Acknowledge your feelings
Allow yourself to have the full human experience by letting your feelings be without getting entangled in them.
We keep ourselves in bondage when we bottle things up or repress our true feelings.
Instead of falling into the ego trap of believing that a perfect life is about always being happy and joyful, why not allow yourself to feel pissed off or sad if you are.
The second you allow yourself to feel the emotions, they will pass through you and simply disappear into nothingness.
Feelings are only “stuck” for as long you resist them, deny them, or pretend to feel otherwise.
But the moment you can say “Yes, I’m pissed off!” or acknowledge any other so called “negative” feeling it flows through you quickly and is released within seconds.
And then a new feeling comes.
It might be a feeling of relief, or even happiness; whatever comes up next simply let those feelings too just flow through you.
Feel whatever you feel without making it wrong because that’s where the suffering comes from.
Suppressing our feelings is the same as avoiding life.
This does not mean we should act on all feelings or lash out towards others.
It just means to simply express how we feel either by acknowledging them to ourselves or by sharing them with another person verbally but without any emotional drama.
It’s really about taking responsibility of our own stream of consciousness and acknowledging the moment as it is.
No drama whatsoever needed. No need to pretend, avoid or hide, but to simply let the feelings flow through you.
Feel the space it creates in you to do this compared to when you’re identified with the feelings and emotions.
One state is open and the other one is closed and tense. Can you feel it?
Try it now.
Take a feeling you don’t like and that you are experiencing in your life at the moment.
It might have something to do with being annoyed or irritated with someone or something, or maybe you’re sad and feel vulnerable.
Whatever it is; feel it and experiment with how it is to allow the feeling to be (by acknowledging it) and then switch back into resisting it and making it wrong and undesirable.
Feel the difference between being able to breathe freely and by having the body all tensed up.
Make an effort to reeeeally resist the feeling and make it really, really wrong, and then let go!
Release the resistance and feel the relief when you simply let the feeling be.
Does it still feel as heavy and burdening?
As you do this you will be able to move forward from a different emotional state because you see clearly that you have actually something to say when it comes to how you experience life.
When we open ourselves up like this we are immediately able to see the whole drama from a different perspective and then there’s space and openness and you can breathe freely again.
ღღღ
What you just read was one of my short blogs. – Share if you enjoyed it –
All my short blogs can be found here.
Maria,
I’ve lately been struggling with the back and forth you describe. The past few years have had great momentum in terms of moving closer to Truth. At times I am completely able to allow what I am feeling with no judgment, and even “unpleasant” emotions feel oddly good to feel. Other times, in particular with fear, I feel my being constrict around it, resist it, and tell me that to feel it is to create more of it and if I feel it, I will manifest what it is lying to me about.
Part of the struggle here is that I grew up in an evangelical Christian setting. Casting out “demons” and “Resisting” the devil were common practices. If I were to tell those parts of me that still believe in those doctrines to “sit with” my fear, they yell back that I am believing the devil and, essentially, that I’m doing it wrong. I must resist and fight the devil. I must tell that demon to leave! Lest I be stuck with it’s affliction forever.
Curious your thoughts here. Thanks!
As an addition… things that feel confusing for example are people who exercise faith healing or even Jesus himself. I don’t imagine him to have “Accepted” the illness or the death or felt anything about it at all except that it wasn’t real. I think maybe that’s where I get myself confused. I KNOW, for example, illness isn’t real, but yet I FEEL like it is, and in feeling it, tell myself that I denying ultimate reality and need to stop feeling that.
You will definitely suffer more when you resist the fear that is arising instead of allowing it do be but not indulging in it.
It only creates turmoil within you when you resist it or try to deny it.
Your emotional and mental state is affected by how you respond to the feelings that arise and that then in turn affects how you experience the present moment.
Because feelings are always moving and only stuck when resisted so as soon as you stare fear in the face and actually want to see it, it shrinks.
It’s not really that powerful at all, it’s just pretending to be.
