Beware of Ignoring Negative Feelings

Feeling like shit but worried that this will block your ability to manifest the good stuff? Well I have news for you …….

ALL feelings are important and need to be honoured and NOT ignored.

Negative feelings and reactions to things that don’t feel right in your life are NORMAL. It does not mean that by expressing them you wallow, or stay stuck. It means quite the opposite.

Finding your own ways to acknowledging and dealing with negative emotions is crucial.

Dangerous to ignore negative feelings
Ignoring negative feelings or even pretending they don’t exist is harmful to your spirit and your practical everyday life. It means you are not dealing with ‘your stuff.’ At best this leaves you stuck and in neutral, at worst it erodes your spirit and motivation to do anything to help you to become happier. Positive people and in particular people who work with the Law of Attraction often give negative feelings too wide a berth.

Do you want to live in neutral?
Yes, focusing on positive feelings, desires and needs creates a channel of open flow and manifestation but ignoring the dark stuff negates this. It neutralises the positive. It creates a mediocre hum of neutral. This means there is little movement. No movement backwards but certainly no forward movement either. Do you want to live in neutral?

For enlightened souls (certainly NOT me) there is no good or bad. These individuals can rise above the tide of external stimulations and live happily in calm joy no matter what the circumstances.

For the rest of us … there are still ups and downs, trials and tribulations.

So how do we deal with our negative emotions, move on and create happier lives?

Expressing your feelings
Something bad happens. What do you do? Pretend that everything is fine? Chin up, onwards and upwards?

No.

I am discovering that taking time to honour your feelings is vital. Without this you are papering over the cracks. It’s no use pretending everything is fine when every fibre of your being is screaming that its not. No amount of positive affirmations, self talk and soothing counsel from friends is going to turn around a deeply held negative belief.

Being Brave
When you express negative feelings you are being honest. You are admitting frailty and lack. You are saying I am not happy. This is not what I want. This is not good for me. If you are proud, this takes courage.

Brave is my key word for 2014. I’ve always been fairly open and honest but this year I really wanted to focus on it. This takes courage. My sister is one of the most honest people I know. Its refreshing. It’s also very brave. Fostering honesty helps you to become more confident. It allows you to be who you really are and not what you think others want you to be.

With honesty comes liberation.
With honesty and courage comes liberation. This is such a rewarding feeling. You express your feelings openly, you identify what the issues are and in doing this solutions appear. This enables you to move forward with positivity. Your negative emotions begin to lift as you realise that you can have control over your feelings and situation.

Solutions appear
When you really tune into your negative stuff with the intention for real change solutions appear.

Moving forward is the key
Expressing emotion and using this to help you find solutions seems to be the key. It’s very British and middle class to carry on with the ‘stiff upper lip’ but doing this means you stay stuck for longer. Grief, for example, is carried out very openly and with great passion in many cultures whereas in other cultures too much display of grief is not culturally acceptable.

How to let out negative feelings in a positive way

1) Admit – The first step is to acknowledge that something does not feel right. Sometimes you won’t even know what the problem is. You will just have a feeling that something isn’t ‘right.’ Other times you will know exactly what is pissing you off. But rather than ignoring the sensations of negativity – just acknowledge them, welcome them in and listen to what they are saying – they are guiding you to learn what is not right for you. This contrast is what helps you find out what IS right for you.

Some questions you can ask yourself

• What exactly am I feeling?
• What is wrong?
• Has something happened to make me feel bad?
• What are the thoughts that are making me feel bad?

2) Express – Expressing feelings is very cathartic and helps to clear the decks for joy and positive action. Once you have acknowledged negative feelings you can begin to give them expression. Expressing your feelings is important.

Word of Warning: Doing it in a way that helps and not hinders you is especially important. Shouting at and attacking others just to help you feel better is not recommended.

How do you like to express your feelings?

• Simply acknowledging them in your own mind can be enough
• Some people like to talk things through with others
• Writing things out can be helpful
• Talking directly to someone who has upset you
• Crying things out
• Shouting/screaming/pounding pillows – venting privately in your own personal space

Expressing negative feelings can feel really good
It sounds counter productive but very often expressing negative feelings can feel amazing. When I am sad i cry, when I am happy I laugh, when I’m angry I can express it. Sometimes people say ‘Don’t cry!’ but I say ‘Yes! It’s fine, it feels good.’ And it does, it feels good to let it all out. To acknowledge it, to express it, to exorcise it. It can be uncomfortable for others to watch but then that’s up to you and your own personal circumstance and the relationships you have with people around you. You may wish to express your feelings in private and that is fine – as long as you do. Don’t just shelve stuff and never let it surface.

3) Get Clear on what you DO want
Decide how you do want to feel. Negative feelings are our guide to what IS right for us. Once you have discovered what is wrong and expressed your feelings about it you will have a clearer pathway to knowing exactly what you do want and how you want to feel. This is power. Great power. And this process takes you out of ‘helplessness mode.’

So what do you want?

