4. Working through your natural feelings
People who grieve over a broken relationship are often
extremely sensitive. Seek comfort, so that you as a grieving person are not
alone with your grief. Indicate that you want to be comforted. (a sorrow shared
is a sorrow halved!)
Your feelings are the digestive system of your mind. Your
grief makes the unacceptable acceptable.
Your mind tells you to let go of your ex, but your feelings
do not want to/cannot continue yet.
In the long run, grief can become an alibi for not having
to function fully. In that case, your grief becomes your identity: you are no
longer yourself, but the grieving person for someone else or for something that
happened to you: this gives you an ego boost.
Not
processing, but storing feelings causes damage in the long run.
Take
the overview of your emotional person from the previous chapter (Part 3 - The
quadrant).
Let’s
take a look at your different feelings:
Overview of feelings
|
Natural feelings |
Function |
Deformities |
|
FEAR/ANXIETY: Unravel:
what are you doing, what are you thinking, what are you feeling. By
changing one of those three, the rest will automatically change along with
it. Look
at your fear: What is the worst thing that can happen to you? Give yourself
love, don't flee in fear. Be yourself, who you want to be; don't lose
yourself in others. Focus on the positive in your life. Let go of your fears.
Take full possession of your life. True love for yourself is now your salvation.
Open your heart to yourself. Lift yourself up to this free feeling. With that
you reach your inner resources. Breathe into your tension. And let this flow
through your feet into the ground. Breathe fear out through your hands. Let
it flow out through your mouth. |
Warn, flee/fight Fear
provides extra energy to combat danger. |
Feelings
of panic, phobias. Fear
can hinder and paralyze you when you don't know why you are anxious or how to
deal with your fear. |
|
ANGER is
the feeling that can provide you the energy to stand up for yourself and
really connect with yourself. They are allowed to be there. But express
them! You don't have to keep your anger feelings in your body or
thoughts. Are
you often angry, what do you think about? Throw a pillow against the wall, or
against a chair, while you tell why you are angry. Or pinch, tear, kick,
chew. Exercising
produces endorphins, which help clear up a depression. |
Helps
us learn our limits. It
is your self-protection. Inner
strength. |
Guilt,
aggression, feeling wronged, bullying, laughing your anger away. Powerlessness. |
|
SADNESS: makes the unacceptable acceptable. This
feeling is allowed to be there. Don't
run away from yourself any longer. Ultimately: Deprive your sadness of its
right to exist by resolutely taking back control of your life and making
something beautiful out of it. Love yourself as you are. That shadow side is
also allowed to be there. Every person has a shadow side. |
Coming
to terms with loss. Healing
yourself. Tears
wash clean. |
Self-pity,
bitterness, grumbling, complaining, regret, shame. |
|
JEALOUSY where
you want to get what someone else already has. You can grow from it. |
Growth
motivation: wanting to be just like the person you admire. Need
to improve yourself. |
Competitive
behavior, insecurity, criticism, envy, gossiping, walking all over the other
person. |
|
WORRYING Worries
are a warning: Pay attention! Investigate your worries. Go to a doctor if you
have physical worries. |
Pay
attention to possible problems, so that you can then solve them. |
Worrying.
The same thoughts keep coming back. Especially when you are lying in bed. |
|
LOVE Loving
someone unconditionally. Loving
and being loved. |
You
may exist. Being
in balance with giving and receiving. Honoring
your masculine and feminine qualities in yourself. |
Wanting
to do everything for the other. Not
being able to receive. Coercive
behavior. Loving
under conditions. Mistrust,
resentment, disappointment. |
|
SHAME AND GUILT: Finishing loose ends. Cut
all the ropes that constrict you; Do the forgiveness meditation below one or
more times after different situations. |
There
are no mistakes. Only lessons that we can and want to learn. |
Your
body can become ill from all the stuck feelings. |
Deformities connect and reinforce each other. That can make
it extra difficult to work on them. Unravel your feelings step by step.
The first step is to ask yourself: What is wrong?, How do I
feel? and What is happening to me now?....... (script)
By bringing deformed feelings back to your healthy
feelings, you create new goals and restore the connection with yourself, who
you are and who you want to be. And you heal your broken heart.
