Getting Real with Our Emotions

This is a big week for water, the element of emotion. The sun is entering Cancer, there is a new moon in Cancer, Mercury (the messenger and communicator) is entering Caner and to top it off we are moving into the summer- a time of extroversion and intensity. When I think of the Summer I think of the second chakra, which is also a chakra of great emotion. In the sign of Cancer we feel our emotions deeply: we can use them to build walls, we can express them fiercely, or we can find balance in between allowing them to guide us to a more meaningful existence. Speaking from the perspective of someone who has experienced a great period of time in a state of depression, I am quite familiar with what it feels like to be held hostage by emotions. You know that happiness is a choice, but choosing it is another thing all together.

There are three ways to react to the life around you: actions, thoughts and emotions. When you are out of balance, overwhelmed and overworked it is easy lose control over these reactions- remaining in control takes a great deal of practice... Free will and choice sounds great until it is your turn to take the wheel. One source of misperception regarding emotions is that it is perfectly ok to have any emotions that come up. These emotions are reactions, they are not to be judged- how you use the emotions that come up though will warrant judgment. Society deems some emotions bad and some emotions good, therefor when you feel the bad emotions you also have been groomed to feel bad about feeling those bad emotions. It is difficult to work through your life when you are busy apologizing to the world for it. Your emotions are apart of you, when you disown something that is apart of you you forfeit the ability to control them. 

Living by the emotions that come up is different though. Your emotional reaction is honoring what you innately feel, to disown that is to disown yourself. It is important to honor the emotions that come up- invite them in for tea, sit with them, talk with them, ask them what they are trying to tell you because they are trying to tell you something. Your emotional reaction is letting you as a human know that deep down your Soul is reacting in a certain way to what is happening in your life. You MUST honor this reaction, it is your greatest guide! It is about experiencing the emotion, honoring it and its message and using this wisdom to make decisions on how to move forward in a way that serves you best. Here's the trick though, once you experience and honor the emotion and the lesson that it has, it is time to let it go. When I do clearing work in my readings I use the line, "hold onto the lesson but release the pain." It's a very similar thing with your emotions, take the message that the emotion is sharing with you, but then let it go. Your emotions are the messenger, not the news itself. The person who is taking advantage of you does not need to experience your anger/frustration/disappointment in order for you to resolve the situation- the person who is taking advantage of you doesn't actually matter to your personal journey, the situation that you are participating does. Use your emotion's message to get yourself out of, or address, the situation and if you are efficient with your words you do not need to spread the emotion too. I believe that emotion is added into discourse because of the belief that it becomes more convincing... but why do you need to be more convincing? If something does not serve you that should be convincing enough, you do not need to justify your decision to anyone other than yourself.

You are not your emotions, but the world will perceive you based upon your emotions (as well as your thoughts and actions). Your emotional body is like a layer of clothing that gets added to your Soul. You want your emotional body to reflect your Soul! You are not anger, frustration, jealousy, sadness. These are just layers that you felt at one point and forget to let go of. Remember: hold onto the lesson but release the emotion. These emotions came up to serve you, to let you know that something wasn't right, but they are not you. Tune into the emotions that are you: joy, love, kindness, peace. Which emotions do you feel when you are your best?  Come back to those emotions each and every day- take a few minutes to sit with those emotions, infuse them into your body, remember what you feel like when you are consumed by these emotions. I promise that if you do this regularly that these honest and genuine emotions will begin to crowd out the negative ones that shouldn't be there in the first place.

What happens when you don't work through your emotions? When you disown them out of fear or shame of them consuming you? You repress, you pretend to not see/feel the major messages that your Soul is sending you. You cannot repress anything for long, nothing disappears it just gets transformed. What does unacknowledged emotion transform into? The first sign of repressed emotion is outbreaks of larger emotion. Anger is my big red flag that I have been avoiding something- I believe that anger is what happens when you don't express and deal with the negative in your life. Anger is the powder-keg result of pretending like all is well. I am not speaking about the anger that happens when you see injustice, the split second reaction of anger. I am speaking about being angry, ya know, like when you are straight up mad and have no patience left for anyone and you want to yell and hit a wall. This is a huge sign that you have not dealt with something, or maybe many somethings. Crying is another build-up reaction that happens when too much gets piled on you and you have failed to let enough go. Crying can feel so incredibly relieving when done occasionally- but when done regularly it is again a sign that there is too much emotion that you have held onto. If emotion goes past the realms of anger and crying without being dealt with then it is going to get buried deeper and deeper within you until is starts to seed itself and grow. I believe a great deal of disease within this world is a result of unacknowledged and (dare I say?) unloved emotions. Yes! You should love your emotions- the good and the bad- because they are helping you to get a grip of how you are reacting. The goal is to use your emotions, not be used by them, so even the less than desirable emotions are supporting the highly positive path that you are attempting to stay on in your life!

Water is the element of emotions- water can turn into vapor/air, changing form, but it always remains water. The same goes for your emotions, they can change form but they will never disappear. How do you get your emotions to change back into their rightful form? Well you must sit with them first. What emotions have been cropping up for you lately? Invite them in, sit with them, ask: where did you come from? If you start digging you will likely be amazed by what comes up- most likely the injustices you are feeling are not a result of the present situation, but one that was left unresolved from the past. This is true karma- past reactions that have been left unresolved until the next time they pop up. What emotional reactions have you held onto but no longer serve you? What emotional reactions do not honor that beautiful Soul within you? This is the perfect time to start dealing with it. 

Summer is a highly active, highly social, highly extroverted season- this could be either a recipe for greatness or disaster depending on how on top of your emotional game you are. Live it, feel it, react based upon it, let it go. Let your intention these next few weeks to live a life that authentically expresses the perfection of the Soul within. Express yourself fearlessly- this does not mean proving points or rants on Facebook. It means experiencing life, observing how you react to it then living unapologetically based upon these internal reactions. Enjoy the sun, the long days, the extra opportunities to live life. If something negative comes up, let it, take it as an opportunity to let something go and create more space for love and laughter. Summer is intense, it'll come and go all too quickly. It can be even more challenging in the pace of this season to stay on top of all that is happening. Enjoy it, but be sure to take time, quick moments when you can, to check in with your emotions and deal with what needs to be dealt with, otherwise when the fall rolls around there will be a lot more to harvest then you might be prepared for. 

((photo credit: Jody Bergsma))

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