Extending love to feeling and feelings is a departure for me. Sure, I can extend love to thoughts all day long. Even though thoughts in this case are everything I am aware of. See, that’s the thing. I am not really aware of my feelings. I am aware of sadness, happiness, despair and crossness but feeling those things is different. I have trained myself (not very well actually) to ignore my own feelings because I have also trained myself to be acutely aware of other people’s feelings. When my daughter was ill several years ago she would put her head against mine and say “Can you tell me what I am thinking and feeling?” And I could. It was as if I could hear the voice in her heart giving dictation. I could also feel the palpable vibrations emanating from here. I believed my own feelings just needed to sit in the back seat and be quiet. The awareness of my feelings finally acquiesced to this firmly held belief and has been silent for years on the subject of feelings. Yesterday I realized why. I was watching a old Hercule Poirot film and one of the characters was described as “sensitive”, meaning, she was weeping in the background and probably would have to be given a dose of smelling salts. This brought up a cornucopia of feeling thoughts to extend love to because these phrases have oft been used in regards to me:
My feelings are enjoying the fruit of the Spirit.
Don’t be so sensitive (I extend courage to this thought.)
You are SO sensitive (I extend stillness to this thought.)
Don’t suggest that, she’ll have a fit (I extend patience to this thought.)
She wears her feelings on her sleeve (I extend joy to this thought.)
She’s too touchy feely (I extend love to this thought.)
Don’t go all universal on me (I extend beauty to this thought.)
Settle down (I extend grace to this thought.)
Behave (I extend surrender to this thought.)
Be quiet (I extend faith to this thought.)
Shhhhhhhhh (I extend encouragement to this thought.)
She let’s her feelings dictate (I extend peace to this thought.)
Don’t let your feelings get in the way of your goalsen/accomplishment (I extend willingness to this thought.)
It’s just business, feelings don’t belong here (I extend blessing to this thought.)
Don’t be scared, feelings ahead!
After hearing these thoughts so often describing or ascribed to me across the years I was loathe to spend much time with them. However, once I began choosing qualities of love to extend I started getting a little excited at doing it for the next thought, and the next feeling and the next. I found that much of what I’d heard others say to or about me was mainly what I’d thought about myself. By the end of this exersize I was actually giving thanks for these thoughts telling me is was not ok to feel because I knew that it wasn’t true. It is ok to feel. Feelings do matter and they matter very much. It is just that we don’t listen to them. I was beginning to do what a friend shared recently about the importance of not fighting feeling any more: “So finally I shut up and listened.” I am listening too. It is a beginning but most definitely a beginning of joy.
How timely for me! You have described the “drawback” of the “giver/helper” persona. Those of us who focus on the feelings and needs of others, often lose sight of our own feelings and needs, as if we are supposed to be the ever-strong ones for whom they can all rely upon. It is especially timely for me as I am writing about this from another angle in the Spring issue of my Self-Empowerment newsletter– “Now I know that denying or repressing emotions simply pushes them into the subconscious where, over time, they trigger illness and pain in the body, signals of important lessons to be learned. So now I am learning to befriend my emotions, allowing them to be felt so that I can learn the lessons they are leading me toward. Negative emotions are part of my human nature, and are also a divine gift that alerts me to something I need to pay attention to.”
So thank you, Eva, for extending flavors of love to those pesky “negative” emotions that are Divine Feedback!
Jill, what a beautiful description of what happens when we repress (ignore, deny, forget) our emotions! Thank you for sharing this. I’m glad this is timely for you. I can’t wait to read the newest issue of your Self_Empowerment Newsletter. Love & hugs, xoxox