Comfort the inner wounded
child in yourself. Take her/him
in your arms. Let the child tell you where and when you were hurt…….. What does
he/she need?....... Where can you get that?....... Tell her/him that you will
always be there for her/him, when she/he shows up.
Assignment (notebook)
Make
a list of 10 things that you like to do......
But
that you never actually get around to. See if you can pick them up again and
fit them into your daily life……..
·
RESURRECTION: Become who you want to be! Who are you?.......
·
Who used to be your hero in a movie or book, or in everyday life? Your great
example?.......
·
Learn to say NO. With that you say YES to yourself! What do you want to say no
to?…….. And what do you want to say yes to?....... CHOOSE FOR YOURSELF!
Difficult feelings:
Being relieved, for example, for the freedom
you regained, but the problems you have saddled your children with. Or being
relieved when someone commits suicide, because a depressed person was
burdensome for you to deal with.
Being angry about
the problems with which you have been left behind.
Being ashamed of
certain feelings (which is vèry normal).
Feelings of guilt you
have not done something, or have done something.
Sadness can
lead to increased use of alcohol or tobacco, and can lead to fatigue,
headaches, joint disorders.
LOOKING FURTHER AT YOUR FEELINGS AND HEALING THEM
1. Making a
feeling-o-gram
Plot
the intensity of the feelings you show externally above the zero point
(+ 1 and so on) and plot the intensity of the feelings you experience
internally below the zero point (-1 and so on).
outer
worry angry scared/fear love/happy sadness body pain/discomfort
+10
+
9
+
8
+
7
+
6
+
5
+
4
+
3
+
2
+
1
0 inner
worry angry scared/fear love/happy sadness body pain/discomfort
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
-
6
-
7
-
8
-
9
-
10
On what do you still
want to work?
Then
check: Is the feeling-o-gram in accordance with the situation and the
circumstance you are in. Look at which feelings you feel internally, but do not
show.
Grounding:
name your feelings, breathe into them, send them into the ground via your light
or your roots in the ground. Let them go.
What
actions can you take to express your suppressed feelings in a problem-solving
way, so that you feel relieved…….. Do it……..
UNRAVEL:
what do you think……., what do you do……., what do
you feel…….. If you change one of the three things, the rest will
change along with it.
2. Your instruction
guide: (notebook)
You
have already written down your feelings, as many as you can think of.
Choose
a color, a symbol for all feelings……..
Where
are those feelings in your body (on your inside / or on your outside)…….
Can
anyone see that?....... (look at your feeling-o-gram)
What
makes you angry……., scared……., happy……., sad……., guilty……., jealous……., etc.
And if you are, how does someone else see that on the outside? (if you don't
know, just look in the mirror when you think of a certain feeling.)…….
What
do you need?.......
How
can you provide that?.......
THIS
IS YOUR INSTRUCTION GUIDE!! Hang it up somewhere, or give it to your family
members so they can take it into account!
3. Three chairs (tear jar: I cry a jar of tears)
Set
down three chairs. One for your ex, one for your friend and one
for you.
Tell
a friend, thinking about your ex (or someone who hurt you), your saddest,
angriest, most frightened story that ever happened to you, so that you and/or
the other person have to cry about it……..
Tell
the same story, but in such a way that you can both laugh about it……..
Tell
the same story again, but in the past tense…….. What decision did you make as a
result, what did you learn from it………
SELF-HELP:
for at home: put down two chairs, one for you, one for your ex. Put a photo on
the chair, or hang a piece of clothing on the chair. Tell everything that is
bothering you……..
4. Playing with your
feelings (take your time)
Sit
in a certain feeling, make it big…., step out….. and look at it…., step in….,
and then out again….; then make it so small that it fits in a matchbox. Yóu are
the boss of your feelings: then put it away or throw it away.
Do
that with all the feelings that still bother you……..
5. Forgiveness
Forgiveness meditation – Who do you want to forgive (make a list and
work through them one by one)…….:
1.
