The Gifts Within Emotional Responsibility
Many of us have participated in emotional cleansing procedures in the past and not attained the results we hoped for. Our grief, anger, and fear appear endless. consequently, we may have begun wondering if we are doing something incorrectly. One of the reasons for our lack of success may be because we have entered emotional cleansing reactively without realizing that all reactive behavior accomplishes is further imbalance. This discussion is intended to transform our approach to emotional cleansing into one that consciously restores balance rather than one that unconsciously adds to our present discomfort.
It is inevitable that we all enter emotional cleansing reactively. This is because we are driven into it by discomfort. It is unlikely that anyone experiencing comfort is inspired to cleanse their emotional body. The Catch 22 is that all reactive behavior automatically births imbalance, so initially, emotional cleansing may cause us to feel more uncomfortable. And, if we keep reacting to the imbalances in our emotional body all we achieve is throwing fuel on the fire.
We cannot approach our fears because we are "afraid" of what will happen if we don’t, and expect to move beyond fear.
We approach our anger because we are annoyed with our continual loss of temper, and expect to move beyond anger.
We approach our grief because we are exhausted by our endless tears, and expect to move beyond grief.
Another way approaching our grief, anger, and fear reactively, which is also to say we are approaching it unconsciously, is when we do so propped up by the presence of others. For example, if we attempt to deal with our imbalanced emotions because we are afraid of losing our companion or because we are afraid it will cause us to get fired at work. Such approaches, while being noble, are also reactive and will not enable us to accomplish emotional cleansing that is lasting. Even if we do accomplish a change in our behavior through such motivation, the reality is that if we remove the outer stimulus from our environment that motivated us into emotional cleansing, such as our companion or the threat of a dismissal at work, we will invariably return to our emotionally imbalanced behavior.
All behavioral adjustments achieved through reaction are outwardly stimulated.
To be permanent, behavioral adjustments must be inwardly driven.
Another example of this outwardly stimulated approach is doing "group emotional release work". This is when we rely on a group to facilitate, support, and encourage our emotional cleansing. We cannot make any real and lasting progress if we require the presence of a group to accomplish our task. It is a start, but when it comes to authentically making those internal adjustments, it is a prop. When we exhibit emotional release in front of a group we always playing into the grasping arms of our unconscious "needs and wants"; we are putting on a performance and using our drama to subtly get attention from others – attention we are not yet emotionally mature enough to give ourselves. Emotional release work is about growing up emotionally, about becoming the support we have been seeking from others, and this cannot authentically be accomplished if we require the presence of others during our emotional release experiences.
Doing anything motivated by the presence of others is reactive.
Another reason why our emotional release work may have been impotent is because of our insistence "to understand" the intricate nature of the emotional imbalance we are experiencing. If we have to understand what is happening to us, and why, in order to allow the emotional release process to unfold, then we have not truly entered the emotional realm; we are not yet touching the heart of the matter. Clinging to "understanding" means we are still hovering in the mental plane.
"Crying alone for no reason at all" is the frequency that frees us of our negative emotional charge most efficiently. It is the signal we have departed the mental realm and fully immersed our awareness into our emotional body.
The moment we integrate that "the only outcome of reactive behavior is more discomfort" we are ready to consider another approach to our heart.
Our challenge therefore is how to enter emotional cleansing responsively and not reactively. In other words, how do we activate the frequency of authentic emotional responsibility? The answer to this question is accessed in us being able to perceive "the bigger picture". Perceiving the bigger picture requires elevating our awareness from its entanglement with the fear, anger, and grief that is stalking us and instead placing it upon the Dharma by unearthing the higher purpose of this all; the divine deliberateness of this particular leg of our eternal journey. This is what we are intending to accomplish within this discussion, and this task necessitates us backtracking for a moment and wielding hindsight as a means to awaken foresight through insight.
THE PRESENCE PROCESS introduces us to two perceptual tools called "The Pathway of Awareness" and "The Seven Year Cycle". The intent of the book in bringing these perceptual tools to our awareness is to reveal to us the deliberateness of our entry into our present human experience.
The Pathway of Awareness reveals that our awareness deliberately and systematically moves from the vibrational (womb) into the emotional (childhood) into the mental (teenage) and then into the physical (adult) experience, in that specific order.
