Whose Feelings Are These?
So many of us have learned that the feelings we experience (emotions and related physical sensations and expressions), are a problem and can keep us from having what we want. As a result, we have learned to avoid, dramatize, medicate, push away, or sweep most of them under the rug. Especially the negative ones. Anger, hurt, worry, sadness, fear. Few of us were shown healthy and responsible emotional expression as our caretakers didn’t know how either. In addition to not being well-schooled in relating to our emotions, we often pick up the emotions of others in our physical or energetic space. Co-workers in the next cube; family in the next state. So, whose feelings are we feeling anyway?
At their very core, the feelings we experience in this body belong to our inner child. This encompasses all of the unexpressed and trapped emotions from the past. The emotions that we were too frightening to experience as children or in past incarnations. Without a way to safely recognize and release those feelings, they pooled over time becoming a brimming well. When we don’t learn how to express these feelings, they often arise and overflow as an emotional tsunami causing turmoil, complete shutdown, or take residence in our physical body as dis-ease.
The first outer layer of feelings reflects our inner child’s reactions to the ego’s stories created to protect our inner child from those terrifying experiences. Stories like ‘I’m not enough, I can’t do it, and something is wrong with me’ gave our inner child a sense of control when they had none. While the Ego’s ‘To Do’ list provided a way of getting closer to being enough, capable, and ‘fixed’, the inner child believes these stories are true, and feels the emotions of fear, blame, shame, humiliation, and abandonment.
The second outer layer represents feelings we have taken on from others throughout our lives. Many of these come from our primary relationships. Once we recognize these and commit to releasing them from our energy field, it is easier to recognize when it is happening or where we still need to clean up our past. Some of this is ancestral and can be brought to consciousness while energetically cutting the chords. Others are old patterns that we now see clearly and are ready to stop attracting the situations where they play out. It’s up to us to keep our eyes open, recognizing these feelings, and responding differently.
The most outer layer mirrors our current situation in the present moment. THIS is where we have the most power to transform all the other layers. We can do this by asking ourselves questions like ‘How does it feel to be where I am right now? What type of energy is present in my space? How does my body feel here? How does it feel with these other people? Do I feel closed or open? What can I do to honor what feels best to me at this moment’? We can practice this moment to moment, without making ourselves or others wrong, remembering it is our job to do what is most loving for us and others’ job to do the same.
Most of us don’t realize that past energy or trapped emotion is being triggered when we have a strong reaction in the present moment. If we can step back, check-in, and make that distinction, we can handle ourselves gently and lovingly. We do this by first recognizing that a feeling is arising in our present time. Then we acknowledge if it has a larger ‘charge’ than the situation warrants. If it does, we know that an inner layer needs our love and attention.
How will you recognize and honor your feelings today?