Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Emotions are energies that have a clear manifestation in the physical body. Emot
ions are reactions to things that you do not really understand. Consider what ha
ppens when you are overcome by a fit of rage. For instance someone hurts your fe
elings unexpectedly and you feel yourself becoming angry. You can feel this very
clearly in your body; in certain places you feel the energy go tense. This phys
ical tension or tightening that follows the energetic shock shows there is somet
hing you do not understand. There is an energy coming toward you that you feel i
s unjustified. The feeling of being treated unjustly, in short the not-understan
ding, is vented through the emotion. The emotion is the expression of the not-un
derstanding, it is an energetic explosion and a release.
When this happens, you are confronted with the following choice: what am I going
to do with this emotion? Am I going to base my actual behavior on it? Am I goin
g to use this as fuel for my reactions to other people or do I let the emotion b
e and base my actions on something else?
Before answering this question, I want to explain the nature of feelings.
Emotions are essentially explosions of misunderstanding that you can clearly per
ceive in the body. Feelings, on the other hand, are of a different nature and ar
e perceived differently as well. Feelings are more quiet than emotions. They are
the whispers of the soul that reach you through gentle nudges, an inner knowing
ness or a sudden intuitive action that later appears to have been very wise.
Emotions always have something very intense and dramatic to them. Consider anxie
ty attacks, fear, rage or deep sadness. Emotions take hold of you completely and
pull you away from your spiritual center. In the moment you are highly emotiona
l, you are full of a kind of energy that pulls you away from your center, your i
nner clarity. In that sense, emotions are like clouds hovering before the sun.
With this, I do not want to say anything against emotions. Emotions should not b
e repressed; they are very valuable as a means to get to know yourself more inti
mately. But I do want to state what the nature of emotional energy is: it is an
explosion of misunderstanding. Emotions essentially take you out of your center.
Feelings, on the other hand, bring you deeper into yourself, into your center. F
eelings are closely associated with what you call intuition. Feelings express a
higher understanding, a kind of understanding that transcends both the emotions
and the mind.
Feelings originate in a non-physical realm, outside of the body. That is why the
y are not so clearly located within one spot of the physical body. Consider what
happens when you sense something, an atmosphere or a mood, or when you have pre
sentiments about a situation. There is a kind of knowingness within you then tha
t seems to come from the outside and that is not a reaction from you to somethin
g external. It comes out of nothing (out of the blue as you so beautifully put it).
In such a moment, you may feel something open up in your heart chakra.
There are many moments in which such an inner knowingness comes to you. For inst
ance, you may know something about someone without having really talked with him o
r her. You can sense something about the two of you that later on will play an i
mportant role in your relationship. Such things are not easy to grasp in words si
mply a feeling - and certainly not easily understood by the mind. (These are the
moments in which your mind gets skeptical, telling you that you are making thing
s up or are going crazy).
I would like to mention another energy that has more of a feeling nature than an e
motional one. It is joy. Joy can be a phenomenon that transcends the emotional.
Sometimes you can feel a kind of joy inside that lifts you up without a particul
ar reason. You feel the divinity inside you and your intimate connection to all
that exists. Such a feeling may come to you when you least expect it. It is as i
f Something Greater touches you or as if you touch a Greater Reality. Feelings a
re not so easily summoned and seem to come to you out of the blue. Emotions almost
always have a clear immediate cause: a trigger in the outside world that pushes
your buttons.
Feelings originate from the dimension of your Higher or Greater Self. You need t
o be quiet inside to catch those whispers in your heart. Emotions can disturb th
is inner silence and peace. Therefore it is vital to become emotionally calm and
to heal and release repressed emotions. Only from your feeling which connects y
ou to your soul can you make balanced decisions.
By
or
ns
in
being quiet and peaceful, you can feel with all of your being what is right f
you at a certain moment. Making decisions based on emotions is making decisio
from a non-centered position. You need to release the emotions first and get
touch with your inner core where there is clarity.
Now I want to go into the question of how you can best deal with your emotions.
I said that feelings are your teachers and emotions are your children. The paralle
ls between being emotional and being like a child are striking. Your inner child is th
e seat of your emotions. Also there is a striking resemblance between the way yo
u deal with your own emotions and the way you deal with real children.
Children are honest and spontaneous in their emotions and they do not hide or re
press them until adults encourage them to do so. The fact that children spontane
ously express their emotions does not however mean that children experience thei
r emotions in a balanced way. Everyone knows that children can be carried away b
y their emotions (rage, fear or sadness) and are often unable to put a stop to t
hem. In such a situation, the child can almost drown in their emotions and that
makes them unbalanced, i.e. out-of-center.
