Emotional Recycling

Anger, Jealousy, Hate, Resentment and Gluttony .... These are what I call the  High Five of Fears that most of us reluctantly face at least once or twice in our lifetime. 

Fear within our heart creates toxins; emotional manure if you like, that can either be dumped or responsibly recycled.  Planting love in our hearts is like planting trees, it provides beauty, life, and a future.  Fear is like a toxic weed that strangles Love and life's potential if left unattended. 

Believing there is not enough love for us or that we are not worthy of it is a fear most people confront at least once in their lives.  When this fear arises, we have a choice, we can either look inside ourselves and weed out this toxin or look outside ourselves for an escape.

If we see a person dropping rubbish in the street or out of a car window we are often appalled at their lack of care and respect for our planet.  However I now believe it is just as disrespectful to drop emotional waste and expect others to clean up after us.

I have worked with over 7000 people recovering from emotional trauma, drug and alcohol addictions as well as helping them learn how to manage obsessive, compulsive behaviors that create emotional imbalance in relationship to food, money and sex.  I often find myself saying to clients who after unloading a life history of addiction, violence, neglect and abuse that

"shit makes great fertilizer, and the more you have the more beautiful rose bushes you can grow".

So every time you are feeling shitty, crappy and unhappy there is no mystery here... you are simply locked in position of looking at yourself and your world through the eyes of fear. Feeling fear is normal, and I believe, it is an important emotional alarm going off that is undoubtedly uncomfortable and difficult to ignore, and its function is to let you know you need to self care.

Emotional discomfort is like a stone in your shoe. So it makes sense to stop, and take the time to take off the shoe - uncover your foot, discover the location of the stone and then remove it.  Then recovering your foot with your shoe  your birthright to feel emotional comfort returns.  These are the three vital steps to any form of emotional recovery from a place of fear or hell back into a heavenly state of love.

Uncover, Discover, Recover.

So I ask you this question to ponder today.  Do you ever emotionally dump on others?

If you are not sure how to deal with a fear based feeling effectively you might choose one of the following options as an alternative.  These are common responses when one becomes overwhelmed with fear .

1. Stop walking and emotionally immoblise yourself; - give up on love and intimate relationships, perhaps resorting to only loving pets, children or money because dealing with adult human hearts, well it's all too hard.
2. Numb the area to distract yourself from the pain - use a weapon of mass distraction like drugs, alcohol, food, sex, money, busyness or other people's drama - become a helpaholic!!
3. Pretend it's not happening, lie to yourself and others about your discomfort, this is called denial and some people have been in the habit of moving into this emotional gear so quickly they are not conscious they are even in denial, they are absolutely unaware they are lying to themselves for they have been doing it so long it is just an emotional knee-jerk reaction. DENIAL D=didn't, E=even, N=know, I=it's, A=a, L=lie, when in denial we often don't even know we are lying to ourselves.
4. Blame someone else for your discomfort and suggesting that you even go for a walk in the first place down this street that has sharp stones on it! You have ruined my life, I am too hurt, I will never get over this - remain a victim.

Any one of these four options results in emotional dumping in one form or another either internally on your world or externally in someone else's. 

1. If you stop walking you just delay the inevitable flow of your life and dump on yourself for not being able to cope, and we get stuck and often angry at others and create stress or angry at ourselves and create depression.
2. If you resort to weapons of mass distraction once again you dump on self by overloading your system with drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, debt, sugar or other people's emotional waste and remain in a state of unresolved discomfort and erode self respect as a result.
3. If you pretend it's not happening by living a lie you erode your self respect and the respect for others by being fraudulent and trusting becomes a major issue. 
4.  ...and blaming someone else is just like dropping garbage in the middle of a rose garden it's blatant emotional irresponsibility and immaturity this is what children do until taught otherwise, and sadly the most common approach that many people use.

Making ourselves or others wrong because we are emotionally uncomfortable has such a dangerous knock on effect.  It is what starts wars on a personal, family, social, state, national and eventually international scale if no emotionally fit adults or elders are available to help uncover, discover and recover the situation.

What do my emotional toxins warn me about?

In a nutshell when you are emotionally toxic as mentioned earlier you are in a place of fear.  It is often said that there are only two core emotive state of the human heart one is of love and the other fear.  Every other emotion is an extension of that core state of being, and this makes great sense to me and has been a very uncomplicated way to look and myself when I am imbalanced.  I find it effective when helping others learn how to self sooth and reboot their emotive state when they get stuck in a toxic place and in danger of wrecking their whole day, relationships, career, health or life because of it.

The below mentioned toxic emotive states result when we forget that we are lovable and worthy and the only way out of them is to detox the fear to make space for love.   Fear does have to be released so we can grow, like all waste we need to pass it out of our systems not store it or is poisons us and emotional and physical dis-ease results. 

Fear brings pain so that we will release it, as a mother births a child the pain forces her to release the baby, for without the pain there is no trigger to release. So the lesson for us all in life is to learn how to do that without causing unnecessary harm to ourselves and others.   To recycle it and make it useful is to gain understanding of ourselves in the pain as it is fuel for growth.  Pain is a healthy part of human life, but to get stuck in pain is unnecessary, I love that Buddhist saying ...

"Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional". We only suffer when we refuse to let go of the pain and grow.

So I have listed below some of the most common places that most of us seem to fall into when fearful.  These quick spot checks might be helpful if you find yourself stuck in one of these toxic places at some time in the near future.  However if you are close to sainthood and don't ever struggle with these issues these quick tips might help you heighten your awareness and be useful and constructive when someone else is stuck in their own emotional manure.  For it is a rare and inspirational gift to be able to remain loving when another is in a full blown and unattractive state of fear. 

ANGER

Anger is an inbuilt alarm system that goes on like a red light inside of all human beings.  Anger is activated when an act of injustice has occurred and caused loss in our life or another's.  Whenever anger is present so is loss".  Therefore it is often helpful to ask the question when anger arises "What does this person feel they have lost?"  or "What do I feel I have lost?" It is usually a basic human birthright like love, respect or security or the triggered memory of a time when this has happened in the past and been traumatic and remained unresolved. 

JEALOUSY

Jealousy is often called the green eyed monster and is connected to fear around self love.  It is an alarm to help recognize that comparison has gotten out of hand.  It is unhealthy for us to measure our hearts worth as being inferior or superior to another and the feeling of jealousy indicates we are stuck in ego.  Breaking the word ego down into E=easing, G=Grace, god, goodenoughness, O=out.  So we become jealous of others when we are in ego and easing grace, god or remembering we are good enough (whatever is most comfortable for you to apply here), out of our lives it is a fear based knee jerk reaction. So the most powerful way to release jealousy is to verbalise it with someone who loves your heart, and tell them what you feel and why.  It is like releasing a splinter and with your words your fear will be tweezered out.

HATE

Being stuck in hate is an indicator that you are stuck in a state of disempowered child.  When people use the word hate is a sharp knife that cuts them every time they say it.  A loving adult needs to be called upon to help put the knife down.  Children often say they hate when they feel they have no choice at all because the parent has enforced, bed time, a grounding, vegetable eating, sharing with siblings or some other intolerable situation.  We hate when we don't take the time to consider the other person's story and stance.  In hearing it we might not like or agree with it, but balanced adults can learn to agree to disagree without a tantrum and a verbally sharp knife.

RESENTMENT

Is a signal that we are stuck in a state of unresolved conflict?  An easy way to describe resentment is that it is simply re-felt anger.  Repeating or resending the unresolved situation over and over in our minds and each time like a snowball it gathers momentum.  It is often said that holding onto a resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.  The only person that suffers is you.  The best tip is halting this all consuming state is to balance your view and cease focusing on the other person part in the drama and look at your role.  Were you being the best version of you, are you proud of your behavior? You are angry, why?  What do you feel you have lost? And what can you do about it? Focus on solutions, not the problem. Letting go of them and their actions will help release your frustration.  Shifting your focus to your needs and your loss and how to comfort yourself constructively is the way off of this merry-go-round.

GLUTTONY

The question to be asked when greed and the urge to over-compensate results in over spending, irresponsible sexual lust, or gorging on food is "what is eating you?" Gluttony is an act of denial, of trying to cover up, pretend, gloss over, distract self from an emotion that is more than uncomfortable it feels like too much to cope with.  It is usually a strategy resorted to when we feel stuck and don t know what to do or how to handle a big emotional hurdle.  Often when there is sickness, death, or intimate relationship endings with friends or lovers (usually abandonment is the core issue) this behavior results.  Once you have identified what it is you are trying to swallow or suppress without tasting and acknowledging the next step is to ask for help.   You are more than likely trying to cope alone with something that is too heavy and big for one heart to bear without support.  We are tribal creatures you will need to call on emotional tribal support from peers, but more than likely an older and wiser elder would be most helpful.  If you don't have one on hand, a therapist is a good alternative.

How do I recycle my emotional waste?

When I am asked by clients or when I am stuck myself and need to remember the simplest route home from that fear based hell back into that gentle heavenly heart space of love .... I resort to that tried and true recovery acronym that breaks the letters of the word HOW into H for honestly, O for open-mindedly and W for willingly. 

When we are able to finally be honest about our fears, and open-minded to options and change, and then become willing to surrender to love rather than fighting it, then a miracle happens.  Fear or the emotional manure in our lives becomes useful; it becomes fertilizer for the rose bushes of love that we can grow that bring colour, love and beauty back into our hearts.  This is the art of emotional recycling and it is the most challenging but rewarding skill the heart can learn.

Just a quick note before I sign off today, for those of you in the top end of Australia, or those who have colleagues or family that might find this of interest who live in or near Darwin, please visit http://www.blkmgk.com.au/lifeline/  as I am running a workshop in Darwin on Friday 23rd April.  If you would like to join me there or find out more just click on this link.  To view the interview with CEO Jane Johnson of Lifeline about my forthcoming workshop, also just follow this link.

I will leave you today with some Word Vitamins from Marilyn Feguson if you are in need of recycling any fears today.

"Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom."