“Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they’re big, flashing signs that something needs to change.” Gretchen Rubin
Last Saturday, my client Leslie found herself feeling incredibly sad about a past relationship with a man she loved very much. Historically when she would feel that way, she would judge those emotions of sadness and push them aside:
“Why am I still grieving this?”
“I should be past this by now.”
This time, however, she gave herself permission to stay with the sadness and just allow it be present, without judging it or trying to change it. She allowed herself some space to simply feel what she was feeling and even to cry as necessary.
And an amazing thing happened…
That sadness passed right through Leslie.
It lifted out of her body the way a fever or sickness finally lifts and after a few moments, it was gone.
That pain Leslie had been carrying around in her heart for so many years was gone.
The feeling of loss she had passed right through her.
She told me that she felt lighter,
she felt like she could breathe better, and
she finally felt free from that relationship and ready to love again.
Emotions are just part of our internal guidance system directing us towards our best life and the highest expression of ourselves. How we feel at any given moment tells us whether we’re connected to Source and on our path.
When something feels good, we’re connected and on the right path.
When something feels bad, we’re disconnected and off on a path that isn’t right for us
We don’t have to overcomplicate it.
We just need to be willing to allow our emotions to be what they are – without making it mean something about us, without judgement and without trying to change them or suppress them.
We just have to give ourselves permission to feel what we feel.
If we don’t allow our emotions the opportunity to be heard, the emotions don’t go away, they just fester and get worse over time infecting other areas of our lives.
What we avoid, suppress, judge, focus on or push against only pushes back harder, manifesting in a more profound way.
In the words of C.G. Jung, “What you resist, persists.”
Our emotions are just information for us, like an internal guidance system always lighting our paths before us.
When we learn to trust that guidance system, we have every answer we ever need.
I don’t think I could have said it better than my client, “All emotions are good, even when they’re bad.”