I’ve written pretty extensively about anger in the past.
The Power of Anger and Why It’s Ok to be Angry (Article & Audio)
Negative Emotions: Anger (Video)
One of my regular readers, Awesome Alice, has now posed some interesting follow up questions about anger, which I’m happy to answer in today’s post.
“Why do authority figures get angry? They have lots of power over one or many people.”
Authority figures are just normal people like you and me. They are not immune from any emotional responses. However, that being said, there are some interesting traits that many (not all) authority figures share.
Those who seek positions of power often do so because they feel powerless themselves. They are hoping that by gaining power over others, they will feel better. When you put a person who feels powerless in a position of authority, they don’t suddenly release all the reasons they feel that way in the first place. So, even if they temporarily feel better, over time, that powerlessness will resurface. They will begin to attract those who highlight that powerlessness (like employees who question them, or projects that don’t go the way they want them to, or situations that are beyond their control), making them MORE aware of how horrible they are feeling.
The emotion that feels better than powerlessness is Anger. True powerlessness results from the thought “I’m broken”, or one of its many cousins. When you change the focus from yourself towards others or the world, “I’m broken” becomes “You’re broken”. “It’s all my fault” turns into “It’s all your/their fault”. Now, these aren’t good feeling, positive, happy shiny thoughts, but they do feel better than “I’m broken”.
Having authority doesn’t make you angry. Feeling powerless and wanting to feel better will pull you towards anger (and if you manage to release that anger and move through it, you’ll actually feel a better). So, it makes sense that professions that attract those who feel powerless would be filled with a lot of angry people.
“Why is the Bible Lord always so angry in the old testament? He’s OMNIPOTENT!”
You have to understand that when the bible was written, the global energy was in a very different place. The words in that book were written through the lens of the beliefs of the authors, even if they were inspired (some were, some weren’t). Again, it comes down to degrees of powerlessness. The people of that time led harsh lives and felt like they had little control over their fate. They generally felt quite helpless. There was a lot of anger within them, and they were often stuck in that emotional state (feeling empowered was not something that ordinary citizens were expected or even encouraged to do). An angry, vengeful God actually felt good to them. They liked the idea of an all powerful being, sitting in judgment of them, bringing some fairness to what they considered a completely random world. He could punish those who were bad, which would’ve been an empowering thought at the time (and still is for many). His anger and rage also explained all the horrible events in the world and that thought felt better than simply feeling like people were at the mercy of random incidents.
But what felt good to people 2000 years ago, no longer feels good to us today. We have evolved, vibrationally. We are in a completely different place. And although powerlessness still persists in much of the population, it’s not nearly as pervasive as it once was. Not even close. 2000 years ago, I would’ve been stoned to death for teaching what I teach. Now, a lot of people listen and those that don’t, usually don’t feel the need to kill me. They just dismiss me as a kook. 😉 While there are still some pockets of extremely powerless energy left here (matched by those who still use the bible to justify their violence, for example), for the most part, times have drastically changed.
We are now ready, not only for a loving God, but to understand that WE ARE GOD and that WE ARE LOVE. An all powerful, loving and yet vain and angry and vengeful God just doesn’t make sense to most of us anymore.
“What about people who have terrible tempers and allow themselves to express anger too much? Is my hot-headed father actually doing the right thing?”
Your hot headed father is doing the best he can. He is in pain and when he explodes, it’s like he’s relieving the pressure. The problem is usually that people like this never surpass the anger. They let off a bit of steam and then they go right back to feeling the pain. They never investigate why they are so angry, they don’t take a look at what’s really going on. And so, they briefly move into anger and then right back down again, instead of moving through anger and truly and permanently feeling better.
This is usually due to them stopping themselves from feeling all the anger and squashing it as soon as they feel just a bit better. We do this by feeling guilty, or by thinking that anger is inappropriate, or through a variety of other false beliefs. Releasing some anger takes the pressure off. It’s like the person loses control when the pressure gets too much (it is, quite literally, an explosion), but as soon as they’ve relieved it just a tad, they get a modicum of control back and then they shut the anger response down.
Your hot headed father is doing the only thing he can in the moment he explodes. Could he surpass his anger? Yes. But you can’t do anything to get him there. It’s his journey and you have to let him take it. But, as you raise your own vibration, he may be influenced by your energy and find ways to truly release the anger and finally get some permanent relief.
“Anger, sadness and happiness are on different parts of the emotional scale. What about ambivalence? I can be all of those at same time. Angry with tears, Angry and happy to yell… mixed together.”
