Choosing your emotional state
May 5. A little bit of grey sky to relax the eyes
Today was a tired day. Well the day wasn’t actually tired since
tiredness is not something you will usually ascribe to a day. I mean tiredness
is a subjective quality, and requires an experience of energy not flowing as
much as it can do we your are filled up with energy. So today was a day like so
many other days, and I experienced that energy wasn’t really flowing like I
wanted it to. The weather of the day was cold and semi wet; a typical mayday in
Denmark.
I have no interesting things to say about my experience of today. No
epiphanies, no inspiration of healing energies, not even a simple meeting with
another person where something magical happened. No movement but my fingers on
the piano playing in a surprisingly smooth manner, and singing was easy, even
though I still had the aftermath of my now old cold to deal with. Playing soccer with my 10 year old son, was
also a pleasant series of moments, with all the green spring clad trees
surrounding the small field we were playing in, and the soft colors of the sun
setting in the back ground.
Thinking about it; the smoother movement of my fingers playing the
piano was actually rather pleasant movement of energy. But that was in the
earlier hours of the day, and the rest of the day seemed pretty much a blur, or
rather my annoyance with the one thing I tried to do during mediation, seemed
to color the rest of the day a little darker, even though a lot of things
actually went well. Not that I was
productive in any way but that is not something I require of my self, because
I’m not that interested in trying to fulfil the idea that it is of great
importance to be productive to a state where I only get a lot of stress out of
it and no clue to why I have to be productive. I mean you can produce something
of value, just by putting your self in a state of love. Love is one of the
things with intrinsic value, just as well as peace and growth. But the things
we can produce in the shared reference frames, the physical bandwidth of
consciousness and the spoken, only have value in the survival or the feelings
of satisfaction or joy or ease or what ever, it produces in our selves or
others. SO being able to choose between
emotional states makes sure that you can actually produce something of
intrinsic value with out ever having to run around like a decapitated chicken.
The irony of the paragraph above is of cause that even though I know
how to change emotional states I still choose to let my annoyance with one
event color my day. In a way I wouldn’t have done it differently; sometimes it
is nice with a little grey sky to make the eyes relax.
The personal history
The
thing I was trying to do during mediation that day was a process of healing or
removing some tension energy in the left side of my body mostly the left side
of my head. It almost feels as if I have an energy head inside of my other head
that is turned slightly to the left. It had been there for a couple of years
now and whenever I try to do something about it, the tension becomes stronger.
Today (July 14, 2009) I was down at the beach and I finally found out what it
was. It was an old character of suffering I have played throughout my life, and
earlier tended to identify my self with. A character designed to give me pity,
and an excuse for not doing what I wanted.
The story of this old character is something
like: parents divorced at 5. Being bullied in school. Dropping out of high
school and moving away from home age 17, because mom found abusive husband.
Having trouble finding love, but found sexual partners instead. Having a job in
a bank where there where a lot of talking behind my back. Quitting my job and
getting social aid instead. Meeting a emotional abusive man and getting a child
with him. Living in an abusive relationship for 5 years or so. Breaking up with
him when child was two, but still have to live with that my son is having
problems with him. And so on.
This is a suffering character, and it is good to
tell if you want energy in the form of money from society or the polite attention of
people.
I could also show a different character, one that is unconventional and
living a life of creativity and joy and lots of love and people around her: Starting
early in school because of high intelligence. Being good at school work. In
school dreaming her self away and in classes practicing balancing things
(pencils and such things) in as high towers as possible. Using a lot of her
time reading, singing and painting. Often enjoying nature all by her self.
Discover some clairvoyant abilities at an early age. Often going in to a
meditative state. Choosing to stand on her own legs the age of 17. In a time
where the unemployment rate was extraordinary high and the finances was great,
choosing to let other get the jobs, and make theater with those who could need
a boost of creativity, self confidence and fun in their lives. Keeping her
research into the topic of the psychic realm and physics alive while also
exploring creativity. Being unstoppable with deconstructing the present world
view and constructing a new. (unstoppable but sometimes slowed down or walking
down a dead end). Living a wonderful life with her son, where there is a lot of
joy and love and life. Still enjoying solitude, nature, singing and painting.