And because of your beliefs that tells you that you’re creating things just because you think of them, the fear increases;
You’ve become afraid of feelings and thoughts and try to desperately control them but something to realize is that anyone who doesn’t share that belief is not afraid of their feelings and thoughts.
With this said; I understand where you’re coming from, and I understand the way of thinking.
I used to teach the law of attraction many years ago and I remember seeing people pretend a lot, and avoid a lot.
Because they thought that they always had to be happy and all about “love and light” etc in order to “create” and “manifest” whatever it was that their ego’s wanted at the moment.
So I saw a lot of phony people, people who were secretly suffering while at the same time having a happy facade while they were running as fast as they could away from anything that was even slightly uncomfortable (such as real transformation).
I also remember some people in some spiritual circles that refused medical care for illnesses because they thought they could just ‘think’ it away and pray to God etc.
That’s how messed up people’s thinking is and all this is the spiritualized ego operating in their lives without them being aware of it.
These people are usually petrified inside, and all they’re trying to do is to escape their feelings, their turmoil and so on, by avoiding, hiding, running from and pretending that everything is okay when it’s not.
They are not acknowledging their emotions and instincts, intuition etc because they think that being ‘evolved’ means only having good feelings all the time.
That’s not the full experience of how it is to be a human being.
Yes, there’s joy, happiness and all that, but the biggest thing that you experience is that you have emotional and mental freedom where you’re not affected negatively by feelings and thoughts as they come and go.
You don’t identify with that anymore. It’s no longer horrible to experience a “negative emotion”.
The ego on the other hand does identify with feelings and thoughts, and very strongly so, so anything that does not ‘feel good’ is made wrong.
But for someone who has awakened, all feelings can come and go as they please, there’s no holding on to any of them and they are not made wrong.
If sadness arise, cry. If anger comes up, address the situation, if happiness is felt, laugh.
It’s really not complicated at all.
Moving on,..
Just as all the gods we create and have in the world (and there are thousands and thousand of them), so do we also create devils, trolls and Santa’s.
It’s all a play of your consciousness, so as long as you believe that there is a power called the devil, then that’s what you will experience.
(Same if you believe in Santa; then that will be your reality for the time being until you wake up/outgrow it).
So in that regard you are creating your own experience of life, but it’s not really ‘you’ who create it (and it’s not your real life), it’s your ego and its life, and when you’ve seen through your ego, you can’t have any beliefs anymore.
It literally becomes impossible.
It’s just not possible to have any beliefs anymore, and it’s not relevant in any way to ever again form any new beliefs again either.
They are completely pointless. You don’t even need “faith”.
To break free from the chains belief-systems create, you need to look closely at the one who believes in these types of things.
It’s not about creating better thoughts and adopt better beliefs and all that, but to see clearly who it is that entertains them and believes in them in the first place.
Then you will become free.
Religious beliefs are very powerful, and to me looking in from the outside, that’s the real ‘devil’.
It’s religion and other spiritual beliefs that is the real evil in this world.
They keep people in bondage and fear more than anything else.
Something that I recall now that I think is helpful for you to hear is an experience I had that happened some years ago.
I don’t remember if I woke up in the middle of the night or if I had just gone to bed but I was laying there and suddenly I was struck with enormous, crippling fear and I saw (with my eyes) a “devil” (a Satan-looking creature) hovering above my body.
I was petrified and frozen with fear, but then I started to say within myself and looking straight in its face that “I’m with Truth now, I’m not afraid, I’m with Truth, there’s no need for me to fear, I’m with Truth” etc.
And as I did this I was instantly overtaken by an immense feeling of inner peace and love and the “devil” lost its power and evaporated/vanished into the air.
I have also had an Angel come to me and embrace me when I was fifteen and was going through some tough times (I had been raped and was cutting myself etc).
It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life being held by this angelic creature and I have never felt such love, ever, not before nor after the experience.
It was divine, out of this world.
Now, after my awakening, I see clearly how these things were created by consciousness/Life itself, that they are but aspects of ourselves.
