Yesterday, I was getting ready for a meeting. I had been feeling anxious about the meeting because of some earlier experiences with this person.
I decided it was time to change things. I asked myself some questions like this. What am I feeling? Often, we just say we feel angry when really, we are feeling sad and that anger is acting as protection. Maybe we are afraid, and the anger is once again a secondary emotion. Getting to the bottom of our feelings can really help us to get through this. The funny thing for me this time is that I had healed the underlying feelings and was just left with this feeling of defensiveness. Identifying defensiveness allowed me to choose the next step.
Do I want to stay defensive? My answer was no. Amazing that for me, that was all it took. I felt myself relax. Sometimes, our answer is yes, or in another situation, I got half as my answer. I was able to let go of the half and allowed myself to keep the other half. Too often, we don't allow ourselves to stay angry if we want to. If we allow ourselves to stay in a negative emotion if that's what we desire, we'll actually be ready to let it go easier and faster. Feelings aren't bad, we all feel all kinds of things. It is what we do while we are feeling that way that is bad. If I choose to journal my feelings, that's a healthy expression. If I choose to harm another, that's an unhealthy expression. The feeling was never the problem so if you feel like staying in a negative feeling, then do it for a while.
After I let go of the feeling of defensive, I asked myself what I wanted to feel instead. I think this is an important step. We have a habit of going to certain feelings but if we can give our subconscious a feeling to seek, we'll go there instead. Yesterday, I chose curiosity. Instead of feeling defensive that her ideas would not work for me, I chose to be curious about her ideas. This allowed me to stay open to insight that could add to her ideas and make them work for both of us. In the end, it was an incredible meeting and I felt better without that defensiveness hanging around.
I'm inviting you to try it. In fact, let's bring this into the home for an experiment. Pick one area of your home that is bugging you. Overwhelm? Fear? Define the feelings you feel about that area. Now that you have it defined, ask yourself if you would like to stay feeling that way. If you get a no, then notice how much releases. If it isn't releasing, then try this phrase, “I am feeling this fully, and completely and then I release it completely.” Once you have the feeling gone, ask yourself what you would like to feel instead. Follow with saying, “I feel _____ about this.” You can also ask, “Why do I feel ____ about this?” Like my choice to feel curious, I could say, “I feel curious about this,” or, “Why do I feel curious about this?”
How did it go? I would love to hear from you so go ahead and leave a comment below!
With love from my heart to yours,
Michele
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