Wow! Emotions exert a powerful effect on us. Sometimes, we read a book, hear a TED talk, see a movie, or any of hundreds of possibilities — any of which can trigger an emotional reaction, one which could catalyze a reaction of life change. Inspiration. Emotions!
On the other hand, sometimes we can be dissuaded or discouraged by simple things. Emotions can be elicited by external circumstances, and that may happen when Ego is controlling our soul. When we evaluate through Heart, we get to choose and program the emotional responses. That’s why some people, not a large percentage, have what many refer to as grit. Many folks look at someone who seems to go through several living hells only to accomplish some great goal. Grit. Perseverance. Tenacity. Persistence. They all mean the same thing, and they mean that someone who makes it through abnormal challenges to achieve their dreams and live their passions chose their emotions, emotions that allow them to keep mentally and physically working through whatever they need to. When achievers embark on their journey, their emotional motivation usually makes their adventure enjoyable. Even the tough times become satisfying, fulfilling, significant; however, they never would know the satisfaction of those emotions if they didn’t make it through. They come out happy. If we’re not achievers, we’re looking for ways to become one, to achieve our own hopes, dreams, passions, and delights. But many just won’t do what the achievers do: choose their emotional motivation. This motivation must be so deep, that the daily emotional responses keep them focused. Most who are not living their dreams allow their emotions to choose them. And this happens to everyone because we are emotional creatures. We react to almost everything emotionally, and that usually determines how we think. Now, some people are more cognitively inclined, but emotions rule. Oh, some may not think so, but when the soul’s needs are buried that deeply, emotions are ruling in a negative way. I want to be clear: I’m not offering any professional psychological advice. However, I am a professional educator, including a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction, and for decades I have stated, along with others, that learning is an emotional proposition. In my opinion, all of life, living, is an emotional proposition. Ultimately, we each face the question: Are we achievers who choose our emotions, or are we dreamers who allow emotions to choose us according to the vicissitudes of life? I’ve gone through a tough week, emotionally speaking. It’s still kind of continuing, but I press forward. Will I succeed with publishing? Will my work help others discover core Self? Will I be happy in this journey? No question, folks. Hell, yeah! I am an achiever, not because I’m great or special, but simply because I know the secret and I keep exploring, learning, and loving the essence of who I am and what I have created. Anyone can do the same. Yes, that means you. Will you get angry, sad, doubtful, disappointed, and be upset by any of dozens of things each day? Yep! Undoubtedly. However, if Heart is serving as our operating system, the Purpose and Vision fueled by our Heart-chosen emotions will allow us to process whatever we feel, whatever we encounter. Blessings in choosing your emotions of achievement!
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Love. Grief. Joy. Success. I’ve mentioned emotions many times. I have written about making a conscious Heart choice of emotions.
However, we respond emotionally to a multiplicity of life events every day. Those are the emotions that are incidental to Heart choice. Many folks, most in fact, just live according to those incidental emotions every day. It’s not an easy thing, really. When we see the plethora of daily quotes about this very topic, it’s symptomatic of the mass of people who live according to Ego rather than Heart. I’m declaring tonight, though, that I have, in various mentions in the past, spoken of guilt and regret as being relatively useless human emotions. A very good social media friend, a mental health professional, pointed out to me that no emotion is useless or worthless. I was wrong, not only in my essential evaluation but also in not even qualifying my statements. And I didn’t do that because no one had challenged me. That shocked me a bit — not because no one had challenged me but rather that I may have some readers who accept everything I say as gospel. I can’t fathom that, really, but I do take it seriously, even if only one person makes a life decision based on what I say. I was wrong, in several ways. I wasn’t accurate, as my friend pointed out. All emotions are useful and important — if we pay attention to them and ask questions. Oh, I rationalized at first consideration — Ego. I considered and learned — Heart. I am running on exhaust fumes this evening, so allow me to cut to the chase. We have the option, the opportunity, to choose how we wish to feel every single day. When we make a conscious decision for high energy, positive emotions, we are operating through Heart. When we simply accept whatever emotions wash over us and allow them to control our beliefs and feelings and actions and reactions to others and to this world, we give Ego