These
two stories are both something that I relate to BenedikteEva, but I can choose
to have my main focus in one of the stories. I could also make up a new one
with other contents and focus my personality on that one. But the second story
I’m quite fond of, and I can even put the other on in as obstacles I have
overcome and look like a complete heroine in my own eyes. The thing is we can
choose to focus on what we want in our life or we can choose to focus on what
we do not want in our lives. One thing is certain the more we focus on what we
don’t want the more it seems to hold on. What we focus on is what we get or
rather the beliefs and energies we focus on is what we manifest. Our personal
history is such a belief and until we change the focus our lives are not likely
to change.
The
same goes for emotional states. You have probably met a person at least once in
your life, where you started out an innocent conversation with this person, and
then suddenly the person starts telling you how lonely he or she is, and sees
you as the remedy for that state. You know what will happen if you enter into
this persons life. No matter how much time you spend with this person he or she
will keep telling you how lonely they are, no matter what you do to remedy the
condition with your own charming company. This person focus’ mainly on
loneliness and do not see the other story, that they actually have a loving and
caring friend who spends a lot of time with them.
Or
people who have some kind of theme in their life. Their husbands do this and
that and it makes them sad and loose self esteem. Then they come to you for
help, but no matter how much advice you give to the person the problem lingers
on, the focus stays on how awful her life is because of that husband. She
identifies with her story. Well off cause some of these people can eventually
choose other beliefs about them selves or their fellow humans, and they might
be inspired by you to make new choices. But as long as they keep identifying
them selves with their focus story it is not very likely. The identification
with your story in focus is why it can be so difficult to experience a real
life transformation.
Techniques to choose
These
persons could choose another emotional state to be in. Well if I meet a person
with whom the first conversation concerns the weather and the next one their
loneliness, I used to run of like a rabbit. Now I focus my attention on a wanted emotional state. The idea is to offer them another emotional
state. I can ask them to look at how beautiful the sky is, and just the mere
act of turning your look upwards can actually change your emotional state. People
often quickly return to their loneliness story or their domestic issues,
because we think that we shall keep focusing on the problems and work on a
solution to them until it is solved. That method actually works with broken
machinery but it has the exact opposite effect in changing your circumstances
in life. They way you change your circumstances in life is to focus on what you
want rather than what you don’t want.
The
problem you have and the story you tell about the problem becomes a mental
point of reference for the emotional state. So if you want to have another
story to tell and another emotional state, an emotional value like love or
connectedness you much change your story and create some new reference
points. People in our lives has their
reference points concerning how we have behaved while they’d known us, and when
we change behavior they will automatically follow with a change in their
behavior. But it all begins with a change of mind a choice of changing focus.
If
you are in an unwanted emotional state, where the flow of energy seems to be
blocked, then the first thing not to
do is to find out what is wrong because you probably already have a story about
that. It is not to find out how to fix
the problem. What you do is to state the emotional state you have and the one your want.
As
an example: I feel lonely (or I feel loneliness). I do not want to feel lonely.
I would rather feel joy and love.
If
you can remember or imagine a situation where you felt love and joy then you
probably feel some of the same you did in that situation, probably not as
present as it was then, but still a different state than the loneliness, and
you have already chosen another emotional state.
The first thing that happens if
you are well trained in how to rationalize is that your intellect will start to
make a list of all your reasons to feel lonely, that is, all your reference
points that keeps the state of loneliness in place in your experience. This is
the tricky point and your reasons to be in the lonely state of emotions are an
expression of beliefs. These beliefs are a powerful spell that takes the power
away from you and stops you from enjoying life as much as possible though it
might keep you safe, make sure that you are not rejected or something.
