4. Working on your natural feelings

4. Working on your natural feelings

 

People who are grieving because of a deceased loved one, are often extremely sensitive. Seek comfort so that you, as a grieving person, are not alone with your grief. Express that you want to be comforted. (Sorrow shared is sorrow halved!)

 

Your feelings are the digestion of your mind. Your grief makes the unacceptable acceptable.

Your mind tells you that the deceased must be released, but your feelings do not want to and cannot go further yet. 

In the long run, grief can be an alibi for not having to function fully. In that case, your mourning becomes your identity: you are no longer yourself, but the mourner for someone else or for something that has happened to you: this gives you an ego reinforcement.

 

Not processing, but storing your feelings in your body, can damage in the long run.

 

Take a look at the overview of your emotional person from last time (Part 3 - The Quadrant).

 

Let's take a look at your different feelings: 

 

Overview of feelings

 

Natural Feelings	Function	Deformations
FEAR/AFRAID: Unravel: what are you doing, what are you thinking, what are you feeling. By changing one of those three, the rest will change with it. Take a look at your fear: What's the worst thing that could happen to you? Give yourself love, don't flee in fear. Being yourself, not losing yourself in others. Focus on the positivity in your life. Let go of fears. Take full possession of your life. True love for yourself is your salvation now. Lift yourself up to this feeling of freedom. This will take you to your inner resources. Breathe towards your tension. And let it run through your feet into the ground. Exhale through your hands. Drain out through your mouth.	Warn, flee/fight,   Fear provides extra energy to fight danger.	Feelings of panic, phobias.   Fear can hinder and paralyze you when you don't know why you're anxious or how to deal with your fear.
FURY/ANGER is the feeling that can provide you the energy to stand up for yourself and truly connect with yourself. They are allowed to be there. But express yourself! You don't have to keep them in your body or mind. Are you often angry, what are your thoughts about? Throw a pillow against the wall, or against a chair, while telling them why you are angry. Or start squeezing a stress ball, tearing paper, kicking a shoe box, kicking a ball, chewing gum. Exercising releases endorphins, which help clear up a depression.	Helps us to learn our limits. It's your self-protection.   Inner strength.	Feelings of guilt, aggression, feeling yourself deprived, bullying, laughing it off.   Impotence.
SADNESS: makes the unacceptable acceptable. It may be there. Stop running away from yourself any longer.  In the end: Deprive your grief of its right to exist by resolutely taking your life back into your own hands and making something beautiful out of it. Love yourself just the way you are. That dark side is also allowed to be there. Every person has a dark side.	Coming to terms with your loss. Healing yourself. Tears wash clean.	Self-pity, bitterness, grumbling, complaining, regret, shame.
JEALOUSY where you want to get what someone else already has. You can grow from it.	Growth motivation: wanting to be like the person you admire. Need to improve yourself.	Competitive behaviour, insecurity, criticism, envy, gossiping, steamrolling over the other.
WORRYING Worries are a warning: Caution! Examine your concerns. If you have any physical concerns, see a doctor.	Paying attention to possible problems, in order to be able to solve them.	Brooding. The same thoughts keep coming back over and over again. Especially when you're in bed.
LOVE To love someone unconditionally. To love and to be loved.	Being allowed to exist. In balance between giving and receiving. Honoring your masculine and feminine traits in yourself.	Wanting to do everything for the other person. Unable to receive. Coercive behavior. Loving under conditions. Distrust, resentment, disappointment.
SHAME AND GUILT: Wrapping up open ends. Break all the ropes that are entrapping you; Do the forgiveness meditation below one or more times to different situations.	There are no errors. Only lessons that we can and want to learn.	Your body can get sick from all the trapped feelings.

 

Deformities intertwine and reinforce each other. That can make it extra difficult to work on.

The first step is to ask yourself: What's wrong?, How do I feel? and What happens to me now? (notebook) ……..

By bringing malformed feelings back to your healthy feelings, you create new goals and restore the connection with yourself, who you are and who you want to be. 

 

Comfort the inner hurt child within you. Take her/him in your arms. Tell her/him that you will always be there for her/him when it comes up. What does he/she want to say to you? What does he/she need? Where can you get that? ……..

