Looking into the shadows of our past seems to be part of claiming our mess and healing ourselves. This is not something that is easy and for me, it has always seemed much easier to take a quick peek and then stuff as much of the painful past in a closet as I could. The problem with that is it's still there, underneath the surface waiting to pop back out and effect our daily life in ways we aren't even aware of. It would be better if we were to allow ourselves to examine our past, see what we might have changed if we could, take responsibility for our own actions and then release ourselves and others from any judgment or guilt instead of just stuffing it all away. If this were easy and I was good at it, I probably wouldn't be writing this blog!
Many times I have thought I had healed and released issues from my past only to find myself suddenly faced with raging emotions triggered by some small incident that brought up memories of the past. It's shocking when it happens and sometimes frightening, especially if we think we no longer have strong feelings connected to the past. Sometimes when this happens we may be unaware of what is going on, it's as if suddenly we are having this huge emotional outburst for no logical reason. We may be able to see that we are being irrationally upset over something that shouldn't bother us so much, but have no clue why.
If we have an understanding of the idea that we should control our emotions, they shouldn't control us, then when our emotions go out of control it should signal to us that something is off somewhere. We should hopefully be able to allow ourselves to feel our emotions, but then step aside and look deeply at where they are coming from and what has triggered them. If we can do this, we will see that many times we are not reacting to the situation at hand, but to something from our past life experiences.
Let's look at a generic example of this. Let's say a friend, who we normally talk to every day, suddenly doesn't call us for awhile and when they do, they tell us all about how they were busy hanging out with someone else. Suddenly we find our self angry, hurt and insecure, we feel like our friend is going to leave us and find someone better to replace us. Our emotions go all haywire and we are sure we are going to be abandoned. We've become all paranoid and insecure and we aren't even really sure why. Once we are able to put our emotions aside, we look deeply and realize that at some point in our life our best friend or our mate or whoever we felt extremely close to, left us for someone else. We are reacting mostly to what happened in our past and assuming this is what will happen to our in your present. I'm not sure if that's a very good example, but it's the most generic one I could think of at the moment.
The point is that something happened that triggered all of the feelings associated with that past life event and suddenly we are acting from that emotional memory instead of from the actual moment we are in right now. This is what happens when we haven't properly processed the difficult events in our lives.
I am by no means an expert at processing difficult events, but I have learned that it is very important to allow ourselves to experience the emotions of the event, without allowing ourselves to be stuck in them. We need to find a safe way to express what we are feeling whether it is through speaking with friends, a counselor or trusted pastor. Another method is to journal or write poetry or music or maybe paint or draw it out. Anything that helps us to look into what we are feeling and release it in some manner.
It is helpful to allow ourselves a set time period to allow these emotions to come out. This puts us in control of the situation. When my dad was extremely ill I allowed myself 15-20 minutes each day of what I called my wallow time, I would sit in the tub or shower with the water running and allow myself to think every deep, dark thought that was bothering me about the whole situation. I would cry and some times rant to release it all. After my time was up I had to do something productive or something that gave me joy, I didn't allow myself to dwell on everything I'd thought of.
Our bodies need us to allow ourselves to feel and release the emotions that arise, otherwise we become ill. This doesn't mean we give ourselves permission to go on rampages ranting at everyone and being destructive. It means we learn ways to safely allow ourselves to feel our feelings, express them and release them. If we don't do this we might find them sneaking out on us when we least expect it.
It would seem to avoid these emotional ambushes, it is best to deal with emotions right away when they pop up, look deeply to see what the actual cause of our emotional reaction is, face the issues we need to face, take responsibility for our own actions and then let them go.
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