The Fire Alarm of Feeling

Yesterday, a dear friend gave me frank, logical feedback about something which I had experienced over the weekend. And I was fired up, and I was angry, and I was annoyed, and then, I was utterly grateful. Because once I got past the initial indignation, and once I stopped focusing on all of the fiery feelings that I was initially directing at her, I stopped to consider why I was so stirred up inside. I stopped, took a breath, took a moment to reflect, and I realized that our conversation and her honest feedback, made me understand that I still felt a lot of strong feelings about my weekend’s experience, which I clearly need to spend some more time working through. I realized that a part of my life that I thought I had moved on from, still needs to be worked through, just a little bit more.

My friend, aware that I was feeling defensive and miffed, apologized and she said that she should have just been a witness and “heard me,” but honestly, while that would have been kind, too, it probably would have been less helpful, in this instance. Her feedback helped me to pinpoint what was actually upsetting me about the whole situation. My friend has long proven that she has my best interests at heart, and so taking the pause, and considering the long-proven fact of my friend’s care, made me dig a little deeper into the situation, and to take my own honest, logical look at the storm that was swirling around in my heart.

Your feelings are always about you. Your responses, your reactions, your actions, are yours. What other people feel, and say, and do, and how they react, are about them. If you get past your initial emotional surge about anything and any situation, you can learn a lot about yourself. An emotional surge is like a fire alarm for your body, screaming, “Okay, pay attention!” I could have responded to my friend’s frank feedback in many ways. If I had truly moved past the situation which I was discussing, her feedback would have had no emotional charge for me. I would have stayed emotionally even, and might have said, “Thank you, but that’s not correct.” Or if she was truly just being mean and trying to hurt me, my intuition would have suggested that I need bigger boundaries in this particular friendship. But in this case, my longtime friend knows me well, and she knows all about the particular situation, and she was trying to get me to some clarity and peace. And after my emotional fire alarm got turned off, I was able to see the light at the end of the hallway, away from the fire of my emotion.

I can’t believe that I am in my fifties, and I am only now getting more and more comfortable with these truths about my emotions and my responses. Instead of being afraid of, or instantly reacting when I am feeling strong emotions, I am getting better at taking the pause, and really exploring what my emotions are trying to say to me. Our feelings and our sensations are our built in GPS system for navigating our lives. Instead of being afraid of our emotions, or worse, being a slave to them, we need to realize what our feelings and emotions are made to do for us. Our emotions are not the whole of us, just as our brains/minds are not the whole of us, nor are our bodies the whole of us. The whole of us, is that spark/soul of Awareness that resides in each of our bodies, and Who is the one who actually notices our bodily sensations, and our thoughts, and our feelings. We have everything that we need, contained within us, to navigate living our lives fully and capably, and with daily awe of the wondrous experience it truly is, to live a life, in a body, for a short while, here on Earth.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.