FEELINGS - PART 2

To reinforce what was discussed last week, let us remember that feelings that we were taught as being "bad" or negative can only turn bad or negative if we do not meet the need, want or desire which brought about the feeling in the first place.  In other words, are we meeting the need, want or desire, or are we suppressing the feeling's message?  And what happens if we do not address the feeling, do we bury it?  Ah yes...distractors...usually the most dangerous "too much" behavior that leads to frustration, then depression or addiction or both!  But why do we bury our feelings.

We have always had an internal guidance system to help us address our feelings.  But society and even our family have taught us to ignore these feelings during our time on this earth.  Our society has a major role in suppression of feelings.  Historically frontiersmen and women had to endure hardship, ignore emotional pains during expanding this nation; do what needs to be done, and do it stoically.  Over and over, repeatedly during time frames of history, World Wars, The Great Depression, terrorist bombings, mass killings and so on.  Suck it up and deal with it, unemotionally most of the time.

How many times were the strong silent types transformed into people to look up to...Our role models, the heroes?  From the time when we were children, we were programmed to feel guilty, or "bad", if we expressed other than quiet acceptance of what is happening.  It's no wonder many folks are topsy-turvy emotionally due to having to feel pleasure during distressing times.  "After all, positive thinking might only lead to disappointment", right?

Some of us grew up in environments where expression of anger, sadness or fear was punished.  Many heard "Shut up or I'll give you something to cry about", or "Stop being scared, you're being a big baby", etc.  Suppression or repression  of feelings eventually bubbles to the surface, and not in a good way.  It eventually appears as addictive, or compulsive or obsessive behavior (or a combination).  Boys have been told that if they are sad or cry that they are "acting like girls" or "babies".  AND girls were told that if they show anger or dissatisfaction that they were unattractive or not feminine.  Some children and adults are told that it is immoral to "feel bad", especially anger.

Then we are taught that we are ill if we are depressed!  So guess what?  We bury or deny these feelings in order to feel "normal".  Children at a very young age were taught to "pretend" not to feel bad.  Although pretending is a temporary solution, the memories are still stored in the subconscious mind, as a lesson.  All experiences are stored along with the emotions.  So, what happens when we become adults who have not learned how to cope or address these emotions that have been piling up since childhood?  Enter the process of distracting (and distracting does not necessarily wait until adulthood). Distracting is the process of focusing our attention on something other than the feeling - like food, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, shopping, sex, etc.

The feel bad then distract cycle is now beginning to appear because the person has not learned to address her/his feelings (see previous post for the feelings).  This is basically how the cycle  goes.  A feeling arises that needs to be (should be) addressed but is ignored instead.  For a very short period of time it just festers; slightly (maybe even under radar detection) in the beginning but more and more through non-action.  A distractor, let's say a small piece of chocolate, fudge cake, is introduced.  The distraction makes the person feel better temporarily, therefore this feeling is registered in the subconscious mind as an experience.  Feel bad, eat, then all is okie dokie.  Eventually this distraction becomes repetitive behavior for feeling good, although the distraction is no longer one little piece of  chocolate cake.  This distraction becomes behavior every time the negative feeling arises, and our trained subconscious mind associates eating with feeling good, rather than  associating food with nutritional sustenance (look up Pavlov's dogs  experiment).  And the cycle to obesity or weight gain has been established.

One would think that this is the end of the bad feeling distract cycle, but it is just the beginning.  Eventually, the person recognizes that this type of eating is unhealthy.  After  a few attempts to change the eating habit, without addressing the reason as to why it exists, the person may feel that nothing can be done about the eating behavior.  Frustration begins to get a grip of the person at this point.   He/she may begin to feel that every attempt  to stop the behavior, failure to do so brings about another emotion.  After a few cycles of the feel bad - distract - frustration, the next emotion to enter is inevitably feeling bad about self and tertiary depression.  The continuation of a downward spiral of not addressing the need, want or desire that should have been met has created an addiction or addictive behavior.  If we only learned to address our feelings when the reared their ugly head earlier in life, we could have met our emotional needs later on in life.  But, fear not, keep hope alive.  We can always change the subconscious mind.

The distracting mentioned above is what many 5-PATH trained hypnotists refer to as the "too much" behavior.  The aforementioned, hypothetical  distraction was food; but the food can easily be replaced with drugs, alcohol, tobacco, shopping, sexing, or whatever addiction one can imagine.  In a majority of cases, the cycles can be broken through the use of hypnosis.  Oh, did I mention I was a 5-PATH trained hypnotist (I am not above plugging myself).

In our next entry to this series, FEELINGS - PART 3 - let's talk about the "WISDOM" of feelings.  Until next time:

                                      BREATHE    -    RELAX   -   HEAL