Upon learning about the law of attraction, it becomes glaringly obvious the role our emotional state plays in determining the myriad experiences that show up in our life. Because we get to choose perspectives, our feelings and all that jazz, this is a good thing because it means we have some degree of control over our lives.<\/p>\n
I say degree because we can control our energy, which will make all sorts of things show up that will mirror it back to us, but we really can’t control exactly what shows up as result of that energy\u2014I am getting a bit off topic I suppose but it’s an important point that I think can easily be missed by many of us deliberate creators, much to our detriment.<\/p>\n
Anyway…this naturally may create a lot of anxiety about our ‘negative’ emotion. I put that in quotes because I don’t think this emotion is ‘bad’ but rather emotion we consider undesirable because it feels badly.<\/p>\n
Does this mean we are up shit’s creek without a paddle if we aren’t happy all the time? What do we do with all the crap that has been festering? Do we just suppress it and try to make it go away?<\/p>\n
When we are having a bad day or feeling doubtful about whether a certain thing will manifest for us, do we acknowledge it or try and force ourselves to feel better and focus ‘positively’ on something else instead?<\/p>\n
I think there are lots of misconceptions about harnessing the power of the law of attraction, namely the insistence on absolute positivity every waking moment. That puts a lot of pressure on people, and we often fail miserably at attempting this, which leads us to beating ourselves up, and getting all upset thinking we won’t be able to get what we want.<\/p>\n
Yeah, if we were jazzed every moment of the day and able to focus positively no matter what, would things come much more quickly and easily? Without question. But alas, we are human and we probably won’t be that way, and as much as we may get that in our heads, there is that part of us hoping we can reach some state where we are forever free of emotional ‘ick.’<\/p>\n
Would be awesome but I suspect that is not what the aim is supposed to be, though I could be wrong. If you have achieved this state, do reach out and share your secrets…would love to hear them.<\/p>\n
So, as my last few posts have been, this one is inspired by my stint in the jungle. The first four weeks were going quite swimmingly. Felt great disconnecting, loved being in nature. I haven’t slept the night through in five weeks, but yet I wasn’t tired during the day, so it wasn’t bothering me that much. Lack of internet and fellow humans around didn’t bother me much, and that hasn’t changed.<\/p>\n
And if you’ll indulge me for a moment, I will complain a bit \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
I was really in the groove of focusing positively because I was really seeing a lot of benefit, even though there were many things I wasn’t loving about the experience, such as not having an indoor bathroom, the cabin being kind of run-down and getting kind of sick of the limited food options because no electricity means no fridge.<\/p>\n
I was certainly outside my comfort zone but in a really good way where the challenges were really contributing to my growth without being too painful.<\/p>\n
But then going into this fifth week, these things really started wearing on me. My positive focus was weakening and my attention was more drawn to what I didn’t like.<\/p>\n
We were told we would be able to charge our devices at a nearby school with solar power, but they close every year for December and January for vacation, which he mentioned the day we got there. I thought I would be able to write and do other things when the mood struck, and it was frustrating not to be able to indulge in that inspiration because of a dead computer battery.<\/p>\n
Walking to and from town, and just around the area, for regular old exercise is not very pleasant, and again, I felt feelings of anger bubbling up at the home owner for his poor job at explaining what it was really like here. I was sick of slippery rocks,and trekking through mud. I just wanted to be able to walk normally.<\/p>\n
I started feeling more fatigued during the day , and this experience really showed me first-hand how mental yuck like stress and anxiety can zap us of our physical energy, and generally affect how our bodies feel overall. I was sleeping just as crappy the first month, but I felt basically no effect from it.<\/p>\n
It’s funny because I expected all this to happen before I came but I guess because I was in such a great space those first four weeks, on some level I probably thought I would side step all that. So it hit me particularly hard. How silly of me to think such things.<\/p>\n
So I was faced with that all-too-common conundrum that plagues us deliberate creators…do I let myself get all worked up about this or do I try to bring my focus back to the positive? If I let myself feel all this, won’t it get worse?<\/p>\n
Naturally I let myself feel what I was feeling because I knew that was okay. It did me no good to pretend these things weren’t bothering me.<\/p>\n