The Seven Year Cycle reveals how this deliberate sequence of entry is necessary to develop our capacity to interact with these different attributes of our experience.
These two perceptual tools also assist us to integrate why the emotional content is the causal point of the quality of our life experience, and why it is therefore this aspect of our experience (the heart) that must be brought into balance if we seek to overcome our perception of discomfort. In other words, peace is not a physical circumstance, nor is it a mental concept; authentic peace is a state of being that when embraced emotionally, when felt, is then radiated into our mental state and physical circumstance.
What The Pathway of Awareness also brings to our attention is that when we seek to regain full consciousness - to extract our awareness from a time-based paradigm and to re-awaken to a fullness of our authentic immortal Presence while journeying through this mortal life experience - that there is a specific and very deliberate journey we must take: we must reverse the Pathway of Awareness we used to enter into our experience of this life. In other words, we must first attain physical presence, then mental clarity, and then emotional balance. Only when this is accomplished do we reawaken to our authentic vibrational identity. If we skip any of these steps along the way we at some point have to return and complete them.
The intent of this deliberate evolutionary journey that awakens us to into full consciousness is evident within all meditation practices:
We are first taught to adopt a physical posture and to sit still.
We are then given a mental mantra to calm and focus our thought processes.
We are then encouraged to invite in the experience of "love and devotion" through which we are to penetrate the "spiritual" or vibrational realm.
Again we see the movement of our awareness from physical to mental to emotional in order to enter the vibrational. (In THE PRESENCE PROCESS we use the world "vibrational" instead of spiritual.)
The problem is that many of us, because of the intensity of our suppressed emotional discomfort, attempt to take a short-cut: we attempt to enter the vibrational realm directly without systematically and deliberately addressing each step of the required journey. Our "taking a short cut to God" invariably manifests as a camouflaged attempt to run away from the life experience in which we have been placed; we turn our backs on the importance and significance of our ordinary day-to-day life and instead seek out "a spiritual experience" that will somehow save us from the daily discomfort we are experiencing. We often disguise this reactive behavior as a quest to "expand our consciousness", or to "fulfill our destiny", or to "know God".
Yet no matter how we camouflage it, our seeking of "a spiritual experience" outside the life we are already experiencing can only be a reaction, not a response. It is a reaction to deeply suppressed inner discomfort that we are trying to escape. Because we belief the discomfort is being caused by something "out there" we think that by changing something "out there", like becoming "a spiritual devotee", will help.
If there was no inner discomfort we would have absolutely no inclination to "get off the couch" and actively seek answers or salvation outside of our ordinary day-to-day life experience.
It is in reaction to our inner discomfort that we join spiritual paths and religious movements that promise to "deliver us from the suffering of this world". Consequently, we end up following masters and groups that promise to deliver us to heaven, or some paradise, or to God. We are told that once we arrive at this future place of refuge, which will require some form of practice (for many years and even lifetimes) there will be no more suffering. "Following" in this light is reactive. There is nothing responsible about it. Following another or others leads us away from ourselves. We give our power away to an idea, to a person outside ourselves, to an organization, and to a state of doing that is time-based.
Spiritual paths and religions that promise to save us from our past and present suffering by guaranteeing a perfect future rob us of the present moment.
These organizations and individuals steal our lives from right under our noses. Any behavior that requires "a savior" or "a heaven" to accomplish its agenda is reactive because it causes us to approach God as a means of escape.
God is not an escape route.
God is everywhere. What do we think we are escaping from and where do we think we are escaping to? Do we really think we are going to accomplish anything of substance by approaching our Source reactively? All reactive behavior, without exception, births imbalance.
When we are behaving unconsciously and therefore reactively we misinterpret the word "follow". Then we literally believe that to accomplish something spiritually we have to leave where we are and move to where someone else is. And if they relocate, we have to as well. There are indeed Masters upon this earth here to initiate us into the vibrational mysteries of our own identity. However, when they say, "Follow me", they mean, "let my physical presence upon this earth be an outer reflection of your inner potential so that you have an awareness of how to navigate yourself into the accomplishment of Self and hence God Realization". However, the emphasis is on "navigate yourself". They do not mean "drop what you are doing and come over here", or "dress in white and give yourself an Indian name". When an authentic Master uses the word "follow" they are always referring to an inner adjustment not outer movement. Masters that require a literal following - a group to move about with them wherever they go - are to be avoided at all costs. No authentic Master "needs" or "wants" followers. A Master does not require a single follower to be a Master. Potentially, we are all Masters. In this light, who is supposed to follow whom?