This does not diminish the experiential aspect of it, it felt as ‘real’ as anything else in this life and I cherish the Angel meeting, but I also know that had I lived in India for example, some other ‘creature’ would have appeared instead of a devil or angel.
It depends on your cultural influence, social influence, upbringing, etc etc etc.
So for you to believe in casting out demons and so on; it’s only true for you and those alike you (who share your religious beliefs) but once you become free from them, you’re liberated and can experience life as a free being.
Look very deeply into the beliefs you hold and start dissecting them one by one without shying away when a fear comes up when you look at a specific belief.
For example;
What if you didn’t “resist and fight” as you’ve been taught to respond and react?
Would you be willing to explore how that would be and what would happen (even if your fear/ego screams at you to not go there)?
Or will you continue believing that you have to “resist and fight” because your beliefs (fear-chains) tells you to do so?
And if you continue, look at what it’s bringing you, what do you get out of it that is beneficial for you and how does it add to your emotional and mental well-being?
Be real with yourself.
How is it adding something valuable to your life experience to live in constant fear of fear itself?
The Bible also says “resist nothing”, but people tend to pick words and phrases here and there that fits into their set of beliefs and that makes their ego feel good and righteous (and in control).
Moving on to your second comment:
We don’t know if Jesus has ever existed and exactly what he said or did so let’s not even discuss that.
What the Bible says Jesus did or said was written by multiple people and not even in his lifetime so it’s all hearsay and rumors that has gone from one mind to another.
To me you are “Christ”, you are the Buddha, and so on, and if Jesus ever lived, he was also a man, just like you are a woman.
In other words, a human being.
There’s nothing more exceptional about him than there is about you.
The only difference there is is that he had awakened, and you’re still asleep.
He might have had the gift of being able to heal, but so have other human beings who are alive today too.
When/if you awaken you too will see that nothing is inherently wrong, but it has nothing to do with beliefs. It’s not something you merely believe.
So when you say that you “know” that illness is not real, that is your ego talking and “knowing”=believing.
A true knowing is not confusing at all, it’s very clear and obvious, so I suggest you look deeply into that belief too.
How do you actually “know” that illness does not exist?
What exactly does that mean?
And if you got cancer for example, would you not ‘accept’ that as a reality and seek medical help to heal it?
It’s very important to be completely honest with yourself when you look into your beliefs and don’t stop until you’ve seen 100% through them.
Even someone that is awakened would get their leg fixed if it broke!
I think that would feel very ‘real’ to any human being (or living being for that matter), wouldn’t you agree?
Healing is healing, call it what you want, label it as you wish.
“Faith healing” sounds good to Christian people, “energy vibration healing” sounds good to new age people and so on.
To me healing is healing whether it’s a doctor, dentist, Reiki healer or massage therapist or a counselor.
They are all healers in their own way and it’s practical to use some kind of labels so that we can communicate what it is that we’re offering, but other than that labels are useless.
Just concepts and ideas that limit and restrict us and put us into boxes.
Even a bartender who listens to someone’s life stories over a drink at the bar is a healer, or a mother who blows on her child’s knee that is bruised, she’s a healer too.
If you remove the label and simply enjoy or use what is available to you, then life become so much simpler and you can benefit from whatever it is without making anything (or anyone) more special than it is.
It’s by thoroughly dissecting everything that stands in the way of your awakening that ultimately will liberate you, and those things are all about the belief you hold.
Ask yourself:
What is the “ultimate reality” to you, what meaning does it have?
Does it only include some beliefs and exclude others?
And why does it only include ‘this’ belief or experience and not ‘that’ (that someone else has or that is undesirable).
These are some of the questions you should ask yourself when you inquire into Truth.
See how the ego is trying to make everything fit nicely into its own little perception on life, even the concept of “ultimate reality” does it try to control and mold to its liking.
I’s a funny little creature, the ego 🙂 Very entertaining to watch sometimes.
Very True..Maria !!
The ego is really a funny little creature..!