When you’re feeling anger and happiness at the same time, you’re not actually feeling happiness. You’re feeling anger and the massive relief it brings you from your pain, discomfort and depression. Anger is empowering, which feels better than feeling powerless. And if the powerlessness has gone on for a long time, the relief of anger can be phenomenal and it can feel like happiness to you.
Tears are simply a sign of an energy shift/release. They will often come on as soon as you simply acknowledge your true feelings, which usually already causes a bit of a shift. Try not to stop yourself from crying if you can. By shutting down the physical response, we generally shut down the emotional response as well, which keeps us stuck right where we are.
“Anger is on the emotional scale just under neutral and boredom. Who would move into boredom on purpose?”
We don’t really move into boredom on purpose. But it’s valuable to know where boredom sits on the emotional scale, because we WILL hit it on our way from anger to more positive feelings.
After you’ve truly released anger, you can often find yourself in a bit of a void, where you just kind of feel blah. You feel bored and nothing seems to interest you. This is particularly the case when you’ve made a LARGE shift in energy. You have to get acclimated to your new vibration before you can truly feel the positive emotions you now have access to. It’s a bit like when you smash your thumb with a hammer and then you stop. The pain might be gone, but it’s going to take a bit of time before you can feel a softer, pleasant sensation, like someone caressing your skin. Your thumb is going to be numb for a little while before the sensation returns.
Boredom is kind of like this emotional numbness. It’s temporary. And while you’d never choose to move into boredom, you will naturally pass through it on your way to happiness. It’s good to know that it’s part of the process, so that when it happens, you don’t freak out. 🙂
Now it’s your turn. Do you have any questions about or experiences with anger? Share your valuable insights in the comments!
Melody,
We are obviously such intensely emotional beings and will always be. Yet our society had turned its focus on the cerebral, which has its place in our functioning, but I do not think we will resort to just being thinking brains, as predicted when I was in school. You know, just a brain to think without a body, because a body won’t be necessary.
Could this be the reason or at least part of the reason there are so many mental illnesses today? The clashing of emotions and what is required of a person by society? I know you will write about health in a future blog, maybe with many parts. This is worth looking into.
Does being cerebral serve us? Maybe to a degree to keep the peace, but otherwise, we are an emotional guidance system. So learning to use the two efficiently should be the goal; that is where LOA comes in.
Hey Kat,
The cerebral does serve us. We just took it to extremes. If we were totally emotional, we would not have made the technological advances that we’ve made. I believe that we have swung back and forth between between extremes of the feminine (emotional) and masculine (cerebral) energies. Each time we make the change, we learn to integrate the two just a little more. We’re now on the cusp of integrating them to a large degree – where science and spirituality find common ground (taking the best of both and combining to push both further ahead), where power is tempered by wisdom, where joy in the material and joy in the spiritual can co-exist and become balanced. We are finding the middle ground.
As for mentally ill people, that’s a whole other conversation. Some are simply misunderstood (there’s nothing wrong with them, they just don’t conform to the norm of society so we label them as “ill”), some have repressed their emotions to the point where their pain is so great they have become completely reactionary and no longer able to function, and some are interpreting energy in different ways and have a hard time telling the difference between the physical and non-physical (I would almost place them in the “misunderstood” category…)
And yep, I’ll write about health, although I don’t think I can lump mental health into the same post. I’ll have to do another one.
Huge hugs!
Melody
I can see by the number of responses that you hit on a great topic here Melody!
Talking about anger and power, I have found that not only do people feel powerless, but they live in fear of losing their power, which then activates the reptilian brain defense mechanisms, resulting in the anger we see.
Great topic! Great post (as usual)! Take care!
Hey Victor,
Thanks so much. Anger is such a powerful, misunderstood and incredibly healing emotion. I want to highlight this as much as possible. 🙂
I figured you’d like the reptilian brain reference, LOL. Right up your alley, eh?
Huge hugs!
Melody
Wow, again!
This is creating some major aha moments for me. I can so plainly see where I can feel down or depressed, and as you say, the way out in the scale is through anger. But as soon as I jump to anger, either I or those around me, frown upon it, condemn it, and/or generally try to repress it. Which spirals me back down into depression, until something gives.
Which makes me think that in our society, we have deemed depression much easier to deal with than anger, because we see it as quieter, less obvious/disturbing/in your face; for a while anyway. And then it starts getting even messier, louder, more in your face.
