We Lose our Power when Holding Negative Emotions without Awareness
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“Awareness is all about restoring your freedom to choose what you want instead of what your past imposes on you.”
The statement in the title is based on my own experience. While my heart was in pain and was feeling hurt, it held negative emotions, keeping me stuck and fixated on a constant negative looping thought. And, as René Descartes once said, "I think, therefore I am", and if we dare to reflect on it and rethink it to slightly say, "I think and feel therefore I am and create". As I was thinking about the situations that had hurt in the first place, I was creating more of what I do not want, simply because our feelings ignite our emotions, and whichever meaning (thought or belief) you have attached to that feeling, it dictates which emotions you will be emitting, therefore creating. Then, you look around your library of thoughts and start to question what am I feeling with every thought I think? And what am I creating with that library that I have accepted as part of me?
It is what usually happens to us when we first start to interact with the outside world as a baby, we feel, and we begin to experience life on Earth. As we feel, our parents describe our feelings through language for each experience we have with them. That is the start of us learning what our feelings mean.
It is precisely that same very time that we start creating our subconscious mind's content, the library of beliefs that will guide us for the rest of our lives or until we become aware that everything we learned growing up can be updated, discharged, released or upgraded.
For example, if a mother gives attention to her baby, the baby will feel they matter and they would feel loved. Therefore, having the mother's attention for some people will become the meaning of feeling love, they will grow up believing they matter, having interaction that will reflect that.
However, the opposite is also true. Suppose a person has not been given attention as a child. In that case, the feelings are painful, and a child may start interpreting the lack of attention as if they do not matter, and if that type of interaction occurs long enough (feeling they do not matter), the child will start to believe that this is true about them.
The feeling of not mattering will continue to vibrate within the person, it will become their vibration signature, and they will connect (attract) with relationships that will corroborate that belief. It will always make them feel that they do not matter. More precisely, they interact with people that will ignore them.
Each experience in our childhood will pave our interactions in our adult lives with people around us, having connections that resemble our family dynamics.
Putting it in a slightly different perspective, if a child would be capable of having awareness since the day they were born, they could well choose how to feel. However, one needs to experience to feel. Therefore, our experiences growing up with our family will dictate how our subconscious is constructed, and consequently it will also limit our “free will” because as we accept a concept (belief) without questioning it, it will command outcomes in our life that may not match our inner intentions.
If we could reflect on the importance of the feelings we experience, we would again reconsider René Descartes' quote to reflect "I feel, therefore I am". As an adult, we believe that we first think a thought but think about it! As mentioned in the first paragraph, when babies, we are first constantly feeling and having someone to put meaning to what we have just felt, and the meaning is also based on our parents' perception, which is not the absolute truth of anything, but for them only.
How many times have I had an interaction that, while interacting I could not explain, comment on or respond to? After I got home, a feeling of disappointment with myself would take over followed by anger because, at the time, I had no words to express or comment on whatever the other person was saying. How could we become so aware that we would be ahead of our thoughts? We would be present with our feelings and acting from that awareness. We shall come to an awareness that our feelings can directly influence our thoughts. Of course, after years of feeling and thinking, thinking and feeling, it is difficult for us to grab the idea that we first feel to then have an opinion of the situation. However, considering that we are energy, and our energy emanates beyond our body, it seems predictable to say that we can feel someone or a situation before we even start interacting. And not the other way around.
Here and Now
We have read and heard how important it is to feel, moreover to feel grateful and to be present in the here and now, to value our imagination and to be careful about what we think and speak.
Most important we should awaken to what beliefs we have accepted to be part of our subconscious mind, to be part of who we are because these beliefs that we learn as a child will dictate how we feel for the rest of our lives, until we decide to question and wake up to the incongruence (the disconnection between our heart and brain) that keep us stuck.
