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The Reality of Expressing Emotions I arrived home after a
long five-hour drive from Vancouver, Canada. It was late and I was tired. I
thought I would quickly check my email before heading to bed for much needed
rest. There was a message from my “good friend” Thomas[1]. Thomas, Andrew and I had been
corresponding for over two years now. I was excited to see what he would have
to say. We wrote to each other about our contemplations having to do with our
spiritual journey and about life in general. Our conversation was lively and
thought provoking. We felt we had developed a real closeness through our
sharing and we called ourselves the CATs for our initials (Christine, Andrew,
Thomas). But in this email, to my surprise, Thomas stated that he was
welcoming in a new member to our group. I was outraged. How dare he? Why had
he not consulted Andrew or me? I felt he had no respect for Andrew and
me. What gave him the right to make such decisions all by himself? The group
would no longer be the same. I felt he no longer found value in the group and
that he was going to destroy it. I was raging mad! Despite the lateness of
the hour and my weariness from driving all day, I just had to write to Thomas
and express the anger and hurt bursting out of me. I told him how I felt
about his taking such an action without first asking Andrew and me. As I
wrote, I poured out all the outrage that I had been holding for so long, into
that email. I was so tired I could hardly see the screen but I felt I needed
to express those feelings. I spent over three
hours composing that email, making sure that I was very exact in telling him
how I felt. When I was finished, I reread it one last time and then was
satisfied. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should sleep on it, but
my Inner Child was jumping up and down with joy to be able to express herself
for a change and she encouraged to me send it that night. When I checked with
my guides, they also said that it was what I needed to tell him. After
only a slight hesitation, I clicked the Send button and then went to bed. I was not prepared for
what I would find as a response in the morning. Thomas wrote me a long and
detailed reply, blasting me, explaining how I was unreasonable, rationalizing
his actions, and tearing apart my words and feelings. He totally invalidated
all my feelings and said that our friendship was over because I had destroyed
it with my email. I was surprised to get such a response from him. I was
shocked that he would think so little of our friendship to be willing to
throw it all away in an instant. It was like a bomb had hit and the
debris was raining down all around me. I sat there in tears, feeling
devastated, trying to figure out what had happened. Thomas, Andrew and I
had met on our search for greater understanding of life’s mysteries. We
read many of the same books. We held many of the same ideas regarding
spirituality. We had attended many of the same workshops and retreats. We all
three seemed to benefit from sharing our thoughts and contemplations on the
great ideas of philosophy and mysticism. Recently, Thomas and Andrew had both
become disenchanted with how their lives were heading. They each told
me that they saw all their friends making lots of money and living carefree
lives with all the luxuries that they dreamed of having and that they felt
had been promised to them if they follow the spiritual path. They had spent
their money on books and workshops. They had spent their vacations in
retreats instead of with their families. Now they felt their time and money
had been wasted. They said they felt that they had nothing to show for it.
Well, they had nothing in the physical, three-dimensional world anyway. Thomas had specifically
told me that he wished to “get back to reality.” By this, he explained, he
meant that he wanted togive up studying spirituality and mysticism and stop
attending workshops, lectures, and retreats on such subjects.He told me that
he wanted to spend his time making money, playing golf, going to concerts,
and interacting with his son and other people. He considered joining a
local church and he offered me his collection of books on spiritual subjects,
most of which I already owned. I understood from his explanations, that
getting back to reality for him meant living in three-dimensional society and
having the physical comforts that money could buy. I, of course, respected
his choice and did all I could to support him in it. But, he constantly
complained how he had been led astray with promises that never manifested. He
blamed the writers of the books he read and the presenters of the workshops
for his lot in life. He said that if he had not been taken in by all
the false promises, that he could have invested his money wisely and saved
his marriage. He also constantly contradicted himself by recounting new
spiritual experiences that he was having and trying to discount and
invalidate them in his explanation of them. It was about this same
time that I first discovered the Nibiruan Council and the fact that I would
become a Galactic Counselor by the contract on my soul blueprint. As I
became more excited in my pursuit of this new work, Thomas began showing his
displeasure by throwing tiny sarcastic remarks my way when we would talk. I
explained to him that I did not expect him to be interested in my new pursuit
just because I was. He said that though he was not interested in it, he
didn’t mind that I was. I decided not to speak of it with him unless he
specifically asked me a question. He never asked me any questions about
the Nibiruan Council but any time I mentioned something that came near that
subject, he made derogatory comments. Up to the time of my
angry email, our friendship had been almost entirely based on the
intellectual discussion of philosophy. We had not expressed many feelings and
those that we had expressed were of course of the brotherly “love and light”
variety. The one time I had dared to be the slightest bit upset towards
Thomas, he had not spoken to me for several weeks. I felt there was
little I could do about the subtle passive-aggressive attacks and sarcastic
remarks about my interest in the Nibiruan Council and my continued spiritual
search, if I wanted to stay friends with him. I stuffed those feelings of
hurt and resentment and told myself that I was just letting his remarks roll
off me like water off a duck’s back. I realize now that I
was trying to go to the higher perspective without first expressing and
releasing the feelings that I had. I was not being honest with myself
