Most people are confused about their feelings and often go through life suppressing them. We may watch Television shows or engage in therapy where people will often say, “Now I’m going to talk about my feelings.” When people say things like this they are mostly talking about concepts or their interpretations of situations that are connected to their feelings. This has its importance but it’s different for their actual feelings.
Feelings are much simpler than that. As the word feeling implies, we feel something. For example, suppose it’s night and you’re walking past an alley way and someone suddenly walks out. The person startles you and you feel something. A jolt goes through you. Or you’re experiencing grief or pleasure. You feel something. That’s why we call them feelings and they are part of being human. They are good. The confusion arises when we mix up the feeling with stories and attitudes that are connected with the circumstance that gave rise to it.
This is when people will often journal their feelings and it is good to do this but often where most people make a mistake is they keep the pages of their journal. They then, go back and reread and relive those feelings over and over again. There is no end to it. They keep dancing around the parameter and never get to the root of their feelings. Instead once you journal and get the feelings out burn the pages. Get the feelings out and get rid of them.
It’s perfectly fine to feel your feelings because we’ve chosen to be human in this lifetime and one of the things we are here to do on our journey is to explore those feelings.
Very often when people embark on the path of spiritual development they think it means they’re going to have to give up their feelings and repress them. They think they are going to become a stone Buddha with no feelings. If you read the words of Buddha you can tell he had very strong feelings just as Jesus did, because they were both human. They were both enlightened humans but human just the same.
Anytime you repress your feelings it leads to the manifestation of all types of physical problems. Studies are proving that our feelings are the root cause of most of our illnesses including cancer. We have a desire to distract ourselves from the true feelings that we find unacceptable For example when have a pain somewhere in our body we have learned how to cut off the supply of oxygen to the that part of the body so instead of facing the anger or anxiety we say something like, “I have a pain in my back or my shoulder hurts or my neck hurts.” When we say these things it distracts us.
If you have something that hurts you, like your back, instead of saying, “My back hurts.” Say, “I feel fine” and then ask yourself “What feeling am I not paying attention to?” Just a simple shift in awareness can stop the pain and heal the physical body.
Our mind can manifest all types of physical problems through the body-mind connection. There are some illnesses that are physical in nature but most are not. If the mind can cause so much physical illness all we have to do is stop repressing those feelings and address them to stop most illness.
This is not new or some type of miracle that the mind can heal the body. It goes back to the time when man first appeared on the earth.
When you feel your feelings and connect with the simplicity of those feelings a lot of needless complications in life can be avoided. It is also the quickest pathway to true freedom.