It was certainly understandable these things were ‘getting my goat’ if you will…why beat myself up? I’m a first world gal who likes indoor toilets, electricity and a clean, comfortable abode…high-maintenance I know. Like any other human, I do have preferences and it just is what it is.<\/p>\n
But knowing what I know about energy, I also knew that while it was okay to feel what I was feeling, I also had to keep an eye towards doing what I could to lift my spirits.<\/p>\n
The great thing is though, when we let ourselves feel our feelings without judgment or too much resistance, we really don’t have to ‘try’ to feel better, we naturally do after awhile.<\/p>\n
It isn’t forced and we don’t have to pretend anything. We actually feel better. We may still not feel totally great, but we’re not miserable and we tend to get some helpful perspective.<\/p>\n
I’m still in a bit of a jungle funk, and I don’t know if I’ll get back to where I was before where I was all zen and totally in the flow of whatever was happening, but I am sure things will improve.<\/p>\n
I have given myself permission to have my preferences and not like what I don’t like. I have given myself permission to admit I’m struggling a bit and a bit farther out of my element than I would like perhaps. And as with every experience in life, you live and learn.<\/p>\n
Our mind really likes concrete steps. We are obsessed with knowing what to ‘do’ to manifest. We mistakenly think it is all these actions that will get us the result.<\/p>\n
And sure, there are certain things we can do to help move things along, like engage in tools that will change our energy. We kind of need to do stuff like that because simply telling ourselves to just feel better or think a certain way probably won’t yield much.<\/p>\n
But there isn’t an exact formula to all of this\u2014again, all the action we take is a means to an end in that it may help shift our energy and focus in some way, which is what determines what shows up.<\/p>\n
It would be great if I could tell you that there was some ratio you must not exceed as far as indulging your blah feelings and trying to produce all happy and shiny ones\u2014like for every five minutes of feeling crappy, you must then be happy for at least 10.<\/p>\n
Or if you were allotted one week to feel like shit every month and then for the rest of the time, you better have a big old smile on your face or else.<\/p>\n
It just doesn’t work that way and I know that frustrates us. I know that we prefer the idea of being able to ensure a certain result by following a set of steps rather than navigate the sometimes muddy waters of our inner world.<\/p>\n
Our mind over-thinks something like the law of attraction way too much, and we are always worried whether we are doing it ‘right.’ We are always on the search for some missing piece of information that just may finally bring it all together once and for all.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, striking that balance is something that will be very personal and you’ll know when it comes time to shift focus and when you need to let yourself feel something and just let it be.<\/p>\n
So, yeah, we do have all sorts of ‘ick’ and we kind of have to deal with it. This doesn’t mean going into deep analysis mode of your moods every second of the day, and dissecting every moment you don’t feel great. All that ‘ick’ is just showing us something and if it’s there, it’s there.<\/p>\n
Again, we’re human. Sorry, nothing we can do about that. This ‘negative’ emotion is not to be demonized. It is not to be resisted. It is not to be totally ignored for fear you’ll keep manifesting stuff you don’t want.<\/p>\n
All of our feelings have value and the goal isn’t to completely terminate some once and for all.<\/p>\n
For many of us, this true allowing of emotions is quite new. We do a lot of suppressing.<\/p>\n
And if we are studying something like the law of attraction, this new-found awareness of our feelings can kind of freak us out because like I mentioned earlier, we are often given the impression we shouldn’t be feeling these things because then we’ll keep attracting stuff we don’t want.<\/p>\n
But the feeling of these things and acknowledging them is a key part of the manifesting process because that is the only way you are going to be able to process them properly. This is the only way to reveal to you certain beliefs and feelings that are already there and messing with you in one way or another.<\/p>\n
For someone who has been suppressing a lot of anger and other emotions, truly letting it out could means weeks of daily crying. And at first glance that would seem ‘bad’ but that could be the very thing that would bring an end to the months or even years of consistently feeling bad, with all that crap constantly simmering below the surface.<\/p>\n
I have said this many times before, and it bears repeating\u2014there is a big<\/b><\/i> difference between dealing with emotion that is already there, and constantly generating new negativity by knowingly focusing on things that make us feel badly, and deliberately choosing not to work on adopting new perspectives and focusing in ways that serves us better.<\/p>\n
