrate at a frequency that jars our being. You know that sense of calmness that you get when you are around animals or in Nature? That’s because the trees, plants, animals and other beings of Nature are not trying to be anything other than what they are, so their vibration is soothing. We can choose to be the same way when we are willing to be authentically ourselves.
