Negative Emotions As A Direct Path To Freedom & Wisdom

heal your energy intuition manifestation/law of attraction Feb 06, 2023

In this post, I'm sharing a practice that allows you to transmute any negative emotion into more lightness, freedom and wisdom. This has deeply transformed my life and I'm so excited to share it with you.

If you're tired of feeling like you're on an emotional roller coaster, like your mood is dependent on what's going on outside of you, weighed down or held back by negative emotions or are very reactive/avoidant in triggering situations, this is for you.

Negative Emotions Are A Direct Pathway To More Freedom & Wisdom

Every emotion carries with it the seed of freedom and wisdom (intuition, source, etc).

When we repress or react when emotions arise, we stay stuck and miss the freedom and wisdom they can offer us.

When we learn to actually feel and process them, we're able to access the freedom and wisdom on the other side.

When negative emotions aren't fully felt, they can get "trapped" in the body. This emotional and energetic stagnation keep us feeling heavy, stuck in habitual reactions and familiar circumstances.

But this energy isn't stuck permanently. When we become aware of the energetic and emotional body and experience it directly in presence, it transmutes back into free flowing life-force energy.

When our energy and emotions are free flowing, we feel free, in flow and in touch with our intuition, instead of feeling stuck, tense and heavy.

It's not about never having negative emotions again. Our emotions will still ebb and flow. But when we learn to allow and directly experience them, it's like watching a washing machine from the outside versus being inside of it and feeling like we're being tossed all around.

The emotions can naturally and freely come and go without having a "grip" on you, weighing you down or controlling your thinking, actions and life. You become the stable, peaceful presence witnessing them rather than feeling like you are them.

Negative Emotions Aren't "Bad"

They're actually a gift; the mind just has a hard time seeing them that way.

The mind sees a heavy, mysterious box and is like "hell no, there could be a bomb inside, I'm not opening it". It avoids because it's scared to see what's inside.

It's like a kid being scared of a monster under the bed. But once you look under the bed, you realize there's no monster.

When we open the box (go into and feel the emotion), we realize there's no bomb, no big scary monster.

There's actually a gift inside...greater freedom and wisdom.

What Most People Do When Emotions Are Triggered

Most people either:

React: do something you wouldn’t have otherwise done in a calm clear state, take it out on others and expect them to change to change the feelings in you, blame/criticize others, habitual tendencies

Repress: “Fill” the hole, addictions, wine/Netflix/food, productivity/busyness, scrolling instagram, shopping

Reacting and repressing just perpetuate the feelings and situations that keep the feelings going. And, you keep having to carry around this heavy burden of “stuck” emotions that can eventually manifest as sickness, chronic pain, etc.

Every emotion becomes a portal to more freedom and wisdom when you don’t react or repress and instead feel them through in awareness.

What you do from there, will almost always lead to better outcomes because it's coming from freedom and true clarity/inner wisdom rather than emotional reaction.

An Example of How This Plays Out In Life (from The Bachelor)

I was watching The Bachelor the other night and there was one woman who really didn't feel worthy of love and felt like "nobody wants me, I'm not good enough".

She was so desperate for approval and validation (to "fill" those unworthy feelings in her), that she forced a kiss on the bachelor when it clearly wasn't naturally flowing.

She "reacted" to the unworthy feeling emotions inside of her by acting graspy and desperate.

He, of course, pulled away, looked really uncomfortable and ended up sending her home.

Then she gets in the car sobbing, saying things like "nobody wants me, I guess I just need to make myself better, I'm not enough".

And then the spiral continues.

Feel not good enough > react with graspy/desperate actions > perpetuate circumstances that "confirm" she's not good enough > feel not good enough

She could begin breaking this cycle by becoming aware of the feelings inside of her and feeling them instead of reacting in her habitual ways. Eventually, she'd be able to feel whole from within and would no longer feel the urge to grasp or act desperate. She'd be able to act natural and know she's lovable and worthy either way - whether the "choose" her or not.