 

Dedication (Notebook)

Make a list of 10 things you like to do......

But you never really get around to it. See if you can fit these pleasant things back into your daily life. 

……..

·  RESURRECTION: Become who you want to be! Who are you? ……..

 

·  Who used to be your hero in a movie or book, or in your everyday life? Your role model? ……..

 

·  Learn to say NO. By doing so, you are saying YES to yourself! What do you want to say no to……… And what do you want to say yes to? ……..

 

Difficult feelings:

Being relieved, for example, for the pain that the deceased was spared or in the event of suicide, or because a depressed person was stressful for you to deal with.

Being angry about the problems you have been left with.

Shame for certain feelings (which is very normal).

Feelings of guilt: you didn't do something, or you did something, which makes you feel uneasy.

Sadness can lead to increased use of alcohol or tobacco, and can lead to fatigue, headaches, joint disorders. 

 

LOOKING AT YOUR FEELINGS AND HEALING THEM

 

1. Making a feel-o-gram

Place above the zero point (+1 and so on), the intensity of the feelings your appearance shows outwards and

Put below the zero point (-1 and so on) the intensity of the feelings you experience internally.

 

Showing outside

   worry    angry    scared/fear    love/happy     sadness     phys. pain/discomfort

+10                

+ 9

+ 8

+ 7

+ 6

+ 5

+ 4

+ 3

+ 2

+ 1

0            

Inside

    worry   angry   scared/fear    love/happy    sadness     phys. pain/discomfort

- 1

- 2

- 3

- 4

- 5

- 6

- 7

- 8

- 9

- 10 

 

On what do you still want to work?  ……..                               

Next, check: Is the feel-o-gram in accordance with the situation and the circumstance in which you find yourself. See which feelings you feel internally, but don't show.

Grounding: name your feelings, breathe towards them, send them into the ground through your roots. Let them go……..

What actions can you take to express your repressed feelings in a problem-solving way, so that you feel relieved. Do it……..

UNRAVELING: what do you think, what do you do, what do you feel. When you change one of these three things, the rest will change with it……..

 

2. Your instructions manual: (write down in your notebook)

You've already written down your feelings, as many as you can think of.

For all feelings, choose a color, or a symbol………

Where are those feelings in your body (on your inside / or on your outside)……..

Can anyone see that? (check out your feeling-o-gram)……..

What makes you angry, scared, happy, sad, guilty, jealous and so on………

And if you are, how does anyone else see that on the outside? (If you don't know, just look in the mirror when you think about a certain feeling.)……..

What do you need in that case?........

How can you make that happen?

 

THIS IS YOUR INSTRUCTION MANUAL!! Hang it somewhere, or hand it out to your family members, so they can take it into account!

 

3. Three chairs (I cry a jar of tears)

A jar of tears

Set up three chairs. One for the deceased, one for your friend and one for you.

Tell your friend, thinking about the deceased (or someone who hurt you), your sadest, most frightening, scariest story that has ever happened to you, so that it makes you and/or the other person cry.

Then, tell the same story, but in such a way that you can laugh about it.

Tell the same story again, but then in the past tense. What kind of decision did you make from it, what did you learn from it?

SELF-HELP: for at home, when you are on your own: set up two chairs, one for you, one for the deceased. Add a photo, or hang a piece of clothing on it. Tell the deceased everything that's bothering you………

 

4. Playing with your feelings (take your time) ……..

Sit in a certain feeling, make it big..., step out of it..... and look at it...., get in....., and then out again...., then make it small enough to fit in a matchbox. You are in charge of your feelings: then put them away or throw them away.

Do that with all the feelings that still bother you………

 

5. Forgiveness

Forgiveness meditation – who do you want to forgive (the doctor, the deceased?)....... :

 1. Forgiving the other

 2. Asking the other person to forgive you

 3. Forgive yourself. 

 

Introduction music: Elton John – Sorry seems to be the hardest word (click to play)

 

Forgiving

How often do we do that? How many times do we say sorry, I'm sorry, forgive me. And how often do we forgive others for what they do to us? Probably far too little.