All outer activity initiated in the name of "being spiritual" is unconscious reaction to inner emotional discomfort.
So this is what many of us have unconsciously done: We have approached the vibrational realm as a reaction to the discomfort we are experiencing in our hearts right now. The moment we can admit this to ourselves we are free of the hold all false prophets have on us.
This reactive approach - of attempting to take a short cut into the vibrational - is also evident in many New Age organizations. It is revealed in the way they identify themselves as "Body, Mind & Spirit" movements. The word "heart" is left out. This may not be done consciously, but it is indicative of how we ignorantly attempt to storm the vibrational when we are not yet consciously aware of the systematic and deliberate entry into it along The Pathway of Awareness.
We cannot go around our heart and expect to experientially encounter what God is for us. God is love and the heart is the causal point of experiencing all love while we are incarnated in the physical, mental, and emotional realm.
God is only known through the heart.
In many scriptural texts it is explained very clearly that "suffering is the key to liberation". Our religions and emotionally unintegrated masters have misread and therefore misrepresented these texts and used them to get us to do all manner of ridiculous rites, rituals, and dogmas that only serve to add more suffering to our experience. This is because the proponents of these religious systems and spiritual paths have themselves not integrated their own hearts. Being mentally and physically transfixed they approach the scriptures literally. All scriptures are metaphoric, and all metaphors speak with the tongue of the heart. To hear the real messages of the scriptures and to be able to drink in their truths we have to experientially enter and integrate the condition of our own hearts. When these texts speak of "suffering as the key to liberation", they do not mean "add suffering to your life experience to know God". This is ridiculous.
We do not have to add suffering to our life experience to liberate ourselves from our unconsciousness; we have to face the suffering that is already within our hearts.
In this light, our present fear, anger, and grief have great purpose. These energetic circumstances are our gifts. Comprehending this higher purpose within our present discomforts transforms our reactivity to response and consequently our imbalance to balance. So let us unwrap this perceptual shift…
When we are children our emotional body functions perfectly, but as we approach the age of seven it begins to shut down so that we can commence a period of focused mental body development. When our emotional body shuts down we practically lose all our emotional body awareness. In other words, we no longer function from "felt-perception". Felt-perception means we are able to "feel the consequences of our thoughts, words, and deeds before we even put them into play". Felt-perception may also be called "the conscience of consequence". As adults we do not have felt-perception. This is deliberate.
If we had felt-perception we would not have entered half the experiences we have and our world would be the poorer for it. We have had to be unconscious to have initiated and participated in most of the activities that have brought us to this moment of awakening.
Because we do not operate from felt-perception we are able to speak, act, and think in a manner we would otherwise avoid. We require this level of emotional numbness so that we can experientially enter the darkened pathways into which we have come to bring light.
However, there comes a point in our evolution when we are to awaken from our unconscious, reactive behavior. We are to awaken so that we can draw off these unconscious experiences and use them as a palette of colors to assist us to paint this world with the level of compassion that can only be born of the humility of personal experience. Part of our awakening experience is that we must reconnect with the authentic Presence that we are so that we can function from this perfectly alert state. We are to "be in the world but not of it"; to stand with our feet firmly on the ground but with our hearts consciously embracing the vibrational. As the Pathway of Awareness reveals, this requires that we first consciously reenter our physical body, then regain our mental clarity, then embark on the challenge of awakening the potential of our emotional body by unblocking all the unconscious dysfunctional energetic patterns that fuel our reactive behavior. These dysfunctional emotional patterns are what we call our fear, anger, and grief.
Restoring emotional balance requires feeling these energetic conditions – that’s all – "FEELING". To accomplish this we first anchor our fragmented awareness by entering the body and by feeling the many physical sensations inherent within it that we have been trying to avoid through sedation and control. Consciously feeling the various physical sensations within our body automatically awakens our ability "to feel" and thus serves as a portal for re-awakening emotional body awareness. This is why physical presence must be activated first. In THE PRESENCE PROCESS physical presence is initiated through the daily practice of consciously connected breathing.
Once physical presence is activated mental clarity must be regained. The state of mental clarity is three-fold:
Firstly, it is the realization that we are responsible for the quality of our own life experiences.