full operating privileges. Guilt and regret and any lower energy, more negative emotions do not mean that I should presume to rank them. Indeed, their value can only be determined by the one feeling them. I have learned so much over the past two days because of Chrissy Sawyer’s (www.listeningtoyou.one) response to my writing. Thank you for that, Chrissy, for hearing what I was writing. I have come, in part, to understand how a physiological response to guilt informed me of deep-seated emotions and how a shadow self has operated for most of my life. My main point tonight is this: we have the opportunity every day, via Heart, to choose emotions we wish to feel. We can focus on them, visualize them, and visualize any means to help us feel that. This does not mean we need those exact “how’s,” but it does mean we can engage the law of attraction to experience high frequency emotions of great blessing. However, the lower frequency emotions sometimes are just as necessary to help us discover what we need to know about ourselves in order to lay claim to and feel the higher frequency emotions. We always have a choice about how we feel and how we process our life: Ego or Heart. Ego just doesn’t yield the answers to our deepest longings. Heart, however, will allow us any expressions and discoveries that help us not to live in the mire of the negative emotions, but it will allow us to experience the emotions and discover more of core Self. Do that. Don’t run or cover up those lower frequency emotions. Grab the blessings from them, the blessings that only come through Heart-processing. I sincerely offer blessings in this journey of life for you. We are emotional beings, and ultimately, emotions guide our decisions and the course of our life. Blessings! (I asked myself, not you!)
Just a couple hours ago, I posted my Morning Pages, which I labeled as Evening Pages. Hey, I don’t want to mislead anyone! I’m quite sure I am more surprised than any readers. I knew some time the day would come when I would almost miss posting. Even when I was really sick, I still got the posts out — although I have no idea what I said in my fever-crazed state. The surprise to me today was how it occurred. I always thought if I missed it would be one of those times like holidays, birthdays, or some charity responsibilities — things that were pre-planned and I knew that the time would be tight. Today, though, was really funny to me, even while I was going through it. The missed window of opportunity came this morning. I had written my personal morning pages — three full pages. If you read my posts from yesterday, you would know that I had an exhausting previous day and night. I did not sleep well last night; I was still experiencing fallout from what preceded. That meant I was dead ass sleepy this morning. After I finished writing my personal pages, I thought I would lie down, do a guided meditation, and then continue writing. When I opened my computer to pull up one of the fourteen-minute meditations I do, I saw I had an update available. I knew if I didn’t get it soon, it would mess up my Facebook messaging. Hey, it would only take a minute, right?! I started it and saw it was going to take longer than that, so I decided to just meditate on my own, which I often do. However, when I’m thinking about time crunches, I know it’s safer to use a timed, guided one. Yeah, I should have waited and done that. The weather forecast called for showers, and it still does for the next two days. I wanted to trim and mow the lawn. I did that last week, but at this time of year a week’s growth reminds me of the house in the Jumanji film. I heard the dogs bark, a quick ring of the doorbell, and I sprung out of the bed. For a few seconds, I could not remember the day or time. When the fog cleared and I looked at the clock, almost two hours of prime writing time had passed. Two hours! I laughed when I thought about my fourteen minutes. Then, I saw it could rain again any time. I threw on my work clothes, trimmed and mowed the lawn. Two more hours gone. And so it went through the afternoon and early evening. I considered if I should even post. Would anyone pay attention? Did anyone even notice I had not written? Since my mind was mush, did I have anything anyone would want to read? And what these questions reveal are my lack of faith and self-confidence. Interestingly enough, that’s exactly what I was writing about in my novel. (Yes, I did get maybe a hundred words or so in that today.) So the real questions I faced were these: Do I believe in myself and my purpose, that which Heart and I co-created, i.e., do I have enough faith to not only believe in myself but also to believe myself? Then, am I confident enough to publish what I write, even when I think no one else may want to read it — like this? Fellowship with my Heart encourages and amazes me. I was told, not nicely, not sweetly, but straight out: Focus and write. No excuses. You know what? I love myself and believe I am worth trusting and believe I have something significant to say. You see the proof of that here. Blessings in loving yourself and living your truth, because it’s pretty awesome! I love discovering things, almost anything. The process excites me; however, the results aren’t always exciting.
