Updated: May 19, 2022
Emotion is a derivative of ‘energy in motion’. E-motion is what powers our thoughts and puts them into motion. It is the acting part of our thoughts. Our emotions are very powerful and can be a great tool when we can properly regulate them– without miscreation and misinterpretation. The word emotion is often associated with negative aspects of feelings and moods. When we describe a person as emotional, we are not usually referring to someone who is filled with joy, gratitude or love, but a person who is weepy, irrational or temperamental. Emotions are not the enemy. It is how we interpret them, what we do with them and how we express them that can be a problem. Even as a Therapist I was influenced by traditional mainstream thinking and typical social programming for many years that emotions were weak. Even negative emotions can be meaningful if we listen to what they have to communicate and teach us, by way of revealing our underlying fears.
Throughout my training and educational background I was always taught that it was very important to master our mind and our thoughts. Upon first becoming a Hypnotherapist, I tried for many years using my training to master my own mind. I worked at this very diligently for many years. However, I finally came to the conclusion of how a belief is formed, with the help of Arnold Patent's book, "You Can Have It All". Emotions are feelings regulated by the thoughts we have attached to the feeling; "When a thought occurs, and a feeling behind that thought is formed, an emotion is born. It is then embedded into the subconscious mind as a belief. These thoughts can include beliefs that it is dangerous to feel and express our feelings. They may also include beliefs that it is dangerous to feel and use the power that lies within our feelings". Subsequently, I realized we cannot master our thoughts until we understand the belief(s) that originally formed those subsequent thoughts and the foundation of our present mindset. Even though the subconscious mind and belief systems is the specialty of a Hypnotherapist, it wasn’t until years later when I learned to face my fear by surrendering to my feelings, instead of being afraid of them, when I was finally able to gain the wisdom I needed to overcome the fears and negative feelings that form the beliefs within each of us, before finally mastering our thoughts. Emotion is not weakness, but takes courage to face them, and wisdom to listen.
If e-motion is thought put into motion, then do you know that your thoughts are the creative part of you and are manifested by your emotions and feelings? The process of reconnecting to our feelings and to the power that lies from within them, calls for a high level of intention. For in order to feel our feelings, free of the fears that induce their suppression and free of the beliefs that distorted them, we have to be willing to first feel our feelings just the way they are. Distorted as they may be and fearful as they may seem.
Emotions are constantly regulating what we experience as “reality.” The decision about what sensory information travels to your brain and what gets filtered out depends on what signals the receptors are receiving from the peptides. Emotional states or moods are produced by various neuropeptide ligands, and what we experience as an emotion or a feeling is also a mechanism for activating a particular neuronal circuit, simultaneously throughout the body, which generates a behavior; with all the necessary physiological changes that behavior would require. Recall the chapter on quarks and the symphony that is always occurring within us? Peptides are the sheet music containing the notes, phrases, and rhythms that allow the orchestra (your body) to play as an integrated entity. The music that results is the tone or feeling that you experience subjectively as your emotions.
As before mentioned, society has taught us to believe that emotions are weak; yet the opposite is true. Denying our feelings and emotions is weakness. If we continue to fear our emotions and believe that emotions are weak, then we will never gain power over them, but they will have power over us. The way that we interpret our emotions and our feeling’s is often a falsehood or an illusion if you will. They tell you what you’ll have or experience if you let them go which is why you hold or cling onto them. Again however, the opposite is actually true. Holding onto pride for example, gives us a false sense of security and power tricking us into believing otherwise; which in turn prevents us from letting go of the fear that is the very cause of the pride that blinds us. As we let go of our fear, and release the fear we have of both them and our emotions, we can tap into the power that lies within them. A simple way to let go of our fears, is to accept them without resistance, acknowledge them and love them just the way they are.
Each and every feeling in its undistorted form and free of fear is some aspect of love or joyfulness, which has many aspects… "When we let go of judgments and open our hearts, we give ourselves the joy of feeling all the ways that we love ourselves, others and the world around us. When we open our hearts, we also gain access to the beauty, the aliveness, the wonder and the inspiration that life is”, Arnold Patent.
REFERENCES
Developmental Psychology (2012). Epigenetic systems view of human development. 27(1), 33-34.
Gottlieb G., (2007). "Probabilistic epigenesis", Developmental Science 10:1, 1-11 Gottlieb, G., (1991).
Illania. (2010). DNA Connection. Genetic voice prints/DNA; Blog, Science.
Patent, A. M. (1995). The feeling exercise, “You can have it all”, pgs. 50-51.
Skarin A., (1979). The Harvest of Thoughts. “How thoughts are planted and how they produce”, Ch.8.
The Rayid Model. ‘Preference dominance’, “Right & Left-brain Hemispheres”.