Emotional pain, for the most part, comes, at the conscious level, from our perception of events that actually happen to us or from our illusion around events that may happen, as well as disharmonious energies locked in our unconscious due to past events and experiences we had that were not particularly pleasant for us and that we weren't able to deal with when we were children or younger.
Regardless of how they got there or why, if we could move past them with ease then life would be a lot easier and consequentially more pleasant to experience.
In the spiritual and new age circles, I imagine that the most clichéd statement by far would be that we must learn to live in the moment. What I find amazing, however, about that statement is that in my own journey, I keep getting new, more powerful insights and/or understanding about bringing my attention to the moment.
There is so much to be said about living in the moment, I mean Eckhart Tolle wrote a whole book on the topic, not to mention the multitude of gurus before him who also spewed out endless reams of information to assist us all in waking up to this simple to understand but very difficult to administer concept. But for this wee blog, I want to concentrate on how we can all use bringing our attention to the moment to heal and transform our emotional pains.
What must be understood first is that when we are in emotional pain we are resistant to feeling our feelings. I know that sounds counter-intuitive because just by the very nature of having the emotional pain it would appear that we must be feeling. But emotional pain is resistance to feeling our feelings, which means that we are in opposition somewhere to what is.
What is, simply means that whatever is actually happening regardless of our or other people's opinions or judgements of what is happening it still remains the way it is or in other words - what is.
So when we experience emotional pain we are not allowing life to be the way it is somewhere or somehow and getting our attention to the moment, which would then take away that pressure, is the antidote to the emotional pain.
Why would that be the case you may ask? Well, it's pretty simple really because the moment is always containing whatever is going on and it, the moment, has no judgement on what is going on, it is simply a container that contains everything for the everything that it contains to be as it is. That's a bit of a mind-boggler I know, but more simply put: the moment, because it always contains everything that is going on within it has no other option than to allow everything to be the way it is.
So when we bring our attention away from our mind, which is the part of us that always wants life to be different than it actually is, and focus it on the moment, we then move into pure acceptance of everything that is happening now.
It is from this place that the blocked energies within us, (our emotional pain) can then begin to flow through us and we get to feel relief.
If we go back to the stories in our mind about why the pain is there then we will surely bring the experience of the pain back because the mind wants the actual reality - the pain, to go away and is, therefore, resistant to what is, so we train our attention back to the moment and then instruct the energies to do whatever they want. I usually say something like, 'give me your best shot' and then I relax and allow the emotions to do exactly what they want.
The quickest way to emotional freedom, therefore, is to feel your feelings.