Here is a question.. Does ego get purified through meditation or other types of sadhana like chanting etc. and will this doing lead us to awakening ?
Best Regards,
Ganesh
@Ganesh: The one asking that question IS the ego.
I’ve said it to you many times before to look into that but you seem not to have done that so you’re still thinking you are the person on the spiritual path wanting to awaken.
But that’s not who you are, that’s the ego doing all those spiritual things, practices etc.
The ego is the one who tries to purify itself and the ego is the one who wonders if chanting will help reach enlightenment etc.
That’s the ego, but the ego will never ‘reach enlightenment’ or awaken.
This is the only question you need to ask yourself and ‘search’ the answer to (within yourself, not through teachers and books etc!):
“Who am I?”
Who are you, Ganesh?
Another question to ask yourself Ganesh, is “why would I want to purify the ego? What would the purpose of that be?”
See it a little bit like this: Would you try to make the image in the mirror look better or more this or that (“purified”, “spiritual” etc), and what would be the point in doing that..?
It would be like thinking you’re washing your face by splashing water onto the image in the mirror.
You’re looking in the wrong direction.
Turn within, don’t stare at the image in the mirror thinking that that’s you.
That’s not you, it’s a mirage, an illusion.
If there’s still something that is unclear in my pointing then feel free to share your thoughts if you’d like to, and maybe I can then pinpoint even more clearly where the ego is obstructing you from Truth.
But it’s really very simple; look deeply within and forget about making yourself anything at all.
Forget about purifying yourself, chanting etc etc etc. Stop all that.
Because no matter how hard you try, all you’re doing is that you’re going around in circles with your ego and it is leading you further and further away from that which is true and real.
So stop the purifying, chanting, and even reading and listening to things for a while and instead go within and listen to what is being said directly to you from there.
Hi Maria..
Thank u for your kind cooperation.
You know, I realized myself many a times in meditation. at that time, I realized that there is nothing two but only one and that one is ME..!
Then there is tremendous joy.. peace..!
From another perspective.. I feel that the whole universe including my body is within me. There is no duality from me to th surroundings.
But Ohh..
After two or three days later… again the me & you episodes get started and again I think myself as a person.. who is doing this & that..!!
Please help me.. Maria..!!!
Thanks,
Ganesh
What is your question Ganesh?
If you’re wondering how to be able to stay in that ‘state’ forever (as many ask me that same question), the answer would be to just forget about it.
It’s just an experience, and those types of experiences (of bliss, oneness, ecstasy etc) are simply experiences and not the same as “enlightenment” or awakening.
The ego thinks that that must be what it’s like always, but it’s not like that at all, so forget about trying to stay in an experience.
Can you for example have an orgasm that lasts forever and ever? No, because that too is an experience.
Even if the spiritual experiences are beautiful and profound and can alter your perception of life and so on, they are merely experiences and nothing to seek or try to get into and ‘stay in’.
Was this what you needed help with, or what is your question?
Here’s an old article of mine too that can be helpful to you:
https://mariaerving.com/endless-search-for-spiritual-highs-keeps-us-stuck-in-ego
Thanks Maria,
I am satisfied with the answer..!!
Best Regards,
Ganesh
Hello Maria..
I want to share something with you here.
Recently found that, the aloof cool stableness in this body, mind structure is the real ME.
This stableness is not concerned at all with the highs, lows, happiness, fear.. etc.etc. present in this structure.( though sometime flickering fear is there for just nanosecond..because this is all new but still homely place)
Again & again sensing this stableness through this stableness only, realizes that this stableness is the only real.. and unbound from anything out there.
Mind is chattering as usual but this could not affect ME anymore. Aloofness is always there. Don’t know what is going on.. but it provides relief.. relief.. and relief.
For you Maria.. a very big thank you.. and deep gratitude.. for supporting and encouraging always. LOL..!!
Ganesh.
I don’t feel realness in your comment Ganesh. I think your ego is fishing for high fives.
Keep going deeper.
Who sees the “ME”?