Forgive the other person
2.
Ask the other person to forgive you
3.
Forgive yourself.
Introductory music: Elton John – Sorry seems to be the hardest word (click to listen)
Forgiveness
How often do we do that? How often do we say sorry, I'm
sorry, forgive me. And how often do we forgive others for what they do to us?
Probably far too little.
Conscience - worrying
Do you ever lie awake at night because of something you did
to someone else, and that you actually regret?.......
A feeling of guilt that just won't go away, and every now
and then it pops up again?.......
There's a good chance that it wants to be healed.
When people are hurt, we have feelings like sadness, pain,
fear, anger, but we ARE not those feelings and we have a mind, but we are not
our positive and negative, neutral thoughts. We are much more. (See the
quadrant, part 3)
As humans, we also have the opportunity to look at what is
going on inside us as an observer from a distance: For example, at the roles we
play in life from inner strength and powerlessness, or at our victim and
perpetrator roles. None of us can escape this. We all participate in it and we
all suffer from it. These are our life lessons.
Have you ever thought about
forgiving someone who did something to YOU?
..........
Who do you think of?.......
How could he or she have come to treat you like that?.......
If a person cannot forgive and therefore cannot 'let go' of
the negative experience, the law of cause and effect remains, action -
reaction: you do something, I do something back, one time you are the victim,
the next time you are the perpetrator. Because that resentment is still there.
If you no longer want to play along with this 'game', then
you could think about forgiving, which will finally allow you to process what
happened and let go of your heartache.
If you want, you can now listen to the folk singer André
Hazes, who has experienced a lot of sorrow and misery in his life, and can
therefore tell about it well: (in Dutch)
André Hazes: Your old man (click to play)
I
held you in my arms
How
proud I was of you
You
were only just born
And
you shivered from the cold
I
always wanted to take care of you
And
be a good father to you
But
that wish never came true
And
I still feel the pain
Will
I never see you again
Is
this what I deserve
But
still you are, a part of me
No,
that feeling never goes away
Forgive
me... what did I do wrong
Will
the door stay closed from now on
But
every time
It
hurts so much
Because
I will still be... your old man
I
left you in the lurch
I
couldn't stand it with your mother
We
argued every day
And
one day I didn't come home anymore
Tried
to forget everything
But
that I couldn't do it
And
still after all these years
I'm
stuck with my sorrow
Will
I never see you again
Is
this what I deserve
But
still you are, a part of me
No,
that feeling never goes away
Forgive
me... what did I do wrong
Will
the door stay closed from now on
But
every time
It
hurts so much
Because
I'm still... your old man
I worked for over 6 years at a Hospice as a terminal care
provider, sometimes just to hold the hand of the dying person and give them
something to drink or eat, massage or turn them, but sometimes they were afraid
of dying because there were still loose ends that had not been completed, and
we could talk about that. But wè don't have to continue to go on with our hurt
feelings for that long.
Forgiveness - How do
you do that?
What
has kept two people apart for a lifetime and made them enemies can be lifted in
one moment of love. When we no longer assume that there are scores to be
settled, we trust completely in our hearts. Because we suddenly realize that
love is the natural space of the open heart and the open mind.
Caught
up as we are in our melodramas, we forget all too easily that we are part of a
process with each other. (People are connected to each other by collective
memory and by the flow of love; we influence each other and we are therefore
all a part of each other). We also need each other. For example: What is a
child without parents/caregivers? What is a sick person without doctors? Or an
arm around you from a sympathetic person in times of distress.
Forgiveness
is a quality in which you let go of resentment and no longer hold on to a
separate identity. It means that you enter your heart, so that you can also
feel the pain of another and let it go. Forgiveness comes about when you can
open your heart to the mistakes of yourself and of others.
The
Indian teacher Maharaji often said: 'Do not exclude anyone from your heart.
Because if you exclude someone from your heart, you also exclude yourself.'
Because no one is worth closing your heart to. If you
put a wall around your heart because you can no longer tolerate sadness, you also
can no longer let in the generous love. And in doing so, you are shortchanging
yourself.