The way I see so far, we repress our emotions while at the same time, our inner selves are trying to get us to a better feeling place by bringing us up the scale of those emotions, and we just keep suppressing! Us newbies learning /trying to incorporate LOA, try so hard to feel better, and focus intently on what we want, and forget to really pay attention to our emotions. You know, the ones we’ve been trying to suppress all these years…
And, as you point out so often, we will focus intently on a thing we want instead of realizing that ‘thing’ may only represent a feeling and not necessarily what we want. We haven’t dug deep enough because we are accustomed to skimming the surface of emotion. And because we are determined to feel better, we can’t let go of that wanting enough to see that we’re digging in our heels instead of flowing.
Instead of paying attention to how we feel we just hang on for dear life, almost begging for inspiration, not realizing we are in a state of need and/or desperatation for this thing we want, never realizing we are only pushing it away. And even worse, it is often just a representation of what we really want. I WILL get this thing, which WILL make me feel better damn-it! Frustration, anger, repress, rinse and repeat.
So I am trying to let the feelings flow! And while I’m at it, to really, really feel them, look at them, get a glimpse of the why, and maybe start clearing limiting beliefs. And always, always look for the good in my life, because, amazingly enough, it’s there when I look.
Melody, you provide so many insights, and always tweek what we put here so our understanding gets clearer and clearer! You are definitely gifted and a gift!
YOU’VE GOT IT NAY!!!! YAY!!!!!!
Everything you stated here is spot on. 🙂
And thank you so much for your kind words. I’m so glad this site is helpful to you.
Huge hugs!
Melody
Hello Melody,
Well! Important thing:
All those thinking hot-headed is a euphemism for abusive are mislead! My father is a good man! He’s literally just a bit of a quick temper.
I answered the part about the father under a comment made by Christina. The example I used in the car is a question I’ve always had about not being able to walk away from certain situations.
What do you do then? (trapped with person in plane, car, prison..any space you can’t leave)
Emergency LOA:
Ok, so after a bad confrontation you may be able to release resistance. (for all lucky enough to know how to do it themselves)
But during the confrontation with authority figure in particular, WHAT DO YOU DO RIGHT IN THE MOMENT?
e.g. When you are minding your own business and you attracted a bad manifestation like some security guard or power-loving authority harassing you and making you late or deciding to hold you for the maximum 4 hrs a police can hold you without reason-just to be a pain and watch you squirm.
They are just lording it over you, getting all pumped up (especially if male and you are female) doing pedantic things like whipping out a measuring tape and declaring your wheels are 1milimetre over or some stupid thing- ANYTHING in other words to wreck your day and get some power over innocent person. (all made up examples)
Well before you release resistance so these things can’t happen again- IN THE MOMENT- what do you do to halt the bad situation getting out of hand?
How do you stop or reverse a bad manifestation?
You can see everyone is in a negative space and you need to pull the plug on this NOW before it gets out of hand, someone is arrested or fined or humiluated or something irreversible is said or done.
What do you say to that raging bull if you can’t run to safety. They caught you, cornered you. How do you LOA your way out of this before it manifests worse and worse.
If you don’t stop it it might get so bad they may attack you or some horrible result.
And why do these angry authority types choose a female (whether they are male or not) or someone they are sexually attracted to?
Why do they pick the most vulnerable people?
Why not pick a big brute of a guy-you’d feel more successful breaking him right? More powerful?
Bullies pick the most vulnerable people because they, themselves, feel weak. They will pick the “victim” who is most likely to give them feel powerful. A large, dangerous opponent is risky. Bullies don’t pick on other bullies. They pick on those they think they can easily defeat…
And they don’t always choose females. That’s part of your experience. But someone who chooses to pick on women they are sexually attracted to would do so because they are intimidated by women, especially those that they find attractive.
Picking on someone else is always a sign of weakness. That doesn’t mean they are dangerous, but they cannot and generally will not stand up against someone who feels truly strong and centered.
Personally, I noticed a HUGE shift in how people treated me when I became more confident. HUGE. Night and day. They didn’t change, but I did. 🙂
Huge hugs!
Melody
Hey Alice,
That’s a great question. I’ll answer it here and may use it for a future blog post.
In the moment, all you can do is try and diffuse the situation. That means, take a deep breath or two, remind yourself that this person is being triggered right now, which is why they are acting the way they are.
Then – stop fighting. Don’t push back. It will trigger them worse. You have to decide what’s more important to you – feeling better or being right. If you need to be right, keep on arguing and let it get bigger and bigger. If you want to feel better, stop fighting and just tell them they’re right.
They are right – from their own point of view. You don’t have to agree with them, and you are right, too. But that’s a conversation for another time. In that moment, all you can do is soothe them. And the fastest way to do that is to validate how they feel. Again, you don’t have to pretend to agree with them, just don’t DISAGREE with them. Most people will continue to yell if you yell back. But if you refuse to yell back, they will stop when their steam runs out (and it will if you don’t keep fueling it).
