Saturday, September 12, 2009

Letting go of emotions

Ever feel like your feelings surrounding something need to improve? How does that make you feel? I find myself sometimes thinking about a certain thing with fear, worry, anxiety  or some other "bad" emotion. If I'm focusing on this, I soon start to feel bad about the bad feeling that I'm having, then the feeling about that bad feeling turns to bad feelings about a bad feeling about a bad feeling and so on...

The more we focus on something, the more "real" it becomes. Thus, if we're focused on negative emotions, or even negative emotions about negative emotions, we're increasing them and pushing us further from the end goal which is usually the opposite of that.

A good quote from Abraham on the subject is "you don't need to find the thought that is causing the resistance, you just need to find the thought that isn't causing the resistance". When looking change, we often find ourselves saying things like "my biggest problem is..." or "what needs to happen is...". This can lead to an attachment that is particularily hard to let go.

Money is a great example. Most people can manifest money increases like a raise, bonus, winning, gift, or any other source. We've all done it at times in our life, sometimes without even realizing it, but try to manifest money when you really need it and it's not quite so easy. I suppose this is why so many people don't believe in miracles. It's sort of a "where were you when I needed you?" kind of thing.

The Sedona Method describes an interesting way to illustrate that. Try picking up a small object you'd be willing to let go of and hold it tightly. The longer and tighter you hold it, the more it feels like it's attached to you. If you then open your hand and roll the object around in it, the feeling quickly changes to you holding the object instead of being connected to it.

We are like that with our emotions. The tighter our grasp on it, the more we become attached to it. How often do we find ourself saying "I'm sad", or "I'm angry", or even "I'm happy" instead of "I feel sad" or "I feel angry".

As domesticated humans, we've become attached to everything around us. Whether it's the crap in my garage or the feeling in my heart, we always have a hard time letting go. In order to produce positive change, we need to first let go of all the feelings that do not serve us, then put out attention on those that do.

The final step is to surround ourselves with the feeling of what we want already being present in our lives. This method brings us to that emotional level without putting conditions out there that we can become attached to. We can get out of the feeling of "I'll be a lot happier when..." and start feeling happier now. The rest seems to fall into place at that moment.

When a football player is in "the zone" he's not thinking he should be in the zone, he's feeling the feeling of being an extraordinary football player. It's that effortless focus that gets us where we need to be. In my job I can experience the feeling of being a great engineer or excellent sales person and whatever I produce will be an example of that.

The challenge is if I have to be a great engineer in order to find a solution to a big problem, or I have to be an excellent sales person to pay my bills. Instead I enjoy being a great engineer! I love closing an excellent sales deal! I also love having my bills paid off!!!

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