about what my feelings were. I felt manipulated, I felt disrespected. I
pretended that everything was open and fine. I felt that it was “silly” to
make a big deal about his little criticisms. Sure they hurt, but not that
much. I was a big girl; I could take it. After all we shared our deepest
feelings and thoughts in our contemplative discussions, although we shared
them in an intellectual way. We knew each other well on many levels, didn’t
we? So, what could we be hiding? Actually, Thomas and I barely knew each
other on an emotional level. We always avoided getting anywhere near that. We
avoided any thing that would bring conflict. We avoided anything that would
give the appearance of being too close. If we could not discuss it and
rationalize it, then we simply ignored it. When Thomas’s email
triggered my anger, I was not only raging at him about the new “member” of
our group, but I was also raging and releasing all of these feelings of hurt
and resentment that I had been stuffing as a result of his sarcastic insults
and other hurts that I had collected over the months. My anger was out of
proportion to the trigger because it was an expression of a lot more than
that trigger. Also, because of the response that I got from Thomas, it seems
to me that I must have also triggered something in him that had also been
stuffed. In writing this, it
becomes clear to me, that neither Thomas nor I had ever been really open and
honest with either each other or with ourselves about what we felt. He felt
or at least expressed, aggression, hostility, resentment, and anger at my
association with the Nibiruan Council. My impression is that he felt the need
to reject his spiritual path and any other spiritual path that was similar to
it. While on the surface, he told me that he thought what I was studying was
interesting, his subtle expression of his hostile emotions showed that he was
not keeping current with himself about his feelings. I was afraid that I
would lose Thomas’s friendship if I expressed my feelings of hurt and anger
towards him. So, I stuffed my hurt and I denied my pain. My Inner Child
was ready to blow them out as soon as the least opportunity presented itself.
The email was too good an opportunity for her to pass up. Besides, as my
guides told me, I really did need to express those feelings. Thomas stated to me
that he wanted to get back to reality. When I think about what reality is in
relation to this story, I see that both Thomas and I were not real about our
feelings. Instead of being open and expressing what we were feeling in the
moment, we tried to hide our feelings from each other and from ourselves,
remaining in our intellect. Reality is not about
living in three-dimensional society as Thomas thought it was. As
children growing up, we learn that it is not ok to express anger or hurt. We
learn to put up a façade. We learn to put on a happy face. We learn not to
express feelings. We learn not to be real. In becoming a galactic
citizen, I am finally learning what it means to be real. I am real when I am
honest with myself about what I feel. I am real when I stay current
with my feelings, no matter what they are, no matter how much they hurt. I am
real when I feel the feelings at the time they arise within me. And
finally, I am real when I express my feeling as I honestly feel them. Expressing anger and
hurt at the appropriate time and place allows them to be expressed in
perspective and in context. If I had been able to tell Thomas that I
felt hurt by his sarcastic remarks, then I would have been honest and real
with him. I could have then also been honest and real about expressing my
anger about the new “CAT” member. I could have expressed that anger in
context and in proportion to the pain I was feeling. I did not tell him that
I felt hurt by his sarcastic remarks because I was afraid I would lose his
friendship. In the end I lost it anyway because my feelings came out skewed
and exaggerated. I can only speculate that if I had told him how I felt at
the moment, that he may have been angry for a little while, but that we might
still be friends. I will never know about Thomas, but subsequent situations
have proven this to be the case. Both Thomas and I are
looking for “reality”. For a long time he was looking for it through his
search for spiritual truth. He felt he did not find it there and so began
searching for it where he sees most people getting their rewards. He is
looking for reality through three-dimensional society in the form of physical
prosperity. I have not heard that he has found it yet nor that he is happy in
his search. I, myself, am looking
for emotional reality, which I believe is the true reality. I have found it.
By being honest in a consistent way with myself about what I am feeling, I am
able to stay in my integrity and express myself in an appropriate manner.
Yes, I sometimes have conflict with others. But I know that it is ok and that
we can work it out because we will be working on the current issue and not on
a lot of old forgotten, stuffed issues. Now that I am getting
connected to my feelings and to my heart, the next step will be that my heart
will become connected to the planet. Of course, what follows when the guides
know my heart-connected address, is that they will start delivering that
three-dimensional wealth for which I have been wishing and for which Thomas
is also seeking. In closing, I want to
thank Andrew and in particular I want to thank Thomas for all the wonderful
lessons, which they have unwittingly taught me, this being only one of many.
In the past I have not found it easy to express what I was feeling when I
felt it. Their inability to know what I was feeling and their unwillingness
to let me express what I was feeling, was a great challenge to me to make
sure that I could express what I needed to when I needed to express it. They
showed me what happens when I stuff my feelings and what happens with those
stuffed feelings when I am triggered. They most generously allowed me to rage
at them in that fateful email and I am grateful for that. I have learned that
expressing my feelings honestly and currently is the most real part of
reality. It is what brings real emotional satisfaction. I hope that next time
you are tempted to stuff your feeling, or hide them from yourself, even the
tiniest of them, that you will remember the real meaning of reality. The
moral of the story is, if you want to find reality, look at what and how you
are feeling. With Compassion About the Author: [1] The names have been changed to protect the privacy of
the persons in the story. |
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