Sometimes, I learn things about nature or languages or music or science, but other times I discover things about myself, things that aren’t always so pleasant, things that require some work on myself, work that is ongoing. And such was the case this morning. I should have known something was going on. I woke up about three or so, shivering uncontrollably. I had been experiencing that for awhile, but I couldn’t wake myself up to get out of bed. When I did, it wasn’t cold, but waves of chills continued to sweep over me for a minute or so. I was aware I was having a bad dream but cannot remember it. Just the violent, prolonged shivering. When I finally was fully awake, I had a migraine headache. I haven’t had a migraine for several years; however, I lived all of my life from my earliest memories until about six years ago with multiple headaches a week. Immediately, my mind was churning. What did I discover? Long story short — it goes back to my childhood — I discovered a shadow self who has been very well hidden all these years. How did this little compartment of me escape detection for so long? In one of the most common ways: it masqueraded as love. The umbrella of love can shelter a lot of unhealthy emotions. What?! Yes, when it is mislabeled love, when it’s not honest love. A great example is how my shadowy little guy worked. I believe he developed as a response to my parents’ alcoholism and the effects that had on us as a family. My little boy self assumed guilt and responsibility in some small ways, I would guess, at first, but then as I got older and realized more of what was going on, I regretted not doing something to help. I thought if I stayed home from school I could help prevent the drinking and fighting I witnessed in my younger years. Mom and Dad didn’t fight later on; they were just resigned to living in our four room apartment and drinking there. I know I faked being sick many times, but I did it well enough that I actually had physical symptoms, the most convincing, real, and painful one — migraines. (Of course, I faked having a sore throat and actually creating that psychosomatically so many times that the doctor removed my tonsils when I was in the sixth grade. Boy, did I milk that one, and it kept me home.) I have partly excavated this shadow self in the past, but I never came to a full face to face, as it were, until this nasty migraine hit me this morning. Interestingly, it came after a chance encounter with an old friend that stirred up the same sort of emotional scenario from my youth. In fact, I met him when I was only eighteen years old, so my shadow self was already well-versed in equating love with guilt and regret resulting in migraines. That memory of my past and now believing things that I know disappoint my friend equaled a migraine. I think it is all related to an equation of seeing the problems and suffering and disappointment, dissatisfaction of others who are close to us, and who, in Ego, project their misery onto us. I think my parents partly did that. I think my intensely caring but deeply evangelical friend did that. I don’t think anyone does that intentionally to those they love, but it happens when Ego is allowed to be the primary operating system. Today, I stared into the mirror and spoke with my Heart. I spoke to myself, and I put all of the above together. It became clear. I embraced that part of myself that had functioned in guilt and regret since childhood. I told him — yes, I know it’s just a compartmentalized aspect of my psyche — that he didn’t need to respond with headaches anymore. The intense migraine pain melted away as I stood there. The aftereffects have remained, but not the debilitating actual pain. This means I discovered part of me today. I share it with you because it may help you discover some truths about yourself. What I offer is no formula for anyone else, just some light. This shadow self is with me, and I know it is a part of me that will need to be reminded and relearn from time to time, so this discovery has some longer term consequences. It is good, though, very good. The fellowship with my Heart provides me with insights and love and light that are very real. I hope such a personal example serves to illustrate that to you, my friend. And I hope far more that you accept no masquerades of love — only the authentic article! Check with your Heart; Hearts know things! Blessings! The amazing array and complexity human beings exhibit as a species almost deny analysis. Almost. I delight in thinking about it.