We can become so free that our alignment is no longer dependent on what's happening outside of us and that's what this process opens up for us. THAT is real freedom.

How To Release Negative Emotions & Transmute Them Into Freedom And Wisdom

1. Awareness

Become aware of when an emotional charge arises. Become aware of the tendency to react, repress or stay stuck in story mode.

2. Shift your attention into the body and feel the feelings inside the body

Stay with the emotion, feel the emotion as best you can without acting it out or repressing. See it clearly, experience it fully. Stay with it before speaking or acting, which usually makes things worse.

This slows down the momentum of your tendencies to react or repress and allows the stuck emotion to transform back into free flowing energy.

As it does, what's most aligned in that moment will become clear to you and since the emotional charge will be gone, it will be easier and more natural to trust and act in alignment with your inner clarity.

Wisdom arises in this space between emotional pain and our habitual reactions.

3. Flow with your intuition from there

See what happens when you stay with the emotion until you can't feel it anymore. See what you feel called to do or say (or not do or say). Let the freedom and clarity that's opened up guide you.

Some questions you can ask yourself to help you tune into your intuition:

What feels like the most clear, natural thing to do now?
What does my intuition feel like doing right now?
What is flowing right now?
What feels aligned now?

How Other Spiritual Teachers Have Described This

Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul (he also wrote a book I LOVE called Surrender Experiment)

"Every single time you relax and release, a piece of the pain leaves forever. Yet every time you resist and close, you're building up pain inside."

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

"Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don't think about it - don't let the feeling turn into thinking. Don't judge or analyze. Don't make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of "the one who observes," the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens.”

David Deida, Dear Lover

"Express spontaneously, practice trusting emotional expression emerging from your heart. Practice offering pleasure, pain and emotions through the openness of your body spontaneously and responsively as soon as they occur, so no residue remains. You can use words to express the flow of energy moving through you but often your heart is most fully expressed through whole-body, non-verbal offerings. Show your hurt through sounds, facial expressions and whole-body gestures."

Pema Chodron, Taking The Leap

"The only way to ease our pain is to experience it fully. Learn to stay. Learn to stay with uneasiness, learn to stay with the tightening, learn to stay with the itch of shenpa, so that the habitual chain reaction doesn’t continue to rule our lives and the patterns that we consider unhelpful don't keep getting stronger."

"When you don't do the habitual thing, you’re bound to feel some pain. I call it the detox period. You’ve been doing the same predictable thing to get away from that uneasy uncomfortable vulnerable feeling for so long and now you’re not. So you’re left with that queasy feeling. This requires some getting used to and some ability to practice patience and kindness. It requires some openness and curiosity to see what happens next. What happens when you don’t fuel the discomfort with storyline? What happens when you abide with this shifting fluid universal energy? What happens if you pause and embrace the natural movement of life?"

"Step one, acknowledge that you’re hooked.

Step two, pause, take 3 conscious breaths, and lean in. Lean into the energy. Abide with it. Experience it fully. Taste it. Touch it. Smell it. Get curious about it. How does it feel in your body? What thoughts does it give brith to? Become very intimate with the itch and urge of shenpa and keep breathing. Part of this step is learning not the be seduced by the momentum of shenpa. Do not speak, do not act and feel the energy. Be one with your own energy, one with the ebb and flow of life. Rather than rejecting the energy, embrace it. This leaning in is very open, curious and intelligent.

Step three, then relax and move on. Go on with your life so that the practice doesn’t become a big deal, an endurance test, a contest that you win or lose."

Want To Learn How To Actually Process and Free Yourself From Your Negative Emotions?

As of now, this is the best way I can describe this process but it's really an experience that's beyond words and the mind. This isn't a process you can use steps to think your way through. It's something you have to feel and experience in the body. These words are just sign posts to the experience but knowing them conceptually won't necessarily give you the experience that happens beyond words and the mind.