Dealing with Feelings

Picture this:

You’re on your way to work, jamming out to your favorite radio station, when suddenly a song comes on that brings up a not-so-nice memory.

Maybe it’s a time you embarrassed yourself. Or it reminds you of a painful breakup.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t feel good.

So you cringe, push down the uncomfortable feelings the memory evokes, change the station, and go about your day.

Now ask yourself something.

The next time that song comes on, what’ll happen? Will the memory be gone? Will the bad feelings have disappeared?

Or will the same exact thing happen every time you hear that particular song?

I would guess the latter.

And keep in mind it doesn’t have to be a song. It could be any thought or memory that randomly pops in your head at any given time and makes you feel bad.

The common denominators are the guilty, shameful, uncomfortable feelings and your reaction to them.

You may be thinking “Okay so what’s your point? Of course I don’t want to feel like shit, of course I try to not think about my painful and uncomfortable memories when they come up.”

But this is exactly what you should be doing.

Huh?

Think about it. If you’re pushing bad feelings down, they’re not going anywhere. They’re still swirling around somewhere inside you. And they will rear their ugly heads again and again, until you start dealing with them.

So how do you do that?

My Personal Technique:

Identify the feeling. Sounds simple but just putting a name to the negative feeling is the starting point to figuring out how to deal with it. Is it anger, fear, sadness, stress, worry, shame, guilt, foolishness?

Notice where you feel it. For instance I feel stress in my neck, shoulders, and upper back, anger in my stomach, fear in my heart.

Let the feelings do their thing. Feel whatever pain you feel. Let the memory and emotions wash over you. Focus on the spot in your body where the negative feelings are taking over.

Visualize the pain melting away. Create some sort of visual aid to release negative emotions. I personally imagine negative emotions as black smoke congealing in whatever body part I feel that particular emotion in. So when I’m stressed I imagine pools of thick black smoke in my neck and shoulder area.

Breathe and let it go. Breathe through the bad feelings. As you’re breathing imagine the smoke (or whatever image you’ve created) dissipating and physically leaving your body. Do this until it’s gone. You’ll know when this happens.

Some Thoughts on This:

Wait for the negative emotions to present themselves. They will, they always do. You do not have to spend hours seeking out painful memories and devote your life to “fixing” yourself.

If visualization isn’t your thing, no problem. If this technique doesn’t do anything for you, try just simply breathing through the bad feelings and letting them naturally pass.

Notice that when you’ve felt an uncomfortable feeling, it’s usually not as bad as you thought it would be. We make out these feelings to be a lot more scary and powerful then they actually are. The only way they retain their powerful hold on you is if you keep them locked inside of you and continue to fear feeling them.

Revel in the more positive way you feel after releasing negative thoughts. Enjoy the peacefulness and lightness and feel gratitude that you were able to let it go.

Remember nothing is too small or too big to let go of. You may feel silly taking the time to let go of that embarrassing thing you did in third grade, but if it’s bothering you, it’s worth looking into. Some of the bigger things may take longer to let go of completely and that’s fine. If you stick with it, you’ll eventually be able to release it.

Final Thoughts:

Remember this all relates to the Law of Attraction because it’s all about energy, and you attract what you are. So all the bad energy and feelings that have been inside of you have been attracting more negative energy into your life.

Negative emotional baggage tends to hinder and sometimes block attempts to change energy.

Think of it like this; the more negative feelings you release the more room you have for those happy and positive ones.

And the more happy and positive energy you have, the more you’ll start to see your outside world reflecting that energy back to you.

✌🏻