by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys
Human beings are constructed physically and energetically to experience and express a range of states that we call emotions. While the range of emotional states that we can experience is similar from person to person our reactions to these states is not. In fact our reactions to various emotions become a large part of the experience of them. Some we enjoy and seek to stimulate, while others we avoid and resist.
Generally it is easier for human beings to own the good feelings than the bad. If we are angry or fearful or sad we generally associate these states with an external cause. Someone or something has caused them. It usually takes practice and conscious thought to see how these emotions arise from programmed reactions to external events or stimuli.
It is useful to remember that we are often acting from many levels of our being. We may be consciously dedicated to behaving in one way while in fact we are perhaps doing something quite different. People generally do not consciously want to be angry or fearful or sad, and yet at unconscious levels we can have programming, pictures, and judgments that produce these states of being.
It may be hard to understand how we can be responsible for states we never consciously desire, and may even have worked hard to release or avoid. Yet, our actual experience and actions are often out of alignment with our conscious intentions. This adds to the tendency to assume that the source of these states is external. If it is not in our consciousness and we aren’t aware of the unconscious levels, or even their possibility, then it logically has to be outside somewhere.
Within our being we all carry emotional energies that have come from other people, as well as old energies that we ourselves have been unable to release. At some point we decided that we didn’t want to experience them and pushed them away, out of our awareness. These may have been traumatic or incidental, but they were put on hold. One of the purposes of being human is the opportunity to release these old energies, to clear our space of things that are not a part of who we are and become free. To assist in this process the universe helps us create situations that wake up these old feelings. Meeting people who recreate an old drama so we can go through it again with more awareness and find our way out of resistance and go free, or perhaps people who mirror what we hold.
When we meet such people our old unconscious emotional energies “wake up”, we begin to vibrate in ways that we have found to be uncomfortable and perhaps fearful. These energies will carry with them all of the judgment, and secondary emotions that originally caused them to be locked away. If we can simply be aware, and let the emotions flow, we release them and find more of our freedom.
However, we are likely to to feel pretty bad in the process, and if we do not suspect that we are becoming aware of something that has long been ours, we may think that the other person has attacked us, or thrown energy at us. This is especially true if the original situation included some form of attack or invalidation.
Of course, it is possible that someone has tossed some energy at you. As with many things in life, the answer to a multiple choice is “all of the above”. People who are themselves experiencing unpleasant emotional states may well be trying to unload some of their energies, often unconsciously, sometimes consciously. But this is still likely to be only a part of the picture, and in the long run usually not the most important.
We are in the situation to begin with as an opportunity to grow by releasing old baggage. The more we can do this the less we need external reminders and the situations and people clear up or go away. On occasion it is useful to know how to own one’s space and avoid or block energy that is tossed our way. If, however, we are always looking outside for the source of any unpleasant emotion that we experience, we may often miss the opportunity to really clean house, to release things that are trying to leave.
So it is important to check inside and with Spirit, to ask if it is our energy that we are releasing, even in part, or if we really are only under attack. One of the secrets to power is claiming what is ours, even when we would rather not have it. If we give responsibility to someone else, then we have no way to act, especially if they are a simple mirror. Only by claiming it may we release it and move on.
(© 8/2003)