You can’t ‘trick’ the Universe\u2014your vibration is your vibration. This idea if we just ignore or suppress emotions in hopes we can ‘hide’ them, all the while doing all sorts of things to make our desires known, like affirming or what not, just won’t work.<\/p>\n
I am sure many of you have heard this nugget of wisdom in a variety of ways\u2014you don’t attract what you want, you attract what you are. The process of manifestation is neutral…there is no middleman evaluating you, deciding what you are going to get or that has the ability to deliver what you want simply because you want it.<\/p>\n
So much of our struggle with this type of work is this strong aversion we have to our negative emotion. Naturally we want to feel better and it’s cool.<\/p>\n
But in this desire to avoid all these feelings, we get this death grip on the variety of manifestations that we believe will be the key to getting rid of them.<\/p>\n
And they continue to elude us, and oh the suffering it causes. Of course we are going to get super-attached to any manifestation we believe is essential to our happiness, that is the only answer to relief.<\/p>\n
Of course we are going to freak out about our negative feelings if we think they are what is standing in the way of these things showing up.<\/p>\n
The feelings themselves really aren’t what is standing in the way, it is our reluctance to deal with them, which in turn, causes us to miss the variety of very helpful messages and insights they are delivering.<\/p>\n
Something has got to give. Again, no exact formula to give you that will let you know when it is time to shift gears, when it is time to shut down the pity party (we all have them sometimes and it’s all good.)<\/p>\n
Really tuning into our inner guidance is crucial in this work. We won’t always be able to find the answers outside of us. I know we really want to be able to do that all the time, but we just can’t. It would be awesome but…no.<\/p>\n
When I was having a particularly rough moment, I decided to bust out a pen and paper and write out an appreciation list. Yeah, just wasn’t happening. No emotional shift at all…it was just me writing stuff on a piece of paper.<\/p>\n
So I abandoned it. I didn’t try to force myself to feel good. I knew at that moment, that tool just wasn’t going to do anything for me, nor was any other.<\/p>\n
I just wasn’t in a space where I would truly appreciate any of the things I was listing nor did I feel like I could focus positively in any genuine way.<\/p>\n
So I just started reading and lo and behold, I just naturally started feeling better. There were times when I knew certain things would lift my spirits, like going for a walk or doing a bit of yoga, and there were times when just being ‘blah’ and letting it run its course were fine, and I didn’t feel the need to force myself to do anything ‘positive.’<\/p>\n
I couldn’t list out for you a play-by-play of my reasoning process as far as when I let myself ‘wallow’ and when I decided to actively shift my energy in some way. It was all based on feeling and tuning into what was happening inside.<\/p>\n
It is also important to know that feeling better doesn’t always have to involve working on the particular issue\u2014again, we kind of know when we need to pay more attention to what is happening specifically and when changing the subject will suffice.<\/p>\n
For example, if something is gnawing at you for weeks and weeks, you may need to take a look. If you keep manifesting situations that all feel a certain way, and said way is pretty crappy, time to take a look.<\/p>\n
But sometimes, taking a walk, meeting up with a friend, or watching a funny movie is just the ticket. And later on, you’ll see it was just a moment and you generally feel okay with whatever the situation is, or you can look at it from a less-charged space, and get some insight into what was happening and how to best deal with it.<\/p>\n
Again, on some level we always know what is the better course of action.<\/p>\n
The problems start when we are constantly fighting for our negativity, and list all the reasons why we are justified in feeling that way, when we refuse to at least try to reach for the better-feeling thoughts or shift perspective.<\/p>\n
Yeah, there will certainly be times when we manifest things we don’t want, when we feel badly for one reason or another, when we get frustrated at our lack of ‘progress.’<\/p>\n
But when we consciously work on our energy, and do our best to tend to our emotional health, we do create a new ‘base’ of operation, as far as our predominant beliefs go, and as that strengthens, these moments don’t last as long, they aren’t as strong.<\/p>\n
We can get back to this point more easily and we don’t have to ‘try’ as much to do so, we just naturally gravitate back there. These more positive beliefs and feelings aren’t as far away and weak anymore, and they are still operating, even in these moments of ‘negative’ emotion.<\/p>\n
So, that’s that…hope you enjoyed it.<\/p>\n
What did you think of this post? Anything resonate with you in particular? What tips would you give for striking this balance? Is this something you think you struggle with? Looking forward to your comments as always.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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