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Writer's pictureMelanie Barrett

Emotions were NEVER the problem

Updated: Mar 16




Emotions really are not the problem, even the huge ones that we are afraid to feel, you know, the ones we are afraid will kill us if we allow them. We fear we’ll drown and never emerge again! It’s simply not true.  When we stop buying in to the stories ‘about’ emotions they pass through quickly almost in an animalistic way. 


If we can just STOP, be present to whatever feeling is arising in the body, stop being so complex and sophisticated with our stories, being just like a child again, then we can just be completely innocent and OPEN to whatever is here. We really can be open with fear, open with anger, open with jealousy, open with rejection, open with hurt and they all pass through in seconds. Peel the labels off and they won’t feel so bad; just pure sensation.


Our bodies become so stiff, contracted and closed over time by our stories, by our intellectual, complex dilemmas. So we need to gently give our systems (bodies) enough love, safety and support to soften and open again, to allow our energy (emotions) to flow through again, freely.


As adults we become like stiff, blocked pipes. Living in states of fear (fight, flight or freeze) and we are not even conscious that we are so contracted and closed. Over time fear becomes normalised and we live in a perpetual state of avoidance (in stories); the body too afraid to feel what is actually here.


When left alone and “allowed’ an emotions average duration is apparently only 90 seconds. The body returns right back to equilibrium, peace and balance after it has passed through. Emotions really are not the problem. We have been deeply conditioned to avoid intense emotions, as though they are bad or too big to handle or dangerous. The human is amazingly sophisticated at avoiding ‘feeling’ emotions, they were too big for us as children if we weren’t held in them. So coping strategies (avoidant stories) were crafted by our amazing brains. 


We tell ourselves complicated stories and over time we develop beliefs and make promises to ourselves and others in a crazy attempt to avoid our authentic feelings. “Aww please don’t cry, don’t feel sad, go and do something fun or eat something nice, that will make you feel better.” “Keep yourself busy, you’ll feel better soon.” We’d rather eat ourselves, drink ourselves, scroll ourselves, drug ourselves to peace than just ‘feel’ our way to peace.


Our attachment to our stories robs us of our ability to just ‘feel’ and to identify root or authentic emotions (underneath the mental stories and projections). We have been conditioned to habitually overlay present feelings with stories. We say I’m a victim here or I’m guilty or you are guilty, it’s your fault. Or this is not allowed, this is too much to feel, I can’t go there, I need to bury all that, I can’t open that Pandoras box, I’ll drown, I’ll be annihilated . If you didn’t do that thing that you do, that annoying behaviour,  then I wouldn’t have to feel this feeling. Who can I project my anger on to instead of just feeling what is here within me to be acknowledged, felt and allowed? If you do that thing again that makes me feel this feeling I’ll lose it!!. They are doing that thing again, why me?!!!


We play games in our own heads based on the stories we tell ourselves and we believe them. The stories insidiously trap us. They turn what would be fleeting feelings in to ‘moods’ or ‘states’ that hang around and can even become ‘pathologised’ in to a fixed state called depression or anxiety or ‘anger issues’. Then we own that label as though it is fixed state, and we identify with it and perpetuate it. 


Ironically It is our wrestling with, our manipulating, our trying to understand, escape, avoid or fix emotions, that traps them in to a persistent mood or state. It is our claiming of them. Instead of allowing them to be completely free to flow through our nervous system, unhindered and completely free to be themselves. How wonderful if we could do that with all of life and everyone in it including ourselves, letting everything, everyone, flow unhindered by our definitions and projections. Everything free to be itself, to come and go, without owning or claiming, how refreshing!!  


Of course if we have never just sat with our feelings as they are then it is wise to be with someone you trust to explore them in that way. Someone who will just hold space for you, unconditionally while your authentic feelings are felt and maybe given a voice, maybe for the first time ever!


Maybe depression really isn’t what we are taught it is, maybe it is not a fixed ‘state’, maybe it is not definitive. Just because there may be a genetic predisposition, maybe it doesn’t mean that we are helpless victims of a disease. Perhaps It is not a genetic inevitability for any of us. Of course there may be some epigenetic connections that could fit in to depression, The genetic component could more likely be a conditioned habit of suppression of emotions to eg ‘keep peace’ or ‘keep face’ or ‘stiff upper lip’. “At all costs don’t feel deep emotions, and certainly don’t show them, you’ll give the enemy an advantage!”  Although of course over time prolonged suppression of emotions such as hurt, anger, sadness, grief etc…can cause depressive states and these states obviously affect the normal functioning and balance of the brain chemistry. Perhaps it is not a physical disease but if it goes deep enough for long enough it can create physical dis ease.


When we stop buying ours and others mental stories, stop the negotiating, the wrangling, stop the deal making to try to keep the emotions under wraps, or to run away or escape from them or work them out. When we are just willing to STOP COMPLETELY, STOP THE STORIES and be willing to just fully feel whatever is showing up to be felt, without definition or label….


….maybe then the magic happens….


When we are still enough…for long enough….without claiming our mental stories….our positions…our ‘rightness’…..We will ALWAYS open up and return to a deep, infinite stillness…a profound…boundless…liberated sense of SELF. Our TRUE SELF beyond mental stories, game playing, negotiation and manipulation. Our childlike expanded consciousness….Innocence (before we think we ‘know’ it all!!).


The flow state is here…always…YOU as empty…open…boundless infinite essence…with emotions continually flowing through….the good…the bad and the ugly….that’s Life!! in all its inevitable glory.


Be still and know that you are infinite Source.....

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