Yeah.. I’ll write a post on this. There’s too much to say… 🙂
Hugs,
Melody
🙂
I love PERFECT TIMING… Its a small world and I’ve got the message way here down under in Aussie land… I was surely led here as i have no idea how i stumpled across it. What an amazing website and I’m vibrating on the wavelength of deliberately receiving as I asked and BAMMMM I got it!!!!!!!!
Thank Felicity and fellow LOA bloggers as this feels like a bottomless source of love!!!!!
Thankfulness Hugs all round
OOPPPSSSSSS …… ALL THE EXCITEMENT I GOT I GAVE YOU A NEW NAME MELODY!!!!
Where did Felicity come from????
🙂
Josie
Hey Josie,
No worries about the name. Felicity is beautiful. 🙂
Thank you so much for your kind words. I’m so glad you found your way here.
Huge happy shiny puppy hugs for you!
Melody
Melody —
This concept of yours — that the world was a lower-energy environment 2,000 years ago when the Bible was written — is a shard of genius. You explored it magnificently when speaking about Jesus, as well, in another (keenly perceptive) post. It feels so true I wonder why I hadn’t heard or thought of it that way before. Now I can’t think of it in any other way. A higher perception is like that, it takes over because it makes so much sense.
Don’t you wonder also . . . what kind of energy the world will have 2,000 years from now? And how we — humanity — will express that vibration in spiritual thought then? It just might give everyone dimples.
Evan
PS: A guess, that the ego — so utterly slandered in our age — will no longer be the new devil.
PPS: Hmmmm, another thought, maybe YOU are expressing that new belief system right now. (And others, too, we’ll give them their due . . . ) And it will take a couple of thousand years for the planet to catch up to YOUR frequency . . . . just saying.
Sooo, you’re saying I’m like Jesus? LOL.
Thanks for your kind works Evan. I’m glad this view brought you so much clarity. We are always evolving and growing. We humans are evolving, but so is the Earth and the Universe. 🙂
I do think about what the vibration will be like 2000 years from now. I suspect that for the first time in our history, we have the technological know how to destroy ourselves coupled with the spiritual awareness not to do it (I think we’ve been technologically advanced several times in our history, but we didn’t have the awareness to handle it and it all kind of went south, plunging us backwards (technologically speaking). And yet now, we are waking up to Who We Really Are. So, if we don’t take a giant leap backwards once again by getting into power struggles and killing each other off, we could be looking at the fastest evolutionary period in human history (and I believe that we are).
My vision is of a society that is much more self-aware, where people understand what their emotions mean and deal with them as they come up. A society where no one feels the need to take power from another and therefore, more people thrive in bigger ways. A society where love and compassion reign. Will it be perfect? Hell no. That would be boring. But I do think it’ll be a great deal more enlightened. Maybe I’ll write a post about that…
Oh, and I don’t vilify the ego now. Our “ego” is nothing but our minds living by the rules hat it was taught. It’s on our side. The problem is not with the mind, it’s with the rules. When we change the rules (our beliefs), and get the mind on our side, our “ego” becomes our most powerful ally.
Huge hugs!
Melody
wow, great explanation Melody! I would rather have a kind of boring world than the chaotic one we have seen. Enlightenment is good. There is nothing better than that! And I am glad we do not live in a time where we would be burned at the stake for saying these things. :-0
I’m one of those sensitive individuals who cringe at violence.
And I agree with Evan, we need to catch up to your vibration! 🙂
Melody,
I seriously loved what you wrote , especially the way you bought bible and explained through the lens of the bible is awesome , i seriosuly wished i’d stumbled upon your site long time back.. 🙁
Hey Enoch,
Welcome to Deliberate Receiving! You found us at the perfect time. Don’t you worry. 🙂
And it’s great to have you here. Thank you so much for your kind words. I’m glad this post was helpful to you.
Happy shiny puppy hugs!
Melody
Wow, I had just recently recognized a connection between anger and guilt with a certain situation in my life but I didn’t realize that the guilt is what’s stopping me from allowing all the anger to pass through and go away. Very helpful, Melody! Thanks!
You’re so very welcome Alanna.
Watch the video about Anger (the link is at the very top of the post). I think you’ll find that very helpful, too. 🙂
Huge hugs!