 

Conscience - worrying

Do you ever lie awake thinking about something you have done to someone else, and that you actually regret?

A feeling of guilt that just won't go away, and reappears every now and then?

There is a good chance that it wants to be healed.

When people are being hurt, we have feelings like sadness, pain, fear, anger, but we ARE not those feelings and we have a mind, but we are not our positive and negative, neutral thoughts. We are so much more. (See the Quadrant, Part 3)

As human beings, we also have the opportunity to look as a silent watcher, at what is going on inside us from a distance: For example, at our roles that we play in life out of inner strength and powerlessness, or at our victim and perpetrator roles. None of us can escape it. We all participate in it and we all suffer from it. They are our life lessons. 

 

Have you ever thought about forgiving someone who has wronged you?

…….

Who are you thinking of?

How would he or she have come to treat you this way?

 

If a person cannot forgive and therefore cannot 'let go' of the negative experience, the law of cause and effect is maintained, action – reaction: you do something, I do something back, sometimes you are the victim, other times you are the perpetrator. Because that resentment is still there.

When you don't want to participate in this "game" anymore, you might want to think about forgiving, which will finally allow you to process what happened and let go of your heartache. 

 

If you want, you can now listen to the folk Dutch singer André Hazes, who has experienced a lot of sadness and misery in his life, and can therefore tell you about it well:

André Hazes: Your old man (in Dutch, click to play)

I held you in my arms

I was so proud of you

You were just born

And you shivered from the cold

 

I always wanted to take care of you

And be a good father to you

But that wish never came true

And I still feel the pain

 

Will I never see you again

Is this what I deserve

But still you're a part of me

No, that feeling never goes away

Forgive me... what did I do wrong

Will the door stay closed from now on

But again and again

Does it hurt so much

Because I'm still being... Your old gentleman

I've let you down

I couldn't stand it with your mother

Every day we argued

And one day I didn't come home

 

Tried to forget everything

But I couldn't do that

And still after all these years

I'm stuck with my grief

 

Will I never see you again

Is this what I deserve

But still you're a part of me

No, that feeling never goes away

Forgive me... what did I do wrong

Will the door stay closed from now on

But again and again

Does it hurt so much

 

I worked for over 6 years at a Hospice as a dying counselor, sometimes just to hold the hand of the dying person and give them something to drink or eat, massage or turn them, but sometimes they were afraid of dying because there were still loose ends, that were not finished, and we could talk about that. But wè don't have to walk around with our hurt feelings for that long.

 

Forgiving – How do you do it?

What has kept two people apart for a lifetime and made them enemies to each other, can be lifted in óne moment of love. If we no longer assume that there are accounts to be settled, we rely entirely on our hearts. Because we suddenly realize that this love is the natural space of the open heart and the open mind.

Trapped as we are in our melodramas, it is all too easy to forget that we are part of a process with each other. (People are connected to each other by the collective memory and by the flow of love; we influence each other and we are therefore all a part of each other). We also need each other. For example: What is a child without parents of guardians? What is an ill person without doctors? Or an arm around you of a compassionate person in times of upheaval. 

Forgiveness is a quality in which you let go of resentment and no longer hold on to a separate identity. It means entering your heart so that you can also feel another person's pain and let it go. Forgiveness comes about when you can open your heart to your own and someone else's mistakes.

The Indian teacher Maharaji used to say, "Don't shut anyone out of your heart. Because if you shut someone out of your heart, you shut yourself out too."

Because no one is worth closing your heart to. If you put a wall around your heart, because you can no longer bear sorrow, you can also no longer let the generous love in. And with that, you're selling yourself short.

Then it might be time to see if we need to do overdue maintenance. (Our car does get regular maintenance) For physical complaints, we usually see a doctor. For sore feelings, we are not so quick to go to a psychologist or psychiatrist. But we can heal a lot ourselves through forgiveness.

 

What about pride and resentment?

Our forgiveness is usually blocked by pride and resentment. When resentment arises, we ARE that pride. We identify with it, and we shut ourselves off, we store that feeling somewhere in our body. Until, after years, we get pain in our abdomen or somewhere else. And we don't know anymore what caused it.