One of the reasons for this unbounded emotionality is that the child has only re
cently left a world in which there are hardly any boundaries. In the ethereal or
astral dimensions, there were no such restrictions and limitations as there are
in the physical realm, within the physical body. The childs emotions are often re
actions of misunderstanding to this physical reality. Therefore when he or she gr
ows up, the child needs help and support in dealing with their emotions. This is
part of the process of balanced incarnating on earth.
So how do you deal with emotions, whether in yourself or in your children?
Emotions should not be judged or repressed. Emotions are a vital part of you as
a human being and as such they need to be respected and accepted. You can look u
pon your emotions as your children who need your attention and respect and your
guidance.
An emotion can best be viewed as an energy that comes to you for healing. Theref
ore it is important to not be completely swept away by the emotion, but to remai
n able to look at it from a neutral stance. It is important to stay conscious. O
ne might put it like this; you should not repress an emotion, but you should not
drown in it either. For when you drown in it, when you identify with it complet
ely, the child in you becomes a tyrant that will lead you astray.
The most important thing you can do with an emotion is to allow it in, to feel a
ll aspects of it while not losing your consciousness. Take for instance anger. Y
ou can invite anger to be fully present, experiencing it in your body at several
places, while you are at the same time neutrally observing it. Such a type of c
onsciousness is healing. What happens in this instance is that you embrace the e
g. You chose anger this time, didnt you? Compassion tells you: Okay, I can see why a
nd I forgive you. Perhaps when you feel my love and support more clearly you wil
l not feel inclined to take that response next time.
This is the true role of consciousness in self-healing. This is what spiritual a
lchemy means. Consciousness does not fight or reject anything; it encircles dark
ness with awareness. It encircles the energies of misunderstanding with understa
nding and thus transforms ordinary metal into gold. Consciousness and love are e
ssentially the same. Being conscious means letting something be and surrounding
it with your love and compassion.
Often you think that consciousness alone is not enough to overcome your emotional
problems. You say: I know I have repressed emotions, I know the cause of it, I a
m aware but it does not go away.
In that case, there is a subtle resistance within you to that emotion. You keep
the emotion at a distance, from fear of being overwhelmed by it. But you are nev
er overwhelmed by an emotion when you consciously choose to allow it.
As long as you keep the emotion at a distance, you are at war with it. You are f
ighting the emotion and it will turn against you in several ways. You cannot kee
p it outside in the end. It will manifest itself in your body as an ache or tens
ion or as a feeling of depression. Feeling down or weary frequently is a clear s
ign that you are repressing certain emotions.
The thing is that you need to allow the emotions to fully enter your consciousne
ss. If you do not know exactly what emotions are there, you can very well start
by feeling the tensions in your body. This is a gateway to the emotions. In your
body it is all stored. For instance, if you feel pain or tension in the area of
your stomach, you can go there with your awareness and ask what is the matter.
Let the cells of your body speak to you. Or imagine that right there, a child is
present. Ask the child to show you what emotion is predominant in him or her.
There are several ways to connect with your emotions. It is vital to realize tha
t the energy that got stuck in the emotion wants to move. This energy wants to b
e released and therefore it knocks at your door as a physical complaint or as a
feeling of stress or depression. For you it is a matter of really opening up and
being prepared to feel the emotion.
Emotions are part of your earthly reality but they should not get a hold over yo
u. Emotions are like clouds for the sun. Therefore it is so important to be awar
e of your emotions and to deal with them consciously. From a clear and balanced
emotional body, it is much easier to contact your soul or inner core through you
r intuition.
In your society, there is much confusion about emotions. This is evident, among
other things, from the amount of debate and confusion there is about how to rais
e your children. Children clearly are much more emotionally spontaneous than you
are as adults. This creates difficulties. What if some of your moral boundaries
are crossed? What if the situation gets out of hand and chaos arises? Does one
have to discipline children or let them express themselves freely? Do their emot
ions have to be controlled or not?
What is important in a childs upbringing is that they learn to understand their e
motions, to understand where they come from and to take responsibility for them.
With your help, the child can learn to see their emotions as explosions of misun
derstanding. This understanding prevents your child from drowning in their emotions
and going out of control. Understanding liberates and brings you back to your o
wn center without repressing the emotions. The parent teaches their child to dea
l with emotions in this way by being the living example of it.
All the questions you have about dealing with your children also apply to yourse
lf. How do you cope with your own emotions? Are you hard on yourself? When you f
eel angry or sad for some time, do you discipline yourself by saying: Come on, ge
t yourself together and move on? Do you suppress the emotion? Do you feel that di
sciplining yourself is good and necessary? Who taught you this? Was it a parent?
