Particularly we who passed through ACE’s have difficulty with our feelings. In this article we explore how to feel, and how to feel better. Our example is how one individual turned the label “cancer” into a liberating experience.
I know this sounds illogical, but you choose and want to feel however you feel. Whether you feel overjoyed at news you were looking forward to, or grief, loneliness or even agonizing despair, you are creating the situation the causes you to feel those emotions. The same is true if you feel bored, numb or emotional flatness or deadness. To see this just takes some focus of awareness, a more awakened state of knowing thyself.
One woman was dealing with depression after being diagnosed with breast cancer. When I brought up this notion about choosing how we feel, she understandably balked. “You mean I should blame myself for getting cancer?” she retorted.
“Of course not, “I replied, trying to sooth her pain with as much kindness and compassion as I could convey through my eyes and voice and gentle touch upon her hand. “But you’re not depressed about any physical condition that you are dealing with.”
She squinted her eyes and invited me to explain. “Take a look at that feeling of depression. Allow it to arise in your feelings without resistance. As you feel it, I want you to look at what you are thinking about.”
“I’m thinking about leaving my wonderful family, my children, my husband whom I adore, my friends, my life that I was just starting to enjoy so much.”
“Do you see?” I asked. “That is what you are depressed about. You didn’t even mention your cancer.”
She furrowed her brow and looked curious, so I continued. “You are giving yourself this sad, sad story in your mind. In reality you are currently in your life; you are not gone. You haven’t left in reality, only in your imagination. You are projecting forward in time and reacting emotionally to that.”
“But that is the reality I’m facing,” she said, tears of sadness and frustration welling up in her eyes. “I’m being realistic.”
“You’re being self-torturous,” I suggested softly. “You are putting yourself through emotional pain. You are creating the conditions in your mind for you to suffer from. You are then blaming your cancer for the way you are dealing with it.”
“Why am I doing this?” she asked.
“Human beings really only want one thing, and it isn’t even really a “thing”. We think we want all sorts of things, like more money, a new lover, a healthier body, a longer life, a new home, a dream vacation, our kids to go to college. But all we really want is to feel as deeply, as powerfully as we possibly can. We want to feel fully, freely, abundantly. So we create all of these scenarios in our minds designed to help us to feel, just like you might choose to go to a movie that a friend told you would be emotionally impactful.”
“But I don’t want this cancer. I want to live. I want to be healthy.”
“The feelings you have about cancer are gifts you are giving to yourself, even though they are painful.”
“So what is the solution,” she asked.
“Feel that feeling of not-wanting. Feel the feeling of loss, frustration and fear that arises as you tell yourself your story about what cancer means, about all it is going to take from you. Keep feeling that way consciously until you no longer want to feel that way.”
“But I already don’t want to feel that way,” she said.
“If that was true you would stop placing yourself in those emotional states. You wouldn’t think about the future that has not happened yet, that is not happening. You would not be thinking of your cancer in ways that trigger this feeling of not-wanting it.”
“I’m not sure that I entirely agree with what you are saying, though I must admit I do see the sense of it now. But what can I do to free myself from how badly I feel. You say I want to feel this way, and I understand what you are saying, how I am sort of thinking my way into these feelings, but how can I stop?”
“The first step is to give yourself what you want, which is to feel these feelings. As painful as they are, their intensity makes you feel more fully alive. Your experience feels more meaningful, more dramatic, more important, and that is what you want. You want to feel the deepest, most powerful feelings that are possible. So let yourself feel those feelings. Wallow in them deeply; just do that consciously. Notice what you are thinking. See how you are giving yourself that feeling experience, and then don’t judge the feelings as wrong or yourself as wrong for doing this to you. You are giving yourself what you want.”
She closed her eyes and did this for a while. I then asked, “Are you ready to let go of these painful feelings? Have you had enough of them?”
She nodded.
“Then let’s shift the energy in them into love for yourself. Try to feel love for yourself, without thinking of the tragic stories you have been associating with cancer. Let go of the story and just live in your feelings of love for yourself. Then feel love for your life and for all the people in your life that you treasure. Feel love for the gift of being alive right now. Feel love, gratitude and appreciation as deeply as you can, without thinking of endings; think only of now, of how beautiful your life is right now. Enjoy this experience of being alive to the fullest.”
What she ultimately found was that she could experience the depth of feeling love, gratitude and joy as intensely as she had been experiencing her grief and frustration. She found dwelling in these feelings even more fulfilling and chose to remain there. She began to actually see her cancer as a gift that led her to learning how to enjoy, appreciate and love her life more than she ever had before.
Resisting our painful feelings deprives us of what we really want. It deprives us of the depth of feeling that we desire to experience. The deeper our feelings, the more power we allow to move through us, the more alive we feel. Allowing the energy of deep feeling to flow through us delivers a more abundant life experience, and we find that opens the flow of all forms of abundance, including the financial support that is flowing our way. Our increased energy delivers more energy to our physical body and that promotes our well-being, when we allow that energy to flow freely.
Giving ourselves the permission or freedom to feel the full force of the feelings arising in us gives us that more intense feeling experience that we naturally crave. We can then reach the point when we feel done with needing to feel the intensity of pain, and can then shift the energy into the intensity of joy, love and gratitude, and discover that those are the feelings we want even more deeply. But we cannot skip the step of feeling all the pain and discomfort that we first want to feel. We need to get to the point of feeling done with those feelings, and we cannot truly do that until we feel them as deeply as we want to feel them. We want to feel them as long as we continue manufacturing the mental story and clinging to the beliefs that trigger, reinforce and strengthen those painful feelings.
There is nothing wrong with any feeling you want to feel. When we project the cause of how we feel outside of us, though, we give ourselves the experience of having no choice but to feel the way we do. We are free to experience the feelings of victimization and powerlessness that come with that story as long as we choose. When we are ready to experience our feelings fully and to stop denying ourselves of the gift of living life to the fullest (by feeling our feelings to the fullest), we merely have to look within to see how we are causing the circumstances that give us the opportunity to feel the pain we want to feel.
As we live our lives with the understanding that we are truly feeling-beings, who want nothing more than to feel the infinite power of the divine flowing through us, which means infinite peace, love, joy and gratitude, we practice living in a more open-hearted way. We constantly open up to how we feel, to feel whatever we feel more fully, deeply and freely. We then recognize that the more we feel, the more powerful and joyful we truly are. The more alive we are and the more meaningful and fulfilling and thrilling every moment of life is. And we discover that is all we really want.
The Method is a process for getting in deeper and clearer touch with our feelings, for completing our cycle of painful feeling more quickly and then releasing the energy into states of profound love, joy, gratitude and inner peace, for a greater flow of abundance in all of its wonderful forms in our life. I guide individuals through The Method in my phone coaching. Contact me through www.lovethemethod.com to set up a time for a complimentary phone chat with me to discuss how The Method can be helpful to you.
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