So you told the universe very strongly what you don’t want.  That’s fine.  Its out of your system or at the very least you are taking steps to making yourself feel better.  But that leaves the open question of WHAT DO I ACTUALLY WANT. Acknowledge this in whatever way helps you. Being clear on what you do want is a vital step.  It’s the juicy element in getting your desires and needs met.  Express your desires in whichever ways make you excited.

Ways to get clear

• Thinking
• Talking
• Writing
• Vision boards
• Recordings
• Videos
• Art

4) Take Action and let the Magic Begin
The most rewarding step of all. The action step. You know what’s wrong, you have expressed your feelings and now you want things to be different. Very often the process outlined above will open up pathways where solutions spring to mind spontaneously. Sometimes just the opening up is enough – you clear it all out and then everything is fine.

The Magic
When we are in touch with our real emotions and base desires its like magic. Possibilities start to emerge, both in our own minds and in the universe at large. Accessing negativity seems counter productive but it’s not. Its real and its necessary. And its a clearing process. We are not doing it to wallow we are doing it because something is not right and we want it to be. Its normal, its human. But I think it’s that process of being open that allows us to start attracting what we want and need.

My fear was always that if I focus too much on the negative that I will stay there and get stuck. But if you ignore the negative you are stuck anyway because it can fester like a canker – only in the background – hidden from view. And hidden dangers are the worst kind. They negate and destroy all your positive efforts. They leave you in neutral at best and at worst pull you down despite your best efforts. I equate it to having a cancer you are ignoring. You can eat all the best food in the world and fill your boots with things that make you happy but if you ignore the cancer and pretend it’s not there its still going to bite you in the arse.

Action stations
Using powerful emotions to move you forward is very exciting. Portals open and action steps are revealed. Pick what motivates you the most. Pick things that create forward positive momentum.

Don’t stay in the wallow
The purpose of exploring and expressing the negative emotions is to help you move forward. To help you release from the grips of fear and uncertainty and allow forward positive movement towards your bliss.

But what if you are stuck?
It happens. We get stuck. We don’t know why. We try and try to unstick. We can’t. Often we repeat old negative beliefs and destructive patterns of behaviour and no amount of clearing and expressing seems to put us on a happier path. This is where its useful to try the many, many different forms of help out there. People swear by EFT. Please check it out. Almost every professional coach that I know swears by it. I have recently had the pleasure of working very briefly with Linda Anderson who managed to help me access a lot in a very short space of time within her taster session. Also check this out.  Linda has taken part in my Happiness Interviews. I also find mediation extremely beneficial and in particular the releasing fear mediation that is part of Leoni Dawson’s Amazing Life and Biz Academy. In future blog posts I will be exploring ways of clearing out repeating patterns of negativity.

Ask for guidance
This is useful. You are stuck. You know you are stuck. Ask the Universe: I want to get unstuck. Help me find a positive way.

Massive thanks to Sophia Chang
Finally, a massive thanks to Sophia Chang and her latest blog post at The Sex and Money University for insiring me to write this post.  I always find your work thought provoking and inspiring.  She is a ballsy lady who’s not afraid to say it like it is.  Thank you!

What negative feelings can you acknowledge and express today?  I’m feeling lonely and its making me feel sad.  So what do I want and how can I get it?

2 Great Reasons to Celebrate the Selfie

 

There has been a lot written about the evils of the selfie but I actually think they are really positive and to be embraced.

1)  Being proud of who you are
Selfies say, ‘Hello, look at me!!’ and there is nothing wrong with that. Modern society is too self-effacing sometimes. We are so concerned with not showing off and appearing to think too much of ourselves that we end up not being ourselves at all. Or equally so concerned that we are not good enough that the same applies.

Selfies say ‘Let’s celebrate who we are. Right now, in this moment!’

Nobody is better than anybody else and nobody is worse than anybody else. I always used to say this to my children.  We all have different talents, abilities, sensitivities, vulnerabilities and gifts to share with eachother and the world and we all do that in different ways. But hiding them all under a bushel does not help any bugger.

Above all selfies are fun and often funny too!

2) Body Image
Women in particular are bombared with ‘socially acceptable’ images of our gender. The selfie says ‘This is me, take it or leave it.’

A couple of months ago thousands of pounds were raised for breast cancer when the no-make-up selfie went viral. Yippee!!! Fun, positive action by women which raised awareness not only of breast cancer but of the idea of society’s construction of the image of women.

This campaign was criticized for making light of breast cancer, charity fund-raising and women’s issues. The critical camp believed that this marketing campaign which went viral just pandered to people’s sense of vanity and mirrored the triteness of modern social network communications.

Balls!
Balls, is what I say to that. Easy, light-hearted, fun but powerful actions are fantastic and raise postve energy, consciousness and happiness in a beautiful way.

• Thousands were raised for charity
• Societal consciousness was raised about women and how they perceive and present themselves to the world.
• Women showed personal courage by trying something new. Change starts with the individual. I know women who never ever go without make up put themselves on the line for their selfie during that campaign. This was massive for them.
• A marketing company created a wizz campaign, served the charity well and created a great name for themselves in their industry.
• Everyone was a winner!

Do you take selfies?  I would love to see them!