Or do you go to the other side? Do you wallow in your emotion, not wanting to le
t go of it. This also is frequently the case. You may have felt for a long time
that you were a victim of some situation outside of you, for example your upbrin
ging, your partner or your work environment. At a certain moment, it may have be
en very liberating to get in touch with the anger inside you about the negative
things that influenced you. Anger can enable you to break free from these influe
nces and go your own way. However you may get so enamored with your anger that y
ou do not want to give it up anymore. Instead of becoming a doorway, it becomes
a way of living. A form of victimhood then arises which is anything but healing.
It holds you back from truly standing in your own power.
It is very important to take responsibility for your own emotions and not to mak
e absolute truths of them. When you give them the status of truths, instead of l
ooking upon them as explosions of misunderstanding, you will base your actions on
them and that will lead to uncentered decisions.
The same happens with children who are allowed too much emotional freedom. They
run wild and become uncontrollable; they become little tyrants and that is not r
ight. Emotional chaos is just as unpleasant for the child as it is for the paren
t.
In short you can either be too strict or too lenient in dealing with your emotio
ns (and, by analogy, with your children). I want to go a little more into the len
ient way, for that seems to be more of an issue nowadays. Since the sixties there
has been a collective realization that it will not do to suppress your emotions
, for then you are stifling your spontaneity and creativity, indeed your very so
ul. Society will produce disciplined and obedient children who care more for rul
es than the whispers of the heart and that is a tragedy for society as well as t
he individual.
But what about that other extreme: what about justifying emotions in such a way
that they take over and rule your life?
You can very well observe inside you whether there are emotions that you cherish
in such a way that you regard them as truth instead of what they really are: ex
plosions of misunderstanding. These are emotions you have identified with. The p
aradox is that often enough, these are emotions that cause you much suffering. F
or instance: powerlessness (I cannot help it), control (Ill handle it), anger (its the
r fault) or grief (life is miserable). These are all emotions that are painful but
yet, on another level, they give you something special to hold on to.
Take powerlessness or the victim feeling. There can be advantages to this emotiona
l pattern. It may give you a sense of safety. It releases you from certain oblig
ations or responsibilities. I cant help it, can I? It is a dark corner youre sitting
in but it seems a safe one. The danger of identifying or merging with such an emo
tional pattern for a long time is that you lose touch with your own true freedom
, your innermost divine core.
Things may have entered your life path that have justifiably provoked emotions o
f anger and resentment within you. This may have happened in your youth, later o
n or even in past lives. It is very important that you get in touch with these e
motions consciously and that you become aware of the anger, sadness or any other
intensely charged energy within you. But at a certain point, you need to take r
esponsibility for your emotions, for they constitute your reactions to an outsid
e event.
Being centered, being in a state of clarity and spiritual balance, means that yo
u take full responsibility for all the emotions that are in you. You can then re
cognize the emotion of, for instance, anger within you and say at the same time:
this was my reaction to certain events. I surround this reaction with understan
ding, but at the same time I intend to release it.
Life is ultimately not about being right; it is about being free and whole. It i
s very liberating to release old emotional responses that have grown into a life
style.
One might say that it is all about the subtle middle road between suppressing em
otions and drowning in them. On both sides, you have been raised with opinions a
nd ideals that are not in accordance with the nature of spiritual alchemy. The e
ssence of spiritual growth is that you do not suppress anything, but at the same
time you take full responsibility for it. I feel this, I choose this reaction,
so I can heal it. Claiming your mastership that is what my message is about trul
y.
Perhaps it is not really a middle road, but a different road. It is all about sp
iritual mastership. In accepting all there is within you, you rise above it and
become its master. Mastership is both strong and gentle. It is very allowing and
yet it takes great discipline: the discipline of courage and honesty.
Claim your mastership, become the master of the emotional bits and pieces that t
orment you, often behind your back. Get in touch with them, take responsibility.
Dont let yourself be driven by unconscious emotional hurts that sidetrack you an
d block your road to inner freedom. It is your consciousness that heals. No one
else can restore the power over your own emotions for you. There are no external
instruments or means to take away those emotions. It is in becoming aware of th
em with strength, determination and compassion that they are released into the L
ight.
Becoming whole and free on the emotional level is one of the most important aspe
cts of growing spiritually. I want to finish by saying: do not make it more diff
icult than it is. The spiritual path is a simple path. It is about love for your
self and inner clarity. It does not require any specific knowledge or any specif
ic rituals, rules or methods. All things you need for your spiritual growth are
within you.
At a quiet moment, go
ell you what needs to
. Work on it. Believe
f your unique path to