But we can also use that resentment as an opportunity to subject ourselves to scrutiny. Because we ARE not that pride, we have it, it comes and goes and we don't have to hold on to it.

At first, many people wonder if there is forgiveness in their hearts. I sometimes hear people say: "Oh no, I will never forgive him for what he did to me". So it may take some time before this grossly neglected quality is cultivated again. For most people no longer go to church where we were taught, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive others their trespasses."

When we notice that we are not done with our affairs at all, that there is still a painful attack in our hearts, we discover that everyone has to deal with that pain in order to learn from it. We all suffer from the same pain in our lives. And forgiveness begins to turn into compassion. When we nurture compassion, that pain disappears, to turn into love. All this so-called separation dissolves into the One, our connection with each other.

Only then will we be able to clean up our acts.

 

I think the message is that we have to learn to think with our hearts, and feel with our heads. So that we, the observer or the director in ourselves, come into action, and that not the actor, that ego is in charge of us, but our spirit power, carried by love.  

When we can accept our own and others' mistakes, we can more easily forgive ourselves and others for what has happened to us in our lives, which can make us look at things differently.

Why did the others do something to you? What was behind that?

We don't have to efface ourselves, or make ourselves smaller than who we are. As a child, I was told: 'Just act normal, then you'll be crazy enough.' And 'Own fame stinks'. Based on experiences in our young lives, we can develop patterns of behavior that are no longer necessary at all later in life. We can learn to use our talents. And to become who we actually want to be, not as we are made by circumstances! 

 

When you forgive someone for what he or she has done to you, you are actually healing yourself. Because the other person has been a mirror for you in this life experience.

 

An unprocessed emotion that gets stuck in your body or mind manifests itself as a negative pattern of thinking and/or behavior. This is a normal reaction to a deep hurt.

Acceptance and forgiveness are the most important factors in resolving an old sore spot. In such a case, be patient with yourself. If you're ready, the following might give you the peace of mind to rise above this: 

 

Forgiveness meditation that consists of three parts (according to psychiatrist Stephen Levine author of the book Conscious Living Conscious Dying)

Take the time to come to yourself. Close your eyes so you can concentrate better……..

You take an incident in your mind where someone else has hurt you deeply. It could be someone who has already died, but that doesn't matter. Play that movie again in your mind's eye.

1. You forgive the other person who did that to you..........

2. You ask the other person to forgive you. Because sometimes it's not nothing how you reacted to this.......

What happens? ……..

Even if the other person is unable to forgive you at this moment, then that is something that the other person has to move forward with. You did everything you could to solve it.    

3. And finally, you forgive yourself. That you let yourself be hurt so much, because you had no other choice at the time ..........

 

Put your arm around yourself, you will always be there for her/him from now on, should a bad feeling reappear.

Moral of the story: say I'm sorry more often; please forgive me. And look what that brings about. 

 

Stef Bos and Frank Boeijen – Song of Ecclesiastes (Everything is air) in Dutch (Click to play)

I've seen the world

In the light of love

And in the shadow of hatred

 

There are always two sides

True words are not beautiful

Fine words are not true

 

And everything moves as long as it's alive

Like a river flowing to the sea

 

We are a part of

Of a bigger picture   

We fall like leaves  

And the wind takes us away 

 

Chorus:

There's a time of losing

There is a time of trust

There's a time of longing

There is a time of forgetting

There is a time of forgiveness

There's a time for everything

And everything is air

 

Grow towards the sun

And climb up to the sky along the rays

 

Don't hold on to what's past

And let go of everything that's haunting your mind 

'Cause the light in your eyes fades with time

Like the sun in the distance at the end of the day

 

But everything changes and

Moves in a circle

Returns to the source

And becomes what it was 

 

Chorus

And everything is air

And everything is emptiness

And everything is meaningless

And everything is life

Everything has value

And everything is something

Everything is everything

And all is nothing

 

Chorus 

 

Quotes

Forgiveness is not about the other person, but about you: letting go of the burden you carry with you.