Then perhaps it is time to see whether we need to do some
overdue maintenance. (Our car does get regular maintenance) For physical
complaints we usually go to a doctor. For sore feelings we don't quickly go to
a psychologist or psychiatrist. But we can heal a lot ourselves through
forgiveness.
What about pride and resentment?
Our forgiveness is usually blocked by pride and resentment.
When resentment arises, we ARE that pride. We identify with it, and we close
ourselves off; we store that feeling somewhere in our body. Until, after years,
we get a pain in our stomach or somewhere else. And we no longer know what
caused it.
But we can also use that resentment as an opportunity to
subject ourselves to an examination. Because we ARE not that pride, we hàve it,
it comes and goes and we do not have to hold on to it.
In the beginning, many people wonder whether there is
actually forgiveness in their heart. I sometimes hear people say: "Oh no,
what he did to me, I will nèver forgive him". So it can take a while
before this terribly neglected quality is cultivated again. Because most people
no longer go to church where we learned "Forgive us our trespasses, as we
also forgive those who trespass against us".
When we realize that we are not finished with our business
at all, that there is still a painful attack in our heart, we discover that
everyone has to deal with that pain in order to learn from it. We all suffer
the same pain in our lives. And forgiveness begins to change into compassion.
When we cherish compassion, that pain disappears, to change into love. All that
so-called separateness dissolves into the Oneness, our connectedness with each
other.
Only then can we make a clean house.
I think the message is, that we have to learn to think with
our heart, and feel with our head. So that we activate the observer or the
director in ourselves, and that not that actor, that ego is in charge of us,
but our spirit power, carried by love.
If we can accept the mistakes of ourselves and others, we
can more easily forgive ourselves and others for what has happened to us in our
lives, which allows us to look at things differently.
Why did those others do something to you? What was behind
it?.......
We
don't have to erase ourselves or make ourselves smaller than who we are. As a
child I was told: 'Just act normal, then you're crazy enough.' And 'Self-glory
stinks'. Based on experiences in our young lives, we can develop behavior
patterns that are no longer necessary later in life. We can learn to use our
talents. And to become who we actually want to be, not as we were made by
circumstances!
When you forgive
someone for what he or she has done to you, you are in fact healing yourself.
Because that other person has been a mirror for you in this life experience.
An
unprocessed emotion that gets stuck in your body or mind, makes itself known as
a negative thought and/or behavior pattern. This is a normal reaction to a deep
hurt.
Acceptance
and forgiveness are the most important factors in resolving an old sore spot.
In such a case, be patient with yourself. If you are ready for it, the
following could give you the peace to rise above it:
Forgiveness meditation consisting of three parts
(according to psychiatrist Stephen
Levine from Conscious Living Conscious Dying)
3. And finally, you forgive yourself. That you let yourself be hurt like that, because you couldn't do anything else at the time……….
Put
your arm around yourself, you will always be there for her/him from now on, if
a bad feeling ever comes up again…….
Moral
of the story: say Sorry more often, I'm sorry. And see what that brings
about.
Stef Bos and Frank Boeijen – Song of Preacher (Everything is air) (in Dutch)
I have seen the
world
In the light of
love
And in the
shadow of hate
There are
always two sides
True words are
not beautiful
Beautiful words
are not true
And everything
moves as long as it lives
Like a river
that flows to the sea
We are a part
Of a greater
whole
We fall like
leaves
And the wind
takes us away
Chorus:
There is a time
to lose
There is a time
to trust
There is a time
to desire
There is a time
to forget
There is a time
to forgive
There is a time
for everything
And everything
is air
Grow towards
the sun
And climb up
along the rays to heaven
Do not hold on
to that which is past
And let go of
everything that haunts your head
Because the
light in your eyes disappears with time
Like the sun in
the distance at the end of the day
But everything
changes and
Moves in a
circle
Returns to the
source
And becomes
what it was
Chorus
And everything
is air
And everything
is emptiness
And everything
is meaningless
And everything
is life
Everything has
value
And everything
is something
Everything is
everything
And everything
is nothing
Chorus
Quotes
Forgiveness
is not about the other person, it is about you: letting go of the burden you
carry.
