Welcome to my 11-part series of How to Transform Your Life where I share my favorite tools and resources that I implemented and improved my life with. Today is the fourth transformational tip on processing negative emotions. Enjoy!
Unresolved inner conflicts impact our health, career, and relationships. This robs us of enjoying our lives. If you are triggered, agitated, or apathetic, and depressed it could be from holding onto unprocessed painful experiences. This prolonged suffering is reflected in the body as explained by Bessel van der Kolk in the book, The Body Keeps the Score.
I realized I was an emotional hoarder of wounds after my body went into sudden cardiac arrest from buried away resentments and disappointments from decades before. There are five major wounds and fears: abandonment, betrayal, humiliation, injustice, and rejection. Not knowing how to process pain, I told myself to “get over it.” or denied being upset, or minimized my experience by saying it wasn’t that bad. I didn’t know there were methods to release it. Doesn’t time heal? When a similar situation arose it triggered me to believe another negative situation reminiscent of the past would occur and my body would have a visceral reaction.
Studies have shown we do not emotionally develop beyond the age of unresolved conflicts. Mark Oliver, explains in the book The Four Intelligences most people in the United States don’t emotionally mature past the age of eight. This explains why a grown adult can go into a fit and act childlike.
In nature, when an animal is in a dangerous and stressful state, its heart races, cortisol, adrenalin, and norepinephrine flood the body. Once out of danger, the animal has the capacity to return back to homeostasis within ninety seconds. Dr. Joe Dispenza states humans have the same capacity. When we hold onto the stress long after the experience has occurred it is possible we are addicted to those hormonal states. The good news is addiction can be overcome by processing negative emotions as a daily practice.
Imagine the light feeling of prioritizing emotional well-being by clearing out negative experiences. Do this in a safe quiet space, when alone and uninterrupted, between thirty and ninety minutes. The three great resources listed below help process negative emotions.
Emotional Map from Making Love Work by Barbara De’Angelis
This method includes writing or speaking out loud and expressing emotions in the following six steps. Each level breaks down the negative charge and leads into the next level where all emotions are resolved.
Anger, resentment, and blame
Hurt, sadness, and disappointment
Fears, insecurities, and wounds
Regrets, understanding, and responsibility
Wishes, intentions, and solutions
Love, appreciation, and forgiveness
The Work by Byron Katie
The first step of this process is to fill out a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet where you answer six questions about the triggering experience. Then there are four questions to reflect on and then a turnaround. Byron Katie hosts a weekly podcast, At Home with Byron Katie demonstrating this powerful and transformative process.
Ho’oponopono
A Hawaiian spiritual practice used to clean energy by reciting four sentences. This method is popularized by the story of Dr. Hew Len, a clinical psychologist who worked with the developmentally disabled and the criminally mentally ill and their families. He didn’t treat the patients instead he applied the following steps towards himself stating that when the data is clear within it ceases to be expressed in those around you. This method was so radical that the patients healed and the mental institution was closed.
I am sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.
The process is complete when you feel lighter, more loving, and at peace with the past. The inner conflict is resolved and all that is left is a sense of gratitude. There is power in seeing things anew, gaining insights, and inspiring a change in responses and behaviors.
Everyone deserves to experience a rewarding and fulfilling life. Take the time to clean up and process emotional wounds. It may be exhausting as memories surface to grieve, but the body will heal and so will your emotional resilience.
Being a mother is an honor. Even though motherhood came sooner than I expected, the impact of being a mother has forever changed my life. However, if I were to die today and no longer be around for my children, there are things I feel strongly that I would want my children to remember and know about life. As life unfolds we tend to forget and become distracted. Here are the principles I would want to remind my children of and stay connected to.
You are a Spiritual Being in Physical World
Honor your intuition
Have integrity
You are here to enjoy and appreciate this life
You are a genius
You deserve the best that life has to offer
The opposite of fear is love inspired by Marianne Williamson
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Give with Love and Gratitude
Feel good no matter what
Never put your happiness in something outside of yourself
See the good in everything and learn from your life lessons
Show compassion and the world will be compassionate towards you
This world is a reflection- give away what you want and it will come back tenfold
Don’t Listen to Outside Influences
Marketing : commercials, ads, etc. that distract you from your inner voice
Advice from the good opinions of others
Think your own thoughts
Be the solution not the problem
You are Your Own Leader & Lead With Your Heart
Let your passion guide you
Have a Vision
Stay committed and focused on what you want
Share your perspective publicly
You will advance further in this life when you focus on being kind rather than right
Do it Anyway inspired by Mother Teresa’s Anyway Poem
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
Employ and Invest in Yourself
Be in charge of your life and career.
Let it be the thing you most love and are most passionate about sharing and would do for free just because you love it.
Never choose anything you clock in and out from. Do what is built into you to do that never turns off after 40 hours.
“The biggest mistake people make in life is not trying to make a living at doing what they most enjoy.” – Malcolm Forbes
Take Care of Your Body, it is Your Transmitter to the Divine Rest
Get sun
Breathe fresh clean air
Exercise and sweat
Stay properly hydrated and drink pure water from natural springs and produce
Nourish your body with plenty of dark leafy greens and fresh fruit
Be your own preventative health doctor, do not expect someone else to care more for your body than you do.
Surround Yourself with People Who Inspire You to Be More
You are the average of the 5 people you spend most of your time with. You are the average in attitude, emotional stability, income, weight/health, education, etc…
Only spend time with those who encourage you and support you.
Give others the freedom to have their own thoughts and do as they please.
Be loving and supportive of others. It’s more important to be kind than right!
Build a tribe of close friends that you enjoy through your life.
Contribute and share your gifts with the world. Improve the quality of others lives.
Leave this planet better than when you arrived.
Choose a Sustainable Living Environment Locate your home in a place that sustains life without the need of human intervention. The more you do this the less you will need from outside resources. This will encourage freedom for it will provide fresh natural resources such as clean air, plenty of water or rain, sunshine, temperate climate. Honor this place and leave it in better condition than when you came.
Your Home is Your Private Sanctuary
Be Prepared
Grow your own food for quality and purity, for love and variety, for freshness and nutrient density, for preparedness and health, for freedom and a healthy planet
Prepare your home for Natural Disasters with medical aid, water and food supply and alternative shelter and protection from heat and chill
Know how to treat emergency situations: first aid, CPR, etc..
Live Lightly and Simply
Let greed be for the fools
Experience True Wealth
Money is not true wealth, but love, time, health, pleasure, wisdom, and peace are!
Alex and Mehgan this is written for and dedicated to you. I am so thankful to be your mother and may your life be filled with true wealth. If you are a mother, please take the time to make sure your children know what is important, leave them your legacy now. Do not wait until it is too late. Who knows, maybe you’ll start blogging and leave that as your legacy for your children. Pay your wisdom forward.
If you are running through life feeling overwhelmed and not really making the impact you know you want, or wishing you felt alive and filled with passion then you are going to LOVE me!
