How the avoidance of emotion keeps life from working

On the surface we resist certain circumstances, but at a deeper level, we don’t resist our circumstances, we resist all the emotion that gets triggered by our circumstances.

To see how this works, let’s start by looking at the illusion of upsets. Find a time when you were upset. Didn’t something happen? Yes, it happened. Now notice how totally irrelevant your feelings were. No matter how upset you were, what happened still happened.

Now notice what would happen to the upset if somehow, you were at peace with what happened. The upset would disappear. It would disappear because upsets are not caused by what happened. Upsets are a state of mind and can only exist if we fight what happened.

The moment you let go of the fighting and resisting, the upset disappears. You restore both your inner peace and your ability to see clearly. This makes you very effective.

Take a moment and let this in. Look at the upsets in your life. Then notice that each upset was caused by fighting what happened, not what happened. This is important, because once you really get this, it will profoundly change your life.

We avoid the emotion

So why do we fight what happened? We fight our circumstances because they hurt. They trigger a suppressed emotion.

This emotion is perceived subconsciously as a threat to our survival. In an automatic attempt to avoid this threat, we fight the emotion and we fight any circumstance that triggers it. This forces destructive behavior. We fight, resist, hang on, and withdraw. We destroy love and sabotage our lives.

Instead of making decisions and taking action based on facts, our decisions and actions are based on emotion. This produces tremendous suffering.

Fortunately, all this can be avoided. You can be free of the emotion. You can restore both your inner peace and your effectiveness.

Release the emotion

The best way to learn how to release this emotion is to look at little children. When little children get hurt, they cry and cry. Then, when they finish crying, there is no more hurt.

They are able to release their emotion quickly because they do something that we don’t notice. They feel their hurt willingly. This allows the hurt to come, run its course, and go.

Find a time when you were hurt. You cried and cried. Then, after you finished crying, you felt a wonderful freedom. This is a time when you felt your hurt willingly like a child.

When it comes to hurt, we don’t have a choice about feeling it. We will. Our only choice is to feel it willingly or unwillingly. When we feel it willingly like a child, the hurt comes and goes quickly. When we feel it unwillingly, it turns into pain and stays.

More specifically, you can either feel your hurt “at the effect” or “at cause.” You can feel it as a victim of your circumstances or you can feel it deliberately and purposefully.

When you feel your hurt “at the effect”, you can cry hours a day for months and have little or no healing. If you take the same hurt and feel it deliberately, because you choose to, you can have a major healing in minutes.

Use your upsets for more healing

Every time you get upset is a rich opportunity for more healing. This is because the hurt that runs your life has just been triggered and brought to the surface. The opportunity now is to get it out of you.

To release this hurt, separate the circumstances from the emotion. Notice that the circumstances are outside of you and that the emotion is inside. Then dive into the hurt. Feel it deliberately and purposefully. Feel the hurt of your circumstances and the deeper hurt of feeling worthless, unlovable, or whatever your deeper hurt is. Let the hurt come and let it go.

The more you are willing to feel your hurt, the more you are able to flow with life. So be willing to feel your hurt and welcome opportunities for more healing.

You can create a great life

It is possible to be happy, alive, and free most of the time. Relationships can heal, problem areas can clear up, and you can create a great life, but this won’t happen by itself. There are concepts to learn, issues to heal, and action to take. Fortunately, the process of transforming your life is relatively easy, but you have to know how. I can walk you through the steps.