Melody
Melody,
This is great! I grew up with a hot-headed mom full of issues who even today she wreaks havoc upon her family, but we handle it better because we know from where she is coming, to the point of feeling sorry for her at times. These people usually have deep issues, and yes, come from a point of powerlessness that they lash out at others to obtain even an inkling of that. To a young, innocent child it is a rather frightful experience and it still frightens me when I have flashbacks of her wrath as an adult. Therapy could not really help with this, because we talked about her and her problems and went back to relive those bad experiences, but LOA certainly does! Like you said, we should not blame our parents, so I do not, yet I do not condone some things they did. I ended up blaming myself for something that was I should not have and which was a direct result of my upbringing and growing up in a madhouse, but again, I forgive.
I am glad happiness comes after boredom, because that is where I am now and thanks so much for adding that part. It is really important to understand the emotional scale.
How can one move through anger and truly and permanently feel better?
Hey Kat,
Thanks for sharing your experience.
The biggest thing to remember is that we cannot get to forgiveness without letting the anger out. So many of us try to reach for forgiveness when we naturally are led towards blame (we don’t have to get stuck in blame, but it’s healthy to allow that emotion when it comes up).
You move through anger by releasing it – by allowing it and not shutting it down. By feeling it. That’s the scary part. We think it will be awful to feel the anger, but it’s actually quite empowering. And if you let it out (I tell my clients to punch the couch), the time will come when you’ll just be spent. The anger will be gone. But you can’t shut it down mid-process. Allow yourself to get good and truly angry. Only once that’s really gone can we move towards real forgiveness.
Huge hugs!
Melody
What a helpful post, Melody!
It took me years of therapy to even realize that I got angry. I thought I was just a calm person who got depressed! Learning to experience and then release anger is hard, awkward, and liberating!
When my daughter was very young, she used to get over-wrought, almost like fits. As a parent, I didn’t want her to end up a zombie, yet the fits were uncomfortable for her and everyone else. We worked on channeling the emotions into productive outlets, and the (literally) years of practice finally paid off when she got old enough to realize that she was alienating her friends. The desire for companionship was a strong enough motivation for her to finally want to learn to manage (not suppress) her emotions.
Today as adults, we talk to each other on the phone and “vent,” announcing ahead of time that we’re venting and don’t particularly want feedback. It works great.
Smoochy sweet little puppy hugs,
Mary Carol
Thanks for sharing Mary Carol. You did your daughter a great service by teaching her how to let go of her anger in a healthy and constructive way. 🙂
Huggy sweet little puppy smooches!
Ha.
Melody
I wonder how we can find a way to release and process the anger without having to acknowledge the pain which would probably take us back on the vibrational scale to depression or sorrow or something. Anger to me is a defence mechanism against totally giving up, it is fighting, survival… There is some hope in anger, none in sorrow and depression. But if you acknowledge you are angry because you are hopeless, helpless, powerless etc. it is not gonna feel good at all… It is possibly going to feel much much worse…
Hi Regina,
I feel we can release without going back and re-experiencing. When a person is ready, it may be possible to simply let go, like release sandbags from an air balloon. Or imagine cleaning out the mental closets and throwing the contents in the fire, without examining them, and then letting the rain or a river wash away the ashes. I’ve written a couple of posts here about this. Maybe Melody can provide the links?
Hugs,
Mary Carol
Hi Mary Carol,
I do not know how many times I have tried to release anger in the way you propose but it never worked for me.
I do not feel the need to re-experience whatever made me angry either. I would not be able to anyway because I have long since forgotten whatever caused it (I built up a whole reservoir as it were over a period of decades) but I do feel that it helps me to sit back when I feel anger rising again without having a clue what about, and to just allow the feeling to pass through me. I kind of recognize my right to be angry and acknowledge it calmly. In that way I slowly release it without any pain.
I do not recognize it being followed by fases of frustration and boredom however.
I think I have conquered my feelings of powerlessness by getting a different perspective on the difficult periods of the past and I no longer only see what I missed out on but also what I gained because of these experiences and lately the gain is bigger than the loss. So the pent up anger, that still comes up and is released in small doses, is really a thing of the past and not related to my life here and now.
Love,
Anny
Hey Anny,
The only time you’ll be aware of the emotions of frustration and boredom is if you spend some time there, which isn’t necessarily always the case. You may well be moving through some of the phases in seconds, which is really how it’s designed to go and how it would got if we didn’t stop ourselves from feeling what we’re feeling. My explanations are designed to help if you get stuck at any emotional level. If you don’t, you have no work to do other than to just allow your feelings and let them naturally and quickly shift through all the stages.
🙂
Huge hugs!
Melody
Mary Carol’s post on this subject:
10 Ways to Let Go of Resistance
Being Responsible vs. Being Irresponsible,
Hugs!
Melody
I kind of second what Anny said. Those techniques didn’t jive with me at all. I know you said the whole blog is about releasing resistance but obviously some people, including me don’t work with that.