Secondly, it is the realization that the emotional body is the causal point of the quality of our life experiences.
Thirdly, it is the realization that only by bringing the causal point of our experience into balance do we authentically manifest balance within our thought processes and outer physical circumstances.
Once we attain this level of mental clarity we are ready to stop thinking and surrender completely to feeling. This point, at which we surrender to our feelings, is a pivotal part of the journey. Only by surrendering to our authentic emotional state do we reawaken our emotional body awareness. Only by "feeling the authentic state of our emotional body" do we reawaken felt-perception.
Emotional cleansing is therefore not about "getting over our stuff so that we can get on with something else". This is the reactive approach with which most of us initially enter this work – the same approach that leads us to believe we are getting nowhere and by all accounts appear to be making matters worse. Emotional cleansing is about "activating a state of being in the world in which we are functioning from the heart as the causal point that motivates all our thoughts, words, and deeds".
When we are able to function from felt-perception we need no law. Where there is love there is no law. When we can feel the consequences of our thoughts, words, and deeds before we put them into play, we do not entertain hurtful, reactive behavior. Then we function from a point of authentic love and respect for all life. No one has to tell us how to carry ourselves through our experience of this world; our heart accomplishes this guidance automatically. Awakening felt-perception automatically transforms us into human beings that are compassionate, loving, respectful, and full of conscious care.
However, this is not the only fruit of felt-perception; felt-perception also activates authentic joy. Until we become open to feeling our own fear, anger, and grief, we cannot possibly know what joy is. Until we are able to embrace our own inner discomfort we mistakenly believe that joy is an emotional state that is opposite to our state of discomfort. We mistakenly believe that joy is "an emotional state in which we feel happy". To think that joy is an emotion, especially "a happy one", is incorrect.
Joy is not about feeling good; it is about feeling everything.
Joy is allowing all feelings to enter our awareness without censoring some and favoring others. Joy is not happiness and nor is it an emotion; joy is "a conscious relationship we have with our emotional body". We are therefore only able to enter authentic joy when we bring our reactive relationship with our emotional body to an end.
Our willingness to responsively enter into an awareness of our own suppressed fear, anger, and grief is therefore a pivotal part of the journey. By allowing ourselves to feel our fear, anger, and grief we are awakening our ability to feel again - to feel deeply. This ability enables us to feel what life really is. Life is not a thought, a concept, or an idea. Nor is life a physical circumstance. Life at its very core is a feeling.
Unless we "feel" alive we are dead.
Boredom is a dead person’s symptom. Unless our hearts are open to the energies-in-motion that flow within and all around us, we are not alive – we do not yet know what life even is. We therefore search for it mentally through "understanding" or physically through our endless "doings" and accumulation of stuff. The Catch 22 is: We cannot know the feeling of being alive while we are unconsciously running away from the discomfort in our hearts.
We cannot know what life is when we are escaping the moment we are in by mistakenly believing that there is somebody or somewhere else that will save us from this world.
However, once we allow ourselves to let all feelings in, a process that initially begins with being willing to consciously face our suppressed fear, anger, and grief, we reawaken felt-perception. Through the experience of felt-perception all sorts of insights awaken within us like a sunrise that delivers us from a long, dark night. Once we stop running from our inner discomfort and instead respond to it as a means to teach us how to feel, the heavenly experience we have been longing for appears right within, in front, and all around of us. This is a glorious discovery: Everything we are looking for is right in front of our noses. This realization enables our awareness to settle into this moment. Then we see with awe that the life experience that once bored us is actually the profound spiritual experience we have been seeking.
It is only when we embrace all feelings equally as direct vibrational communications from God that we can begin to recognize what our life experience truly is: a gift from God that enables us to have an intimate relationship with whatever God is for us. It is "feeling", not thinking or any physical doing, which enables us to interact directly with the vibrational realm. Vibration has to be felt to be known. Whatever God is to us has to be felt to be known.
When we attempt to enter "a spiritual experience" by going around or over the heart, we are depriving ourselves of the means to awaken to the vocabulary required to have direct communication with the vibrational. Then we can meditate for 1000 years and still have not have an experience that is real and therefore lasting. Then we think joy is happiness and keep running after one emotional condition by trying to escape another. Such reactive behavior causes deep inner conflict within our own hearts. We then call what we run away from "the devil" and what we run towards "our savior". We then radiate this conflict outwardly as a world at war with itself.