Blaming
someone else is one of the best ways to stay stuck with a problem.
The
weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is a hallmark of the strong. (Mahatma Gandhi)
Forgiveness
is accepting the fact that the past cannot be changed.
Forgive,
but do not forget, or it will hurt you again.
Forgiveness
changes the insight. Forgetting loses the lesson.
Letting go of feelings
We let go/say goodbye our whole lives: Saying goodbye to
your teacher at nursery school and every class you go through. When you live on
your own, you leave your parents.
When you live together, you lose your freedom. You let go
of your own children when they fly the nest. When you get older, you lose your
attractiveness, or a body part due to an operation.
It takes courage to tackle your "dragons". It ís
an opportunity to grow. Dance your tension out, get lots of exercise.
Negative feelings such as sadness, anger, fear, worries are
not good for your health and appearance; they are a heavy burden and should not
last too long! Get those feelings out!
Give yourself a present: A different hairstyle, stop
smoking/drinking (possibly with help), buy new clothes, new wallpaper or sofa.
How do you then let go
of your feelings:
a. By lifting your resistance and accepting it, you will
gain inner peace. With acceptance comes reconciliation. Forgiveness can play a
big role in this.
b. Love for yourself heals
your suffering. Feelings like anger, sadness, guilt, pain make you
no longer a unity, but divided within yourself. Those parts of yourself fight
with each other and divide you. By looking at these feelings, accepting them,
forgiving yourself and letting go, you can become whole again.
Especially as we get older, we can no longer suppress our
stored painful feelings, acquired in our lives. They want to come out, heal, be
made whole! The lid of the well is ajar and will keep reminding you of it,
until you do something with it. You may enjoy life! Forgive yourself all your
mistakes. Ask the other person to forgive you. Look lovingly and with humor at
everything you push away in yourself. Take those unwanted thoughts/feelings
into your heart and rock them gently. That will help you to lose all judgment
and find unity again. By accepting who you are through all life lessons, change
occurs from within. You can now become who you always wanted to be. What do you
still want to do here on earth?.......
c. The key to transforming a vision that you have lies in
surrender and sacrifice, a balance in giving and receiving. Let go of your
thought constructs, free your mind from prejudices, expectations. Discover the
sweet, divine nature at the core of yourself, connect with the earth and the
universe and fear and suffering will fade away. You transcend it and you reach
another level of consciousness. You evolve.
When you transform yourself in this way, you help everyone
around you through your radiance. Everything that happens to you carries a
positive aspect and has a very precise meaning in the whole picture of your
life. We discover that the love that asks for nothing, the love in which you
give yourself away, contains the most total joy. Human love that is not tainted
by power or possessiveness, but is sincere, always contains a spark of divine
love. By allowing this spark of love to grow within yourself, problems can be
burned away as they arise.
d. You can let go of a situation that affects you by
unraveling it, after which the unpleasant feeling can recover/heal. If you
avoid the feeling, it will get stuck in your emotional life.
That which affected you emotionally as a child, you will
take with you into your further life like a backpack. Based on those
experiences from your youth, you will play your roles in your later life. You
cannot change the facts; but you can experience them differently (It is not
yesterday that is important, but the way you deal with yesterday today).
If you do not let go of certain feelings, then you have
anchored them. Compare your body to a paper factory that processes and sends
paper. Somewhere the paper gets stuck. Something cannot yet be let go, is
anchored. Then look WHERE it gets stuck and release it.
Look at an event/situation, and the associated thoughts,
feelings and behavior.
What do you think......., what do you feel......., what do you do.......?
Step
out of your victim role. Take off your coat of dissatisfaction! Let your smile
back into your life.
Congratulate yourself on every step forward. Thank your experiences.
They gave you opportunities for growth.
You have broken free from the old. You are free from negative
attachments, healing is taking place! That takes some getting used to. What a
victory.
You can look at your past with new eyes.
Your life experiences were necessary to become who you are now.
Only when you have completed something well, you can start something completely
new.
And you can be grateful for everything this experience has given you!
--:--