We need specific steps.
Hey Alice,
I’ve given lots of specific steps on how to release beliefs. The problem is that although these same principles apply to everything, people often don’t know how to apply them to their specific situation. This is why I keep writing blog posts on different topics. This is also why I offer coaching call recordings in the membership site – they explain both the techniques and premise and then get very specific in how to apply them to whatever situation the client is facing.
Some examples of posts where I broke down the process:
The Letter To the Universe – Manifest Whatever You Want In Twenty Minutes
Dear LOA: Is My Urge to Leave My Boyfriend Intuition or Fear?
Are Band Aid Solutions Ok, or Do You Always Have to Find the Root Cause?
Hope that helps,
Melody
I would not agree. There’s a bunch of words. But was anything really cleared?
E.G. One (not you in particular- ONE) may find what may have caused the person to feel the way they do. And it’s ooo isn’t that interesting. Now we know the source of the problem. Maybe they already knew that. So we confirmed the source of the problem.
But now what we do about it is not clear.
One says: That’s why I feel bad. I know why. But the WHY doesn’t matter if the sad is still there.
That’s not doing anything or clearing anything or pulling anything out. That’s just observing or mindfulness or normal psychotherapy.
But at the end of the day analyzing the problem, finding the root or source (just like in psychology) doesn’t do anything. Ok we found it.
What about it?
I’m not trying to be attacking, just demonstrating I don’t understand. Not permeating my thick head.
Hey Alice,
Once you found the root (not necessarily the root event, the root belief), you can then determine what that belief has caused you to want (generally the opposite emotion) and reach for it. By doing so, you begin to set a process in motion and will bring up the resistance to be released.
As that happens, you may feel worse for a bit, but if you allow the emotions to come and don’t stop them, and if you keep reaching for those better feeling thoughts, you will reach them. The more resistance is present, the more difficult this process can be. With bigger beliefs, you can’t really fix them in one go. Years of repressed energy can’t come out in a few hours. It will take days or even weeks (although only small parts of that will be truly uncomfortable). If you fight the emotions, it will take longer.
The following blog post explains the whole “getting worse” phenomenon: http://www.deliberateblog.com/2011/07/07/why-things-can-get-worse-when-you-start-meditating/
It’s really not so much about ripping the resistance out of your body and much more about releasing blockages (getting the energy to flow again) and then allowing it to do what it would naturally do if we hadn’t stopped it.
Know this, though: Whether or not you fight it, you will get there. Fighting it makes it take longer, but you will get there no matter what. And yes, this is the proverbial you AND you, specifically, Alice. Your desire to feel better is so strong, there’s no way you’re not going to make it. It might be a rough ride for a while, but ride it out. It’ll be worth it. I’ve been where you are. And no, it wasn’t always easy, but knowing what I know now, feeling the way I do now, I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.
Hang in there.
Huge hugs,
Melody
Thanks Melody,
All this information contradicts itself. My brow gets furrowed!
I can’t work it out. Ok. So you have a thought or physical condition that makes you feel trapped. So you want freedom, energy and spiralling into the breeze of motivation and wonder.
So you reach for better feeling thought of feeling a little more free. How would you do this if something physical cut you off?
To feel free would be to be cured. But then it says we must cure first to be free.
Also that physical illness “serves us” that contradicts the notion of better feeling thoughts!
If you are looking at your chopped off legs something that happened perfectly and for a reason then why would you strive to grow them back?
One hand we are instructed to go with it, it all has a reason, it’s healing, it’s meant to happen-don’t fight.
Then told to deliberately go for something better. ISN’T THAT ACTION?
Like getting up and walking.
Hi Alice,
I understand where you are coming from. Somehow everything seems to contradict itself, only it is not really. That is where you (the proverbial one, so everybody) needs to shift your perception just a little bit. That is what I love doing, not that I always succeed. Sometimes thinking of the most outrageous things helps suddenly.
When we take the example of your legs having been cut off (what a difficult one) I think shifting your perspective and starting to allow does not mean that you should think: yea, what a good thing happened to me, but that you stop fighting the fact that it has happened to you. In the moment that is all we can do. As specific to your example, there is a channeling (I do not know if you have anything with channeling, Melody does it too) that refers to the question why we cannot grow back missing limbs as some animals are able to do so. The question was: why can we not do this when they can? The answer: because you believe you cannot do it. Meaning, once all of you (the whole of you I mean, not everybody) consciously and subconsciously, firmly believe that you can, you can indeed do that.