We cannot approach the vibrational as a reaction to our life experience and expect to accomplish anything real or lasting. Vibrational awareness is not an escape route; it is an organic blossoming of our human journey, a journey that honors the Pathway of Awareness.
If a parent gives their son or daughter a sum of money, and the child reactively pushes it aside and instead asks for something else, it is unlikely that the parent will give that child more money. It will continue to take care of that child, if the child’s reactive behavior permits even this, but no more money will be given because the gift cannot yet be appreciated. However, if the parent gives the child money and the child increases it, the parent will gladly give more as it knows that the value of the gift has been appreciated. In fact, the parent will one day give that child everything it owns knowing well that it will all be increased through appreciation.
"Appreciation" is a double-edged word. It means "to be grateful for", but it also has another frequency to it. When we have stocks and shares and they appreciate, it means they increase in value; they become more. When we appreciate anything we are "making it more through our gratitude for it". Our life experience is a gift given to us by our vibrational parent. Do we appreciate it? When we push it aside and instead search for another experience to save us from this one, we are reacting to the gift given to us by our vibrational parent. We are showing a lack of maturity. We are being childish.
The gift of life is to be consciously unwrapped, to be appreciated. this is only accomplished when we commit to feeling it fully, in all its complexities, within our own beautiful hearts.
It does not help us to run from the life experience we are in now into "a spiritual path" or a religious organization that promises to deliver us from our suffering. It does not help us to follow anyone who promises such things. This is a trap and an illusion. It will only cause us to enter inauthenticity, to weaken our integrity, and to deprive us of experiencing intimacy with our vibrational essence. Such inauthentic, reactive behavior causes us to do silly things like wearing "spiritually appropriate clothing", adopting strange rituals, and giving ourselves fancy Indian names when the closest we are to being Indian is the curry we eat. Such reactive behavior, no matter how blatant or subtle, no matter how we disguise it with our gestures of "holiness", is always an attempt to escape the discomfort in our own hearts.
Do we honestly believe another can save us when only we can feel the condition of our own hearts? Others can do physical things on our behalf, like mailing a letter for us. Others can also do mental activities on our behalf, like standing up and speaking for us in a court of law. Yet no one can feel for us. "Feeling" is our Soul responsibility. Because no one can feel for us, no one can heal for us. Only our willingness to respond to the uncomfortable condition within our own hearts restores balance to the causal point of our experience and thus enables this experience of inner balance to be radiated into our thoughts and physical circumstances. Only by accomplishing this inner balance first do we enter the relationship with our emotional body that is "authentically joyful".
Joy means we are allowing ourselves to feel everything. In this state of surrender we develop the profound vocabulary called felt-perception that enables us to interact consciously with the vibrational realm. This we can only accomplish in the center of the life experience we are in now. Knowing this is the metaphoric entry into the experience called "crucifixion":
When we truly realize that nothing we can do but surrender to what we are feeling in each moment assists us in this next step of our awakening, this is like having our hands nailed down. When we realize that there is nowhere to go to restore balance to our own hearts, that we have to surrender to the feelings inherent in this moment, this is like having our feet nailed down. Then our only choice is either to react or to respond. If we choose to react we add to our suffering and this elongates the experience we must invariably go through. When we respond our awakening into present moment awareness unfolds organically at a pace most suited to the beauty of our blossoming.
There is absolutely no necessity to add suffering to our experience as a means to know what God is for us. The quantity and quality of suffering already within our heart is in direct proportion to the amount of feeling we need to experience to fully re-awaken to the vocabulary of felt-perception. When we respond to this inner suffering and see the fruits of such surrender we cannot help but gasp in awe at the profound experience called life in whose center we already stand. Through the healing of our own suffering we automatically appreciate this moment and all the infinite complexity of feelings that weave and spiral within it. This appreciation causes the experience to deepen, and deepen, and deepen eternally. Through the awakening of emotional body awareness, through felt-perception, we are raised up by our own hearts into the intimate embrace of all we have sought. All that we thought was lost is found, right here, right now. We then approach an awareness of our vibrational essence as a response to what we have been given, not as a reaction to it. Then more is given. Then all is given.
Michael Brown ©
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