Work THROUGH your feelings/thoughts, not away from them

A client asked me recently if we should just ignore feelings and thoughts of the past when we are trying to move on and learn our lessons in life? This is what I told her: 

No, of course, we do not ignore them. They surfaced for a reason and we must pay attention to how our emotions, our energies and our physical and subtle bodies respond to different situations and circumstance in life. 

Our body systems have intelligence, and by ignoring them, we are missing out on a whole lot of information that can actually aid in our healing and clearing as well as transformation.

Many new-age motivational leaders or “gurus” would ask you to plough through and ignore these signs, and just focus on positive thoughts. I’m not sure if that is wise because isn’t this how we got ourselves into trouble in the first place? 

Ignoring, suppressing, denying and eventually having all the pent up emotions and thoughts manifesting themselves as dis-ease in our physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual bodies, to me doesn't seem like a viable strategy. 

Most of the time, by suppressing these toxic energies also means, we create lenses or filters in how we see the world and ourselves. These toxic energies become the world we see through our minds. 

So how do we deal with these toxic energies? Do we just confront the people who trigger them? 

Well, the thing is most of the time the people who trigger them are not the ones who helped us to create them. Most of these pain and hurt we carry with us, came from our past, and a lot of it from our growing up years. 

The people who trigger them, if we want to look at it from a positive perspective, are doing us a favour. I know, it doesn't sound like very much of a favour, but it is a favour to us, to make us aware so that we can do something about it. 

We always have a choice -- to blame the people in our lives for how we are feeling, or to take responsibility and work through the shit load of stuff within our body, our emotions, and our mind. And if we are honest, we have a tonne of them stuff. 

Most of the time, from some learned behaviour from our parents or caregivers growing up, we just love harbouring, and the payoff is that we do not have to do anything because the "problem isn't us, but others."

I often tell my clients and students, the only way to heal is to work through those negative emotions and thoughts. This means to feel them, and not to push them away, to feel them, but don't wallow in them. This requires some form of supervision, so work with somebody on this, a therapist, a coach, someone who has the experience and knows what they are doing. (Unfortunately, your friends as helpful as they may be, may not know how to effectively assist you, so go for real help, and shorten your time in misery).

Some simple strategies to assist you for a start:

1. When painful and difficult feelings/thoughts surface, breathe and be still
2. Acknowledge they are there, do not try to push them, or deny them, or suppress them
3. Ask yourself where do these familiar feelings/thoughts come from? At which point of your growing up years?
4. Hold that thought. Ask yourself how can you help that little child if he/she is a real child? You may be able to come up with ways to process your feelings/thoughts with this in mind.
5. Seek professional help if you don't know how to go through this process, or if you're feeling lost. 

Whatever it is, do not just let them be. They will continue to come up and we will be triggered over and over again by different people in our lives if we do not address them. And in the meantime, we may just be destroying our relationships, connections, and everything that we hold important in our lives with these toxic vibes. 

And we become the toxic people that we hear so much about. Yes, sometimes it is us who is toxic, so give ourselves the chance to heal and work through the toxicity.

We will come out stronger, clearer with a bigger heart and mind to love. 

©2020 Shamala Tan

Let me know how I can assist you if you have any questions [email protected]

Shamala Tan is an author, spiritual entrepreneur and healer. Her work focuses on transforming the lives of others on the spiritual, emotional, mental and earthly level.

One of her success stories as an author is to being featured alongside New York’s bestsellers Sonia Choquette, Robert Allen, Arielle Ford, Marci Shimoff as well as Christine Kloser in the book Pebbles In The Pond.

Shamala’s clients include small business owners, holistic practitioners as well as those seeking to find more significant meaning and value in life. Shamala offers laser coaching to her clients on a one-to-one basis or in a group environment, offline as well as online.