Well, I think none of us are that far yet. Even though I am convinced that the principle is true, there still is a large part of me that simply refuses to believe this. But what we can do is accepting the fact that is what is. And that in itself is a relief is my experience. And then indeed we can try to reach for a better feeling thought, not fixed on what is not possible anymore (or temporarily until you have learned how to handle the situation) but on what is possible. Besides, my experience also is that when suddenly there are things that you cannot do anymore, you start to realize how much you have always taken for granted that you have had the use of your limbs e.g. for so long and how wonderful it was what you could do with them. And from there you can shift to the things that you are still able to do. You can see, you can hear, you can use your arms. You can sing, you can enjoy nature, you can enjoy other people. Maybe before you were too busy to even see them. You suddenly see beauty in the smallest things. Once you are in that frame of mind your whole life gets a new perspective. And then you might even come to the consclusion that what happened was a blessing in disguise because before the accident (I make this an accident) you were not really alive, you did not see who and what was around you, you were not appreciative of anything because you noticed nothing all because you WERE SO BUSY, YOU HAD SO MANY OBLIGATIONS, YOU WERE ALWAYS STRESSED OUT, YOU NEVER TOOK THE TIME TO RELAX….. etc. etc. You get the drift. This is possible at the end of a process but impossible in the beginning.
I send you a link here that also relates very closely to your example. It is not about someone whose legs were chopped off but about someone who was born without legs AND arms. Maybe that can also help you understand it a little.
http://www.greatwesternpublishing.org/perspective-is-everything-by-john-cali/
I think this young man is awesome and way ahead of us in his evolution, however ‘disabled’ he is said to be.
Love,
Anny
Hey Alice,
I second what Anny said, and have something to add (shocker!, he, he).
You’ve just elicited a really great distinction – something I have not stated this way before.
The reason that a lot of this info seems to contradict itself is because not all of these techniques or statements and thoughts are on the same vibrational level. Getting to the point where you can see your illness as a blessing can take some time. This is a pretty high vibrational view. Now, along the way, one can maybe see how it was useful as a catalyst at times, or even just that it was a mirror to one’s vibration, but seeing it as a true blessing is not the first thought you’d want to reach for.
I provide a lot of different viewpoints here, so that no matter where you are on the vibrational ladder, you may find a thought that you can hook on to. The most important thing to remember is that you should look for a thought that feels better. When you do, focus on it like a dog with a bone. Then, when you’re good and solid there, look for the next better feeling thought.
You can feel free while in a jail cell (and illness can feel very much like jail). Your mind is free. You are free to think as you please, to focus how you please and to feel how you want to. And when you get that, when you find that control over your focus and emotions, then you are truly free. This is what Victor Frankl discovered. I’m certain it wasn’t easy and it isn’t for any of us, but it is possible.
If a thought doesn’t make you feel better right now, don’t try to adopt it. Go with what does make sense, what does resonate, what does feel better. And keep doing that.
Huge hugs!
Melody
Hey Regina,
It’s actually different for every person. Not every person reacts the same to every technique.
You don’t necessarily have to go back and experience the trauma of what you went through. But you do have to acknowledge the pain. Why? Because you’re feeling it already, but staying in denial about it will keep it from shifting. If you are feeling it, you have to acknowledge it to let it go. And yes, it feels scary and like it’s going to get a lot worse. But the truth is that in the acknowledgement, there is a huge release and it actually feels so much better.
But here’s the key: You have to allow yourself to feel the emotions that come up. If you shut them down, you stay stuck and then it does just get worse and worse. But if you don’t fight the emotions, if you let them come and let them take their course, they will shift upward and you will feel tons better very quickly. This is what I do with my coaching clients. I guide them through these shifts so they don’t get stuck. But you can do it on your own – you just have to willing to let the emotions flow.
I’ll post Mary Carol’s links below.
Huge hugs!
Melody
I like what you said about crying and releasing those emotions. I’ve decided to do that, even if it may seem silly to someone else if I cry at a TV commercial. Yes, I do that. I did tell my husband, though, if I start to cry don’t ask if I’m okay, especially in church. I’m allowing myself to feel what I feel and sometimes that may include tears. I told him this because I got tired of him trying to help me feel better when it was the crying that made me feel better.
I’ve always tended to surpress emotion, especially tears, for fear of looking silly. But I’ve since decided if I feel like crying, I’m going to cry, and not concern myself with what others think.
For the person that asked about the hot-headed father, I grew up with one. I wish I’d known about LOA when I was younger, because it is horrible never knowing which dad is going to come home – one in a good mood or one in a crappy mood, because the crappy mood seems to overtake everything else. It was so bad that I avoided my dad as much as possible as a child and moved out graduation night, and this has affected our continued relationship today because it’s hard for me to release the belief systems and the coping mechanisms that I developed as a child. To that end, although I agree with Melody in that being angry is all he knows, I’m concerned with that person finding healthy ways to protect themselves from that energy and learn from this experience.