The more I think about the range and intricacy of our behaviors, the more I see patterns. Of course, this is nothing new to mental health professionals. However, I have an inveterate need to reduce things to concepts I can grasp, to some simplicity from which the complexities can arise. It’s like the grand unified theory of physics, which, in simplistic language, unifies the major forces, dynamics of the universe and demonstrates that all of the complexities we observe in the physical universe arose from a unity of these forces: electromagnetic, weak, and strong. The theory basically says that at one point these forces were unified; they were not yet distinct. As energy states dropped, the forces differentiated and the wonderful actions and interactions of the physical universe developed. In my upcoming booklet, the unifying forces that explain human behavior derive from two dynamics, two emotional and psychological considerations that we all begin with. As we develop — both as individuals and a race — the wide variety of behaviors are related to these two forces. If we reconcile these forces, we can experience what we came here for: happiness. If we don’t, problems ensue. Witness the wide range of mental and emotional illnesses and social, political, and economic problems. I have dealt with this Grand Unified Theory of Humanity in this blog and in my booklet, but I need to put the ideas into a form I can grasp, like the concept of reducing life to the least common denominator. It’s a cool mathematical metaphor for looking at anything complex that has common factors. If you have read my work for any length of time, you know what those two dynamics are: self-identity and life purpose. When we discover who we are and create what we want to do, we can experience happiness, and we can create an infinite variety of happinesses. When we fail to reconcile these forces in interaction with life, we will experience a wide variety and varying depth of expression of negative emotions. Who am I, really? Who and What am I at my deepest core? What is my purpose here? What should I do with my life to experience happiness? Now, if it were simple, life would be boring and we would miss out on experiences created by the tension between knowing the answers to those questions and not knowing, just like the interactions of the physical forces in a lower energy state creates the physical universe. When we don’t know, we explore, discover, and create many wonderful effects and works. And the tension, the desire to know, comes from the conflict of Ego and Heart, the two operating systems of our soul-mind-body complex. But, wow, oh wow, do those opposing dynamics ever create tension. We’re not like physical systems. The biochemical reactions in our bodies combined with our abilities to reason, feel, act, and react provide some intense experiences. And that brings me to the main point I wished to discuss, taking these ideas from impersonal theory to what I lived last night — an illustration of the two operating systems at work within me. I have awakened to Heart, but I don’t lose Ego because of that. I do seek to minimize it, though, to eliminate it’s operations in places it doesn’t belong. I received an email response from someone I sent my booklet to. When I read the response, I allowed Ego to take off running. I even knew it, but it just felt good because Heart was not going to let me get away with being offended. So my Ego, instead of lashing out in anger, did what it knows is most effective with me: “Oh, no, she only read a few pages and found it boring so she asked me for a two sentence summary so she wouldn’t even have to read the rest.” Boom! Poor pitiful me. All these thousands of hours spent on writing over the last year and shot down in one fell swoop: loss of self-confidence, doubting, faithlessness. All Ego. Then, I curtly addressed my Heart and heard the responses. Thoreau was thrown in the mix: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.” Heart: “Are you going to give up? What will you do to be happy? What are your plans? Or will you just settle for a life resigned to disappointment?” Shit, I just wrote about this in the last week or so! I answered Heart. I had no plan. I am a writer. I created this purpose of communicating about discovering Self and creating life Purpose to be happy. I began to address my friend’s questions, and it freakin’ helped me. For anyone who doubts the energies of life and the resultant law of attraction, guess what was in my email inbox this morning in one of my daily quote messages. Thoreau: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” He didn’t say to do this only when others approved of my dreams or directions. And I know it’s true from my own Heart. So, I had to face the questions I wrote this morning: “Who am I, and what makes me happy? What gives joy and delight in work every day? How far will that take me? If that discovery of my dreams and living life in joy and happiness I imagine is my least common denominator, then I need to do that — regardless of anyone or anything. If I don’t, the formula of my life breaks down.” In the mathematical concept, infinite numbers are possible beginning with a least common multiple. Infinite joys of life are possible when we have our answers to the two big questions — AND then keep living them. Blessings! |
Questions to consider:How many times have you asked yourself or simply thought about the following questions?
Who am I, really? What is my truth? How do my actions reveal what I really feel and believe? What would I do with my life if I could do anything? What is my passion? Why am I here? How can I discover answers to any of these questions? If you have considered any of these questions, I hope that my experiences and writing will give you some guidance. Please read my blog and comment and share your thoughts. I would love to hear from you! Archives
December 2019
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