Love, Energy and Happiness

Have you ever thought about the difference between love and happiness? The reason being that when I experience love, I experience it as a deeply internal feeling in my heart centre, as warmth, pressure, tingling, and pouring out of me as I recognise the object of my love. 

For example, a feeling of love that swamps me when I am with my grandchildren, or when my blessed cat chin-bumps me, or when I think of something my son or daughter has done for me.

Love doesn’t stay inside of me, it pours out of me when I have those experiences.

On the other hand, when I am happy, it is a lighter emotional energy and it doesn’t necessarily pour out of me in the same way, it is not focused. For instance, when I am laughing, I feel light with energy and I know that the energy is emanating out through my aura, yet there is a vastly different feel to that emotional energy compared to when I feel loved or loving.

Okay, what’s the definition of an emotion?

1. “An affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness.
2. any of the feelings of joy, sorrow, fear, hate, love, etc.
3. any strong agitation of the feelings actuated by experiencing love, hate, fear, etc., and usually accompanied by certain physiological changes, as increased heartbeat or respiration, and often overt manifestation, as crying or shaking.
4. an instance of this.
5. something that causes such a reaction: the powerful emotion of a great symphony.

And the origin of the word ’emotion’ is: 1570–80; apparently < Middle French esmotion, derived on the model of movoir: motion, from esmovoir to set in motion, move the feelings”

Reveal the emotions, or Not?

And for some reason, many people worry about e-moting or moving their feelings, so they lock them down inside, they curse themself for how they feel, they block off or put a wall up to prevent anyone getting too close to their emotions, they feel uncomfortable about how they feel…

Instead of embracing those emotions as part of themself, not something to be concerned about, just to accept and work through if it is having a negative impact, some people get stuck in the emotion itself. 

Emotions simply are. Just like a rock is a rock, or a crystal is a crystal, these natural elements are neither good or bad until you decide they are so.

Emotions are neither good or bad, harmful or otherwise.
It is only when we label our emotions and judge them with a negative viewpoint or slant, that we trigger an ongoing or another emotional consequence.

For example, I might notice that I have spent more money than I wanted to and so I feel down when I check my bank account. Then as I feel down, I might dislike this feeling and blame my finances for it. Then I might judge myself for my lack of budgeting control and cause myself to feel downright depressed, or anxious. 

And this can continue on, until I have affected my sense of self.  I might dislike myself for feeling down and sharply rebuke myself. Or, I might fight against my financial state and get angry. And get angry about being angry or angry because I am anxious over my finances and so on…

EMOTIONAL CONTROL, IS IT POSSIBLE?

I may feel that I have no options except to feel those emotions and feel myself pulled into emotional pieces, or I might choose to stop and think and remind myself that my emotions do not have to spiral out of control. That’s right, I can choose to interrupt my thoughts and say STOP, very firmly. Then I can ask myself what can I do to prevent this experience that triggered the emotions, from happening again so that I learn from the event.

Am I thinking about the emotional state I am in?

When I am in the midst of an emotion that was having a negative impact on me, (perhaps I have been angry about something), then I also notice that for me to stay angry takes input from my thoughts… I have to keep thinking about it. Oh, and telling someone to just snap out of it, will feed that emotion and won’t help it to subside, unless you are a natural comedian and can laugh in such a way that the emoting person laughs with you.

I’ve also noticed that the emotion subsides over the course of about 15 minutes or so and naturally dies down unless I keep recharging that emotion with my thoughts through berating myself or someone or something else.

Emotion naturally dies…

Here is the interesting part, that when I actively and consciously help myself to calm down, I will begin to feel better, more in control, sooner rather than later. (It can take longer than 15 minutes to actually have awareness outside of your emotions and get conscious of what is going on.) 

Strategies for disbursing feelings

I can interrupt my feelings via any number of means: having a drink of water, putting upbeat music on, going for a walk, stretching and yawning, deep breathing, practising Mindfulness, and talking gently and encouragingly to my inner child. I can also remind myself “oh what a difference five minutes will make”.

I remember being at a workshop many years ago where we were asked what our first three thoughts and reactions would be if we made a mistake, a biggish mistake? Mine were, “Stupid, how could you be so stupid, what are you going to do about it?”

I was quite stunned that most of the people didn’t get to “what are you going to do about it?”  They were stuck in beating themself up and imagining all the terrible consequences of their mistake and only one or two went straight into a resourceful mode of looking for solutions.

Was that a learnt behaviour of mine? Not sure, possibly yes. Because I could just as easily have stayed stuck in beating myself up and making myself feel worse. What would be the point of that?  So many people are stuck in their emotional pain, whether it’s self-inflicted or inflicted by others and that just makes things (well, you or me) feel worse inside. 

Accept your feelings, accept what has happened

When you are stuck in an emotion that is causing you pain, you are not thinking of accepting what is happening in your life, you are not thinking of letting it go, you are not thinking of how to move out of that distress, or how to move forward with your life. So, it is important to catch the emotion quickly, to accept that this is how you are feeling at the moment and that you will move through these feelings if you allow yourself and what would that look like if you did, what would it feel like if you did.  

I’m curious as to whether or not you have ever had this kind of experience where your emotions led you on a ‘not so merry’ dance?

Or whether you were able to notice your feelings, accept them as transient or itinerant passengers at that moment, and that you would let go of your emotions, like letting a passenger off a train, down the track in the not too distant future? And what would your energy look like and feel like when you did?

Or could you find it within yourself to forgive yourself, to love yourself and use the power of that love and thoughts of happiness, to drop that emotional passenger off and let it go?

I wonder, what is the impact of love, and happiness on your energy?

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