Are You Ready for a Life-Changing Relationship?
In the past six weeks I have sat glued to my television set during the coverage of two events: the Boston Marathon bombings and the Oklahoma tornado. I watched newscast after newscast, trying to wrap my head around the scope of such loss and devastation. Like many others do at times of powerlessness and seemingly senseless destruction, I tried to make sense of each situation. Like many “spiritual” people, I tried to apply some of the “universal concepts” that I have learned over the years to find peace or some higher insight. I tried to tell myself “this is as it should be,” it is “all part of a divine design” or that “there is a gift in everything.” But, as Debbie would say, I was just putting ice cream on top of poop. I realized that I would not be able to find peace or some higher insight until I became willing to feel my heartache, loss, confusion and sadness.
Yesterday, I was talking to Becky whose mission in life is to create a network for women to come together and support each other. To be in integrity with her mission, Becky is being coached through the Healing Your Heart coaching model to work through her issues with women, starting with the woman who had an affair with (and ultimately married) Becky’s husband. In her coaching relationship, Becky was trying to apply the principles she has learned throughout the years. Becky was looking to see where she co-created the situation and where she needed to take responsibility for what happened instead of just blaming the other woman. As she talked about what she “should” be seeing, feeling, doing and learning, I could hear her emotions beneath the surface. Although she was saying the “right” things, I heard a woman who was still pissed off, still feeling hurt, angry, sad and betrayed. In trying to think, act, and feel the way she thought she should instead of being present to how she was actually feeling, her head was trying to get her to skip over her heart.
I could hear this in Becky because I remembered it so well in myself. Until I reached the age of forty, I listened to my head over my heart too. I wanted to make sense of things, to put everything in neat little boxes. I wanted to find the light in every situation. I didn’t want to have to feel the unprocessed emotions that lay beneath the surface of my consciousness. I wanted to use my intellect to bypass what I thought of as the “muck.” But as hard as I tried, I could never reach my destination. I couldn’t find lasting peace. When I read Debbie’s second book Spiritual Divorce, I discovered a truth that I’ve now seen time and time again and know at the deepest level of my soul: our minds can’t take us where our hearts long to go. When I attended The Shadow Process and then immersed myself in the emotional education that it is now my privilege to teach, I developed a life-changing relationship with my inner world — and my outer world changed completely.
In our culture, many people are disconnected from their emotions. They have trained themselves not to feel them or they have learned to make certain emotions wrong. We even think that part of being a good or supportive friend is to help our friends look on the bright side of life or to fix the painful situations in their lives. But we cannot heal what we cannot feel! Instead of being unwanted annoyances, our emotions are invaluable messengers here to educate us, inform us, and guide us to the evolution of our soul. They come bearing gifts, and to receive these gifts, we must develop a new relationship with our emotional world.
This is the week to create a new relationship with your emotions. It’s time to give yourself permission to become aware of your feelings and allow them to be there. Invite your emotions to be exactly as they are and let yourself feel your feelings. If you are feeling loss or devastation, allow yourself the time and space to grieve. Since real transformation happens in your heart, not your head, you will be amazed at what opens up, shifts and changes in your life when you open your heart to yourself.
Transformational Action Steps
1. Keep a daily list of the emotions that are most prominent for you. Become aware of your relationship with these emotions. Are they comfortable or uncomfortable? Do you allow yourself to feel them or do you resist them? Are you labeling your emotions as right or wrong?
2. Keep an inventory of how you respond to your emotions. Do you intellectualize them rather than feel them? What actions do you take – or not take – in the face of your emotions? Do you eat over them? Exercise? Socialize? Surf the web?
3. Identify an action you can take this week to tend to your emotions and then take that action.
4. Reach out to someone who is feeling loss, devastation or pain and support them in feeling their feelings.
With love,
Kelley