Hi Christina,
I watched What the Bleep years ago, when it first came out. We have it on DVD, two DVD’s in fact, both with the same scenario but different interviews. The makers of the films and the ones doing the research also wrote a book with the same title in which they explain the what, why, how etc. and they also explained that they made a second film when the first turned out to be a success because they still had so much material left from the interviews, so they put that into the second one. I think the material is awesome. It helped me a lot to further open my mind.
Love,
Anny
Hey Christina,
It’s so great that you realized what you really needed and were able to communicate that to your husband. A lot of people just want to help and if we can tell them how to truly help us, they will gladly comply.
This is a REALLY complex subject, but having a hotheaded father is not all bad. Energetically speaking, it will have led you to create MASSIVE desires with an intensity that would not have been possible for you without so much contrast. Nothing ever went wrong. The same is true for Alice (who asked the question). Once we realize the value of our childhood, good, bad and ugly (and this is not all that easy and can take considerable time), it becomes easy to forgive and let the pain go completely.
It’s not so much about protecting ourselves as it is about realizing our own power. And nothing will make you want to feel your own power quite like someone who makes you feel powerless. And a volatile father has got to be one of the most efficient ways to accomplish that.
Huge hugs!
Melody
(quote)It’s not so much about protecting ourselves as it is about realizing our own power. And nothing will make you want to feel your own power quite like someone who makes you feel powerless. And a volatile father has got to be one of the most efficient ways to accomplish that. (end quote)
I guess by protecting I meant physically, not emotionally, although emotional pain hurts as well as physical.
Then this gets into making you want to feel your own power so much so that you end up using that power against others and hurting them – name calling, bullying, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, then possibly physical abuse.
Yes, I still have a lot of resistance when it comes to these issues. I’ll get to a place where I feel that it’s all okay, they did the best they could, I learned some lessons as well. Then all it takes is an argument, or seeing or hearing something similar to what I heard and saw, and it starts all over again. Yes, this is going to take some time to deal with.
Maybe that’s why I ended up marrying a guy with a similar fly-off-the-handle temper? Doesn’t explain why I married him twice, though.
Sorry, Alice. Please, do not let my hang-ups mess up your relationship with your dad.
Hi Christina,
Standing applause for the crying thing. I decided the same thing a few years ago. I cry on trains, walking down the street- anywhere I want! It feels much better not to have to suck it in and repress.
I rmember recovering from depression many people cry. When you are on the lowest scale of depression people often feel apathy or so tied in knots from keeping emotions in.
Better out than in- like Shrek! I am now the Master of Tears. I can kick anyones’ butt at crying in public with pride lol 🙂
Nothing would harm the relationship with my dad. 🙂 My parents divorced when I was very young and I never lived with him.
I got to contact him as an adult and found him to be jovial and generous. He is a kindhearted person.
I did have some conflict because for some point I regretted finding him as he had an awful temper.
Well he is just misunderstood as it’s all just loud noises and no real venom there. But he just has a really loud voice when he’s mad.
He’s a gentleman and in no way violent so there’s no worry!
But I wish he was jovial all the time. When he’s mad- I know he can’t help it. It’s generally not directed at the person next to him- but about the unfairness of life and really old events he never gets over.
But the intensity of the anger is uncomfortable. Also if it is directed at the person it’s horrific as he picks the worst thing.
Like if they were raped he’ll yell about that until they cry and claim that they need to “face reality” etc etc and focus on the problem.
He thinks he helps people- good intention-terrible execution of intention.
I must admit though he is improving now and I have a system where I see him- but for short amounts of time only.
I just don’t put myself in a situation where we will be trapped. I get travel sickness so that is a great excuse.
There was an awful car trip between two states on a freeway with no exit or place to pull over. I wanted to throw up and I was caught with him yelling so hard about life my ears were hurting.
He is good he just doesn’t know how loud and horrific his words are to others. He thinks that reality is sorrow.
But I know if I needed a kidney he’d give me one so he has many redeeming features. 🙂 thankyou for your concern.
Good to hear, Alice.
Christina,
I think you’re trying to skip the anger step… You’re trying to move into forgiveness before you’ve really let all the anger out, and that’s why you keep backsliding. Go be angry first. You can forgive them later.
Huge hugs!
Melody
What are you crazy? You think you know about anger??? How dare you…be so right-hehe. LOL
LOL Philip! I’m outrageous that way… 😉
Huge hugs!
Melody