Many authors have written about the concept "living in the here and now" and becoming aware of what we think and feel, to mention some: Carl Rogers, Alan Watts, Dr Joe Dispenza, Gurdjieff, Dr Bruce Lipton, Neville Goddard, Joseph Murphy, Fritz Perl, Wayne Dyer, and so many more, that I would need pages and pages to list all these extraordinary thinkers throughout the history of humanity, that have been guiding us to become aware of our truth, of our power as humans.
Let's take for instance, the concept of "to be present in the now" without allowing our mind to wander to the past or future; if anyone meditates on that concept, we would understand the profound power that is to just feel without the influence of the past (because the past is in the past, the memories of the past is not happening in the now) and the future (how could we have anxiety of the future if we have not yet created it?). We can only create our future in the now based on what we are feeling and thinking; therefore, what are we thinking?
Abraham Lincoln wisely once said, "The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it". What we are thinking and feeling right now will dictate what we create, therefore, our future. Let's think then, if we have only thoughts from the past in the now, and we continue to tell our stories of pain, we will reinforce that reality repeatedly, and our creation will be just a continued story of the past. The outcome can't be different, even though we are eager to escape feeling stuck.
So, our reality exists through our thoughts because what we think often comes from the beliefs that we have acquired growing up; therefore, as we continue to think, we build momentum, and as we think, we feel; that feeling ignites and mobilises the energy around us, and that energy in motion creates what we know an emotion. So, when our mind keeps records (memory) of a situation that hurt us, and if we keep paying attention to it without letting it go, we keep a negative looping thought, creating the same feeling of hurt.
In this case, the entire experience can be summarised as resentment. Now, the word resentment can mobilise the emotions such as anger, sadness, and disappointment, etc. These negative emotions vibrate energetically at a low frequency. If we keep feeling it without resolving it, we will also vibrate at a low frequency.
In summary, it is the language we use as an adult, with its words definitions and sentiment attached to it, that we have gathered while growing up since childhood.
It is how it happens, as an adult we can give a description to our feelings, but as babies, we can't dictate the kind of experience that is unfolding in front of our eyes (these experiences give us feelings, good or bad), therefore teaching us how is the world we were just born in, by learning from our parents (family and extended family, friends, teacher so on) to put meaning to it.
After we have embodied the meaning of these words, they become familiar, enabling us to explain how we feel to when we were a baby to now that you are reading this article.
As we think of certain words and concepts long enough, they become our beliefs; once we believe what the words say, it becomes automatically a default resource that our subconscious mind uses to guide us through our lives, using it to express our pain or our love, of which, both we learned through experiencing, feeling it.
Technically, a word that has a positive definition should create positive emotions. However, we will meet people with different meanings attached to the same word we know.
For example, a family gathering for many means happy times, but for some can well mean drama. Therefore, a family gathering is sold to us as something to look forward to, but it can bring different emotions in people depending on their experience.
Words and their Emotional Vibration
For this discussion, we are going to focus on words that are mostly known universally by us as "negative", be it the word itself, the history of how it exists in our lives, and the feelings we carry and keep, creating what we call negative emotions, for example, anger, sadness, grief, and disgust, let's not forget all of the swear words too. These words describe our pain and the conduct that makes us aware of fighting and releasing the pain.
“If you want to find the secrets of the Universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” Nikola Tesla
Words describe our thoughts, and as we think them often enough, they become eventually our beliefs, which will dictate our future reality and outcome without us knowing it.
For example, I grew up in a family with Italian, Brazilian (Latino America), and Austrian backgrounds. I inherited many negative emotions through growing up with my diverse family, so it was common to hear adults in my family swearing when they were unhappy with something. You see this is the way they used to release their negative emotions, but I was not aware of it.
So, I grew up and was surrounded by this incongruent quantum field around me where adults could swear, but not the children, and we all knew the rules, "do as I say, not as I do". Looking back, I keep imagining how confused my mirror neurons were most of the time by living in that incongruent world.
