Refocusing Our Emotions

I get caught up in "what if" scenarios sometimes. I build up whole trains of thought based upon "what if?" Usually it has me upset with what others might be thinking and doing that I may not agree with, or with what others are actually doing. Either way, I really do not have any control over what others think or do or say. The only thing I have control over is my reaction to said situations. So when I received this in my email, I thought I would pass it along. It seems timely with all that is happening in the world, and all that is happening on an energetic level in most people's lives. Stress seems a part of the world right now, especially in personal relationships. It also reminded me of Eckhart Tolle's advice to step into the void when you feel yourself careening out of control. From the Institute of Heart Math:

The Power of Neutral - A Tool to Refocus Your Emotions

An important first step in transforming emotional stress is cleaning up strong, negative emotions and judgements as they come up. As soon as you start to feel your energy going sideways, you can use Neutral to refocus within yourself and go back to the heart. This will clear your emotions as you go and start building your empowerment to clear even more.

Once your emotions become disturbed, your mind will tend to jump in with judgements toward yourself or others. The mind, like a computer, starts a process of analyzing why, calculating next steps, and bringing up memories of what happened when you felt like that before. The Power of Neutral tool helps  put this mental momentum on pause so you can neutralize your reactions and thoughts. The Power of Neutral allows the guidance of your heart, your heart intelligence, to come in and stop the energy drain.

Judging yourself or others causes energy to back up in your system and feels bad. It doesn't bring helpful solutions. It only makes us feel disappointed in ourselves, which drains more energy. We can stop this in its tracks by using The Power of Neutral.

Practicing The Power of Neutral helps bring your mind, emotions and physiology to a state of neutral. Think of neutral as a "time-out zone" where you can step back, neutralize your emotions and see more options with objective clarity.

The Power of Neutral Tool

1. Take a time out. Breathe slow and deeply. Imagine the air entering and leaving through your heart area in the center of your chest.
2. Try to disengage from your stressful thoughts and feelings as you continue breathing.
3. Continue until you have chilled out and neutralized the emotional charge.

Use Step 1 as soon as you feel your emotions starting to amp up. First take a time out by choosing to step back from your emotions. The heart breathing in Step 1 will help you draw the energy out of your head, where negative thoughts and feelings get amplified. Breathe slowly and deeply in a casual way as you pretend the breath is going in and out through your heart area.

In Step 2, disengage from your stressful thoughts and feelings as you continue to breathe. Just having the intent to disengage can help you release a lot of the emotional energy.

In Step 3, you continue the process until you have chilled out and neutralized the emotional charge. This doesn't mean irritability, anxiety, or other stressful feelings will have totally evaporated. It merely means the charged energy has been taken out and you have stopped accumulating stress. Even if you can't totally neutralize a reaction in the moment, simply making the effort to shift into neutral will stop the accumulation of anxiety or stress about it. It will give you a change to regroup your energies and refocus.

One of the things that can help you get to neutral is asking yourself, "Do I really want to keep draining energy and stressing about the situation or how bad I feel?" For example, right before a situation that normally makes you anxious or stressed, you may start negatively projecting the idea you will blow it or be judged by others. This is the perfect time to use The Power of Neutral. Otherwise, your emotional reaction will kick in and drain you. And even if you don't get completely calm, going to Neutral still reduces a lot of stress and helps you refocus.

As you build your ability to use this tool, you will acquire a new type of emotional energy maintenance. This translates into more energy to do the things you really want to do.

Emotions V - Doubt & Confusion (Series starts with "Emotions")

Is there anyone out there that is not experiencing doubt and confusion? We are living in some pretty intense times - it's hard not to feel confused and unsure of our footing.

But doubt can be a good thing. It challenges outdated ways of thinking. It allows for the door to crack and new ideas to emerge.

In the cycle of life -  people, nature, ideas,  even blogs - are born - they reach their peak - and then begin to break down - eventually dying. It is in this way something new can be born, enriched by what has gone before it.

Doubt and confusion can be likened to that point just after the peak of whatever it is that you have believed to be hard and fast. When you begin to realize you may not have had all the answers, or that your way of doing things is outdated, in need of renewal. You may feel confused and unsure of yourself. What had always been safe assumptions are no longer as reliable as they had once been.

Gill Edwards, in Stepping Into the Magic, reminds us that the positive side of doubt makes us think, causes us to pause and consult our inner wisdom - allowing for integration of our intellect and intuition. Points of clarity are often superseded by new points of clarity - if we are open to challenging dogma and old belief systems. In other words confusion leads to thinking. And that can be a good thing.

Have you had these experiences lately?http://lifeinthesecondhalf.blogspot.com/2011/01/emotions.html

Pain Body

http://www.terragalleria.com/index.html

Have you ever noticed how some people will touch something off in you, and before you know it, "pain bodies" are colliding? Family members are really good at this.

"Pain body" is Eckhart Tolle's description of "remnants of pain left behind by every strong, negative emotion that is not fully faced, accepted, and then let go of, join together to form an energy field that lives in the very cells of your body. It consists not just of childhood pain, but also painful emotions that were added to it later in adolescence and during your adult life, much of it created by the voice of the ego. It is the emotional pain that is your unavoidable companion when a false sense of self is the basis of your life."

He goes on to say "If there are other people around, preferably your partner or a close family member, the pain-body will attempt to provoke them - push their buttons, as the expression goes - so it can feed on the ensuing drama." Tolle sees the ego as a gobbler of drama. "Instinctively it knows your weakest, most vulnerable points. If it doesn't succeed the first time, it will try again and again. It is raw emotion looking for more emotion. The other person's pain-body wants to awaken yours so that both pain-bodies can mutually energize each other."

I don't know about you, but this week has been a demolition derby for my pain-body. I think I'll take a break from all the crazy emotions stirred up out there. Avoid everyone for a few days. Maybe the energy will shift back, and my pain-body can go back to napping.

Now where are my headphones and that OM cd...