 

Blaming someone else is one of the best ways to be left with a problem.

 

Weaklings can never forgive. Forgiveness is a characteristic of the strong. (Mahatma Gandhi)

 

Forgiveness is accepting the fact that the past cannot be changed.

 

Forgive, but don't forget it, or it will hurt you again.

 

When forgiving, the insight changes. If you forget, you lose the lesson.

  

To forgive means to realize that cherishing old hurts destroys your life.

 

Letting go of feelings

Letting go/saying goodbye is something we do all our lives: Saying goodbye to your teacher in kindergarten and every class you go through. If you go to live on your own, you leave your parents.

If you move in together, you lose your freedom. You let go of your own children when they fly out. As you get older, you lose your attraction, or a body part due to surgery.

It takes courage to take on your "dragons". It is, however, an opportunity to grow. Dance out your excitement, move a lot.

Negative feelings such as sadness, anger, fear, worries are not good for your health and appearance; It is a heavy load and should not last too long! Step out!

Give yourself a gift: A different hairstyle, stop smoking/drinking (possibly with help), buy new clothes, a new wallpaper or sofa. 

 

How do you let go of your feelings thereafter:

a. By lifting your resistance and resigning yourself to it, you get inner peace. With acceptance comes reconciliation. Forgiveness can play a big role in this.

b. Love for yoursèlf heals your suffering. Because of feelings such as anger, sadness, guilt, pain you are no longer united, but divided within yourself. Those pieces of yourself fight with each other and divide you. By looking at these feelings, accepting them, forgiving yourself and letting go, you can become whole again.

Especially as we get older, we can no longer suppress our stored painful feelings, acquired in our lives. They want to get out, heal, be healed! The lid of the pit will be ajar and will keep reminding you of it, until you do something with it. You may enjoy life! Forgive yourself for all your mistakes. Ask the other person(s) to forgive you. Look lovingly and humorously at everything you push away in yourself. Take those unwanted thoughts/feelings into your heart and rock them gently. That will help you to lose all judgment and regain unity. By accepting who you are through all the life lessons, change happens from within. You can now become who you've always wanted to be. What else do you want to do here on earth?........

c. The key to transforming a vision you have, lies in surrender and sacrifice, a balance of giving and receiving. Let go of your thought constructs, free your mind from prejudices, expectations. Discover the lovely, divine nature at the core of yourself; connect with the earth and the universe, and fear and suffering will fade away. You transcend it and you reach another level of consciousness. You're evolving.

When you transform yourself in this way, you help everyone around you through your radiance. Everything that happens to you carries a positive aspect and has a very precise meaning in the whole picture of your life. We discover that the love that asks for nothing, the love in which you give yourself away, contains the most total joy. Human love, which is not tainted by power or possessiveness, but is sincere, always contains a spark of universal love. By allowing this spark of love to grow within yourself, problems can be burned away as soon as they present themselves.

d. You can let go of a situation that grips you by unravelling it, after which the unpleasant feeling can recover/heal. When you avoid the feeling, it will get stuck in your emotional life.

What touched you emotionally as a child, you take with you in the rest of your life like a backpack. Based on those experiences from your childhood, you will play your roles in later life. You can't change the facts; but you can experience them differently (Not yesterday is important, but the way you deal with yesterday today).

If you don't let go of certain feelings, then you have anchored them. Compare your body to a paper mill that processes and ships paper. Somewhere the paper gets stuck. Something cannot yet be let go, it is anchored. Then see WHERE it gets stuck and detach it.

Look at an event/situation, and the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that come with it………

What do you think, what do you feel, what do you do?........

Step out of your victim role. Take off your coat of discontent! Let your smile come back into your life.

 

Congratulate yourself on every progress. Thank your experiences.

They gave you opportunities for growth.

You have detached yourself from the old. You are free from negative attachments, healing takes place! That takes some getting used to.

What a victory.

You can look at your past with new eyes.

Your life experiences were necessary to be able to become who you are today.

Only when you have completed something well, then you can start something completely new.

And you can be grateful for everything this experience has given you! 

Smiley from the Scottish Highlands

 

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