What you
can do now is to make a counter spell to generate the emotional value you want
to fulfil on. A counter spell can be like a prayer or an affirmation or you
can make a picture of the wanted state, perhaps a song that expresses the
wanted state or you can use a more kinesthetic technique of laying a gentle
touch on your lower arm and every time you make that movement you can recall
the emotional state. There are also potion blending and magical Sigil making or what ever, but use the one you prefer.
Returning
to the example on loneliness the reference points that kept the state of
loneliness steadfast in experience, might have been something like: I am old
and my children do not have time to see me, I am to tired to make an effort to
change it, who would want to be with a depressed being like my self, I am
boring etc. etc. This is a conversation based on beliefs about self and others.
Not only beliefs, but judgements, that falsely identify a person. Well these
judgements are not true in any way. Boring and old are qualities and not a way
of being and turns out to act as reference points for behavior that can be used
again and again, and upholds the status quo. If you behave as you always have
done, things will probably stay pretty much the same and that is quite safe
even though you might have to deal with loneliness and the like.
But
now you have chosen to announce that you don’t want the state of loneliness and
you would rather want joy and love in your experience. The technique is pretty
simple and it does not take much work besides the mental work. But here comes
the next step in creating your life as you want it. The person from before
might then say something like: ‘but even though I do not feel lonely right now
and do feel joy and love to some extent there are still no people in my life
with whom I can share that love and joy’. What the person wanted to experience
here is being with other people to express the emotional values of love and
joy, and knowing what you want is important for this kind of work.
The
technique in short:
1. Acknowledge
your emotional state, for example using the words: I feel x.
2. Acknowledge
that it is an unwanted state: I don’t want to feel x
3. State
which emotional state or states you do want to experience: I want to feel Y
If
your have already established points of reference in your mind for that kind of
emotional state you want to have, then use those. I as an example have
established reference points for the emotional value: ‘deep inner peace’ and
all I have to do is say these words. To deepen or strengthen that state I
visualize a calm and people devoid beach where the water has a beautiful green
blue color, and with the waves clashing on the beach in a slow, harmonious and
rhythmic manner, and also recalling a breeze caressing my skin.
4. Choose
to stay in the wanted emotion and silence the story of why you should be
feeling X when you rather want to feel Y.
Some
people might frown at the idea that they actually have a choice of emotions,
that their feelings is not something beyond their conscious choices. Now I
could come up with a lot of explaining on this subject, but I really do not
want to, because the technique speaks for it self. If you are one of these
people who are used to tell your self than this and this makes me sad, angry or
happy, then try the technique and discover that this is not the case. It is the
reference points for sadness or anger you have established that generates your
unwanted state, by your choice of story. But you can just as well focus on a
different story.
I
will emphasize that the acknowledgement of you r current emotional state is
quite important to this exercise since not acknowledging it will only put a lit
on it and until you have acknowledged it, the emotion will keep showing up in
all kinds of way.
In
the beginning of the chapter I told you a story from my own life, where I
forgot to acknowledge my annoyance,
frustration and anger with my lack of success in getting the tension in my left
facial side to go away. This emotional state kept popping its head up, even
though there was a lot of moments and events I really could have attached a
more energetic state to.
Another
thing I have to emphasize is not identify your self with the emotion. An
emotion is something you have and feel and an emotional state or feeling is a
state you’re in, but you are not the emotion. If you want to have a chance to
choose then do not state that ‘I’m so sad’ or even ‘I am so happy’ because
identifying your self with an emotion would make it quite difficult to change
it, because you really can’t run away from your self. The same goes for
identification with your personal history. As long as you believe you are your
present story then it is difficult to change your situation because you can’t
escape your self. (Because: the ‘you’ you are escaping from is actually what
you are escaping with).
I
will soon return to the personal history and how to create reference points for
the emotional values you want to fulfill on, but first I will introduce and
outline a subjective map whereupon you can place these points of reference.