A point to make here is that I do not remember or have a recollection of people in my family being judged or criticised by each other for swearing; we learned to accept them that way. That was the drill, and it was as if they were saying to us, "This is how we release our anger". The anger was what they felt by feeling hurt or betrayed, and once they shouted and swore, everything seemed to return to normal after the storm. The matter would be solved and forgotten most of the time. Despite of seeing that it does work, we can find better approaches to release our negative emotions. I am choosing each day to defend myself differently. I am choosing to tell the truth, as it unfolds from my heart, to those that have hurt me based on my perception.
Another interesting experience I have learned about swear words was that, although having negative definitions, the energy people decided to attach to them was positive, meaning using swear words to express love. For example, if I did not call my mum as often as she wanted me to, the day that I called her, she would start by saying something like "Sua vagabunda, safada, sem vergonha, não te dei educação não pra ligar pra sua mãe?" (which means something like this "Your vagabond, naughty, shameless, didn't I give you the education to call your mother?"), with intonation in her voice that sounded funny and with a love energy attached to it.
We would laugh, I would say "sorry, Mum", and explain myself and the matter was resolved, and we would move on to enjoy the conversation. But the energy vibrating from these "swear words" would not hurt or offend me; I felt instead loved by her; she wanted to know about me, to hear about me, so at least for me, it showed that some words, considered negative in their definition, could come with a positive emotional vibration attached to it.
Moving on, just a reminder at this point that we lose our power when holding negative emotions without awareness, because as I think I created, the more I give attention to the stories that have created a feeling of anger, I will vibrate on that frequency. When we become aware of this process, it is a game changer.
Negative thought plus negative meaning/sentiment = negative emotions
Think this way, anger is a word that carries a negative definition and a negative sentiment to it. Therefore, it has a low vibration and frequency and it is a concept embodied and known, experienced and consolidated in the mind of all of us, human beings, and often thought and felt because we and everyone around us are hurt on some level.
The more people think and feel it, a wave of atoms with that information will be floating around us, readily available and easy to feel, experience and consequently create. When we become aware of our emotions, we take time to learn and find ways to master them. But until then, these negative emotions will be controlling us by default.
Something curious to reflect on that helps us to heighten our awareness is, can you feel angry and happy simultaneously? They have different frequencies and vibrations. However, interestingly, the emotions of feeling anxious or excited provoke in our bodies the same effects physiologically. Our vision is enhanced, and we have heightened hearing and awareness, plus extra adrenaline from the experience unfolding before us.
What does this tell you? The power we have. We are the conscience (soul) behind the mind that lives in our body, and when you become aware of it, you can make informed decisions about how to feel and think, but only if you are awake. If you are aware of that, you can choose to stop being angry but happy, or feeling excited instead of anxious. I know it is easier said than done.
However, as a challenge comes your way, you can decide where you want to put your attention and focus: to give power to the outside world, or to breathe and transform the emotions in your favour, overcoming any challenge. We can not only choose to use a word but also intentionally choose to add the vibration we want to emanate with it. That is our power.
Remember the paragraph above when I gave my mother as an example where she uses negative words and attached her vibration of love to it. However, if you are feeling emotionally angry, the escape gate is to become aware of it, to feel it, to understand it, and to release it, and never feel guilty for any emotions you are feeling; they are coming up for a purpose, so demystify it.
Therefore, if we are not aware of our emotions, we keep negative thoughts hovering around in our mind affecting our creation and consolidating the negative thoughts that we do not wish any longer to become part of your reality. While you are in this state, your mind is not free to think or create anything else in your life. You will be creating more of what you are mainly thinking. This is based on my own experience.
Let's look within and find the thoughts that keep us living an incongruent life, and let's choose to release the old beliefs that no longer serve us and create what is in line with our souls.
In the next blog, I will explore the concept of us acquiring the inherent knowledge of our beliefs, principally the limiting ones, and their negative emotions and how it impacts us losing our power if we are unaware. The aim is to present a different perspective so you can consider changing your views about our negative emotions, to never look at them with disgust, guilt, or blame but as an alliance that gives us signs to free ourselves and to guide us developing our consciousness.