Emotional Energy

Emotional Energy
20 Mar 2005
Hi!

I am so grateful to have children. My children have always been my greatest teachers.

Today I picked up my seven-year-old daughter and my nine-year-old son from school. As my daughter joyfully leaped into the back seat she cheerfully proclaimed, “I cried in P.E. today. I missed Daddy (Her father lives in another state and they don’t get to see each other very often.)”

“But,” she went on to tell me, “I liked crying because then I got to be happy again and everyone in my class and my teacher hugged me.”

My son piped in with, “Yeah, that happens to me sometimes. I just think about it for a little bit then I go on with what I’m doing.”

My children’s resiliency and matter-of-fact acceptance of their emotional state kind of amazed me. How many times to we, as adults, get lost in our emotional states, react inappropriately to situations or simply put our emotions aside? How many of us would have the courage to break down and cry for a moment in the middle of a group of people?

So many of us, me included, have been struggling with intense emotional energy these last few months. It seems as if, on a global level, we are all processing and releasing old limitations and emotional wounds.

I personally have struggled and resisted this process in many ways. I tend to over-analyze my emotions as a way of avoiding dealing with them. If I can come up with a logical reason for my feelings then I can kind of make them go away. How many of you do that?

AVOIDING EMOTIONAL ENERGY
Most of us have developed powerful strategies to help us avoid our emotional energy, especially when we are experiencing emotions that are uncomfortable and even painful. Some common ways to avoid feelings are rationalization, finding other “more important” things to be upset about, shutting down and engaging in addictive behaviors (And I don’t just mean the ones we consider bad. An addiction is any kind of behavior that takes you away from being fully present with an emotion.).

But, I believe that we have a fundamental misunderstanding about emotions. Emotions are not just an experience we can avoid. Emotions are energy. We have to process emotional energy; let it run it’s natural course or else we run the risk of misdirecting emotional energy and having it hurt us in destructive and chaotic ways.

In the Human Design System, there is an energy center called the Emotional Solar Plexus (The large triangle on the right side of the chart. For more information about the emotional solar plexus click here: http://joyfulmission.com/joyful_mission_00000d.htm).

That is how vital emotional energy is to the human personality. We actually have our own energy system for processing emotional energy!

LIGHTNING BOLTS AND HOT POTATOES
Emotional energy is like lightning. Once lightning strikes, it will take the path of least resistance to get to the ground. Emotional energy will do the same thing.

Here’s an example for you. The other day my youngest daughter and my step-daughter got into a fight over who stuck their tongue out at the other first. Big fight. Big feelings.

At first I tried to make them give each other an apology and scolded them for not working it out. Instead of calming down, they got even more mad at each other and retreated with great flair to opposite ends of the house. Both of them were crying hysterically.

So, I tried a different parenting tactic. I went to each of my daughters individually and simply listened to each side of the story. Within about two minutes they were both hugging and kissing each other. And they went right on playing as if nothing had happened.

All they really wanted was someone to listen to them. They just needed to express their feelings and have them respectfully acknowledged. They really didn’t need me to fix anything, just hear them out.

The intense energy between all of us can be like an emotional Hot Potato. We all juggle powerful emotional energy that is simply longing for appropriate expression. When we can’t find an outlet for the energy, we start lobbing it at each other until it finds some kind of an outlet.

How many times as adults do we throw emotional Hot Potatoes at other people instead of dealing with our emotions appropriately? And how many times do we deny other people the gift of appropriate emotional expression because it is too uncomfortable for us to deal with?

I find that if I simply allow my kids to tell me about their feelings, the fight will go away or be handled very quickly. They really don’t seem to care much about the actual issue. They just want to have their side of the story, and their emotions, really heard.

You know, a hot potato can be hard to handle. But when it cools down enough, it can be a delicious meal. Allowing someone to express their emotions freely is a true act of love and sometimes courage.

And, the freedom to appropriately share emotional energy is a true building block to intimacy.

Imagine how all your relationships would change if the people around felt that it was safe to share all their feelings with you without fear of getting shut down, being judged or punished.

What if the people in your life felt like they could share their emotions with you without having to make excuses, cover up, lie or blame? What if they could communicate their feelings effectively?

How would that one simple shift in how you handle emotional energy change the way you relate to all the people in your life?

ACCEPT YOURSELF
And, what if you could then extend that same level of acceptance and understanding of emotional energy to YOURSELF? What if you could make it okay to completely accept your own feelings without shutting down, judging or punishing yourself?

As I mentioned, emotional energy is like lightning. We can experience it, and let it run it’s full, natural course. Or, we can stuff it and deny it.

But, imagine what happens when we stuff and deny emotional lightning bolts. They don’t go away. They ricochet around inside of us until we blow up at something that seems sometimes insignificant, or we manifest physical symptoms, depression and even serious illnesses.

I can’t tell you how many times I have had clients that have manifested huge grief reactions over seemingly insignificant events in their lives. It is not uncommon. Usually, with a little detective work, we find an old emotional wound that needs to be expressed and honored. With a little self-love and acceptance, the old energy can be released and you can move forward.

I am still learning to do this myself. But I have discovered that if I simply and lovingly allow my emotions to follow their natural course, they dissipate rather quickly. And, somehow, even though this experience can feel intense, sometimes painful and uncomfortable, it is much easier to just go through it than to avoid it and suffer with it for years.

Think of emotional energy as a balloon, blown up fully but not tied off. You can either let it go and it deflates quickly or you can release it a little at a time, squeak by squeak.

Would you rather take a deep breath and let it go or squeak by, suffering for a long time?

There is nothing wrong with either way. It is simply a matter of deciding how you want to experience your life.

Just like spring offers such an amazing contrast to winter here in Minnesota, painful emotions offer a powerful contrast to the experience of joy. It is through my experiences of pain that I have a deeper understanding and appreciation of all the blessings and happiness in my life.

Allowing yourself to feel the full range of the human emotional spectrum can
make your experience more fully alive and authentic.

Take care of yourself today! Go outside. Experience the richness of spring! Enjoy being alive!

Love,
Karen


http://www.joyfulmission.com/articles/
article/1975190/26316.htm