“Emotions are the language of the soul.” ~ Karla McLaren
Experiencing Feelings and Emotions
How do you experience feelings and emotions? I’ve been called “too sensitive” my entire life. I’ve heard it from my family, teachers, friends, employers and my husband. I used to translate that as a bad character trait. Now I consider it to be a compliment. I am deeply sensitive to my feelings, and that seems to be directly correlated to how quickly my emotions come to the surface. While doing some research for this article, I found some interesting quotes.
“Never apologize for being sensitive or emotional. It’s a sign that you have a big heart, and that you aren’t afraid to let others see it. Showing your emotions is a sign of strength.” ~ Brigitte Nicole
“Emotion is energy in motion.” ~ Peter McWilliams
“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” ~ Plato
“If you cannot control your emotions, you cannot control your money.” ~ Warren Buffett
“I’m not against showing emotions, but there’s a time and a place.” ~ unknown
“Never let your emotions overpower your intelligence.” ~ unknown
As you can see, some people think emotions are meant to be expressed and some people do not.
Dealing with Emotional Pain
Being a Martha Beck Certified Wayfinder Life Coach, as well as a huge fan, I feel compelled to share her teaching on clean pain vs. dirty pain. This is brilliant in my book.
Clean pain arises from events. Dirty pain arises not from events but from our thoughts about events.
For instance, almost five years ago I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The physical pain I felt as a result of the hysterectomy was clean pain. And while my prognosis was good, I still needed chemotherapy. That brought up a lot of fear. Thoughts of dying from the chemo like a friend of mine did or being so sick because the treatment was worse than the diagnosis. Those thoughts created a lot of further suffering and that, some psychologists call dirty pain.
Grieving and Disbelieving
Martha states that clean pain must be grieved. If you have lost a loved one you are going to go through the grieving process and that’s going to be tumultuous process of anger, sadness, denial, acceptance.
So, if you resist grieving it can last for many, many years as unexpressed or repressed pain. If you allow it to flow it peaks and recedes in about 90 seconds. So that’s grieving.
Now dirty pain –must be disbelieved.
When I was diagnosed, I had to disbelieve a lot of things that were in my head causing dirty pain.
Fortunately, since then I’ve learned how to disbelieve the things that were in my head causing dirty pain. Everything that causes dirty pain is based on thoughts that need to be dissolved. So, grieve what you must and disbelieve everything that isn’t necessary.
Emotional Scale
According to Abraham-Hicks, what many people desire, especially when they’ve felt deep suffering, is to BE the opposite. The trick is to realize as humans, we only have access to an emotional step in either direction on the scale, we can’t just jump to joy. The idea is to accept where you are and reach for some feeling that is a positive step for you.
Choose a different feeling
Gabby Bernstein describes her “Choose Again Method” which goes like this:
When you have a negative thought about something:
Notice the thought.
>> How does that thought make you feel?
Forgive the thought and celebrate your desire to shift.
>> Thank your negative feelings and thoughts for showing you what you don’t want and revealing what you desire.
Choose Again.
>> What’s the next best feeling that I can find right now?
My name is Nancy McKay and women work with me because of my experience overcoming major life challenges. I found my courage and strength and I guide my clients to discover theirs, too.
Interested to find out if coaching is right for you?
If you’re looking for a coach that will inspire, motivate and empower you AND that knows how you feel — we should talk. Helping women make a shift in their thinking and in their lives thrills me to pieces and drives everything I do.
Here’s what one of my clients had to say: “Nancy is an excellent and effective coach. I feel lighter and I don’t feel stuck anymore. I highly recommend working with Nancy.”
If you’d like to shift your thinking, you can schedule a FREE Discovery Call HERE.