It has taken me some time to think about what to write next as there are so many avenues of my journey to cover it is hard for me to decide where to go next. In thinking about this for a while I opted to continue with my last post’s theme unloading your rocks.
The road ahead.
Before we dive in, I would like to qualify this by saying letting go is no easy task in any sense of the phrase, at all. Most of us have been holding on to emotions, situations, experiences, anger, pain, or sorrow for so long we don’t even realize how these rocks hold us back. One thing I have learned is the human psyche is extremely similar in all of us. There are a handful of different personality types. The uniqueness of one comes from the flavors added through personal experience, morals, lessons learned, etc. But, and this is a big but, we all make decisions in our daily lives based on our past hurts and emotional trauma however big or small.
What does new age think?
We don’t realize our rocks skate past our mind hundreds if not thousands of times a day. We simply become masters at learning how to ignore these thoughts and bury them back deeply in our subconscious. New age spirituality tells us these thoughts are negative and instructs us to think of a positive thought every time one arises. New age even goes as far to tell us we manifest negative in our lives because we constantly think negatively. Additionally, we are told, if we cover the negative with positive thoughts we begin to manifest everything and anything we want.
Sounds great doesn’t it. Well there is a huge problem with the new age theory. Yes, getting rid of the negative will bring positive into our lives. However, we cannot simply cover manure with sugar hoping to have a wonderful ice cream sundae and everything will be fine. All this has managed to cause, is me thinking of the negative more often and even more vividly. Which in turn, would bring me down and anger me because covering the negative with a positive thought did not help me. I only kept manifesting negative in my life making life feel useless and pointless.
Why do our negative thoughts keep coming?
There is a physical reason our negative thoughts keep popping into our mind. Our astral self, subconscious, and being wants us to deal with the emotional hurt laying dormant inside of us. Often times, if we put focus on a negative thought passing through our mind we begin to feel a deep painful lump beginning in our chests and welling up into our throats. Sometimes we can swallow it back down feeling like a painful lump moving slowly down our throat and back into our chests. Other times, the pain can be so intense it bubbles through and we cannot help but break down however it is we break, we break.
Then once we have let the emotional pain cycle through, for me usually after a good sobbing, we can swallow it back down into our chest and hope it never happens again. Should it be a pain so intense we always break when it comes up, we get really good at ignoring it and letting it slowly sink back down without another moments thought. These emotional thoughts and hurts that come up are what we must overcome and learn to let go. It is these emotional hurts which subconsciously drive our every day decisions making life seem like we are constantly reliving the same experiences over and over again.
How do our negative thoughts drive us?
It could be one finds themself with the same type of crazy romantic partner time and time again discouraging us from even thinking there are normal people out there. Or perhaps you find yourself in the same job being used and abused no matter where you go. This is all for a reason. Our subconscious is drawing to you these situations to make you feel the emotional hurt hoping you will do something about it and deal with it. I know this seems counter intuitive because why would we unknowingly bring screwed up situations in our life when consciously we hate it and don’t want any more of it.
Well hate to break it to you, but that is not how our subconscious works. It will shove you time and time again in situations that punch your emotional hurts straight in the gut to get you to overcome them. Some of us may react with over reaction hoping the response will warn others to never touch that hurt again. Others of us, including me, retreat into ourselves maybe through pass aggressiveness or even disassociating from yourself during an event. Any reaction we find ourselves performing only ends up hurting our lives in the long and short term.
Where do we start dealing with the hurt?
So how do we deal with these emotional hurts? I guarantee nobody and I mean nobody likes to look at them and everyone, everyone, learns to lie to themselves about the true nature of our emotional hurts. It is much easier to lie about the hurt than it is to deal with it. This is often why we paint rosy pictures of a loved one who has past which which we have an emotional hurt with because its easier to see them as a saint then as someone who has hurt us. After they pass, we no longer have the chance to heal an emotional hurt they caused by confronting them and we don’t want to deal with it on our own so we sanctify them. I have done this myself and in my own opinion this is very dangerous because now we have piled manure on top of more manure with a cherry on top.
The best method to deal with these emotional hurts is by examining them, reliving them, and most importantly not lying to ourselves about the true nature of an emotional pain. Many of us will begin by staring at it and when the pain hits us we begin lying to ourselves about the pain to avoid looking at it any longer. When we lie to ourselves about a hurt, it only helps to bury it deeper with more manure. We may even begin to invent new lies should a previous lie no longer satisfy us after being picked apart by a psychiatrist or seen for what it is after staring at it for a time. We must, and I cannot stress this enough, see the emotional hurt for what it is and let the true story unfold itself no matter how painful it may be. The more we are able to do so the less severe the emotional hurt will be each time it comes up.
The secret sauce.
In watching a documentary on the church of Scientology I realized Hubbard the founder stumbled onto the secret sauce of letting go. Before moving on I do not endorse anyone joining the church of Scientology I only use there method as an example. Unfortunately most Scientology parishioners believe it is the church that is the reason for their dramatic life changes and not the method in which they deploy. This is why they find it difficult to leave because they feel their lives will go back to the way it was if they do. But only if they truly knew the truth of the results they see.
So Hubbard discovered when ever an emotional hurt passes through our mind the actual electrical resistance in our skin changes. Yes, the electrical resistance of our skin changes when a negative thought occurs. This alone should be enough to prove what a profound affect negative thoughts have on us physically. Hubbard created a device which has two metal handles a new subject holds in each hand and these handles are connected by wire to a meter displaying a numerical value to a counselor assisting them in guiding the new subject. The counselor would then simply begin speaking with the new subject watching the meter the entire time.
When a negative thought passes through the subjects mind the meter spikes prompting the counselor to ask the subject what they were just thinking of. This then forces the subject to truthfully talk about the emotional hurt they had just previously thought of no mater how painful. Over time, the church subjects begin to realize that the acuteness of the pain quickly diminishes each time they talk through it with the counselor. Until eventually the negative thought never enters their minds ever again and if it does, it no longer hurts and can be looked at for what it is. Additionally, the negative thoughts they have fully talked over cease to change the electrical resistance in their skin should one come up again. Keep in mind the counselor is not a psychiatrist they are simply forcing the subject to talk about the emotional pain.
After a while, the church subject begins to notice dramatic positive changes in their lives. They are no longer attracting the same crippling situations in their lives as they used to. Their lives begin becoming what they have always wanted it to be. This is because their subconscious is no longer attracting the situations and events as before to try and force them to deal with the emotional pains. The subjects are now making decisions based on their true happiness rather than bringing the same crap in time and time again.
How I handled my pain.
I myself found help to force me deal with emotional pains that spanned back to the earliest years of my life which I had painted rosily over. Once this person began picking my facade apart the water works and pain came springing straight back up to life with a vengeance. With time most of the pain has diminished. Though I no longer employ the help of somebody for this I do now practice mindfulness, which I will get into in another post, to help me realize when a negative thought occurs and keep my focus on it until I have fully uncovered it for what it truly is. Again, the most important part of any of this is, and I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT LIE TO YOURSELF!
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this will take time and this will be difficult. But the payoff far exceeds the hard work ahead. In my current state, at almost a year later, even though the cancers have been removed I still feel as if there are draining tubes in my psyche allowing infection to drain to promote healing. We hold these hurts for a very long time and we live our lives by them just as long as we have had them. Should you start on a journey to excise your cancers do not get discouraged by the long hard road ahead because once your out of the woods, you are out for good.
This is what letting go is all about and be prepared for relationships in your lives to change some drastic, some small, and some in very healthy ways. This is common and I will get into this aspect of letting go in another post. As always, I hope and pray this information finds you well.