Emotions in Motion
by Barbara J. Semple
 Judgments
are my mind's way of setting up boundaries against uncomfortable things, for
now. My mind uses judgments to organize and place in the appropriate spot in my
subconscious, my comfortable and uncomfortable responses to any thought, feeling
or action that enters my personal domain from the moment my mind starts
collecting data in the womb.
Self-judgment, the judgment I make about myself, is not compatible with the
flow of soul. Judgment or self-judgment, accumulates, compartmentalizes, saves
for a later date, and creates boundaries in my mind. While memory is good,
judgment and self-judgment hold things inside that may no longer be appropriate
to the flow of soul. I need to be my own mind's guardian.
Once a friend of ours was visiting for the weekend. The joint pain in my feet
was particularly painful, enough so that I wished my husband could carry me. I
found myself apologizing to my husband and our friend on a number of occasions:
apologizing for my lackluster presence, since I was feeling depressed about the
pain, and my need for so much help. (Unbeknownst to me, I was in the beginnings
of another arthritis flare-up.)
I don't usually do that, do I? Apologize for my physical shortcomings? Each
time I heard myself apologize I did not feel good about what I'd just said. It
didn't feel congruent with my Self as Soul.
After two days of this apologetic attitude, I finally announced to my husband
and friend that I was going to stop beating myself up about somehow failing
(again) and I would take the Western medicine until I didn't need it any more.
The intensity of my joint pain began to subside.
Where's the judgment here, you ask? The next morning, after my declaration to
stop fighting the pain, my friend and I were sharing thoughts. She brought up
something that I recognized as self-judgment in her. She recognized in me that I
was self-judging every time I apologized about my physical symptoms making me a
burden to others. She said she didn't think less of me for my physical state.
She noticed my husband didn't think less of me. It was me: Me who was making up
this judgment that I was doing something bad, that I was putting a dampener on
their weekend.
As I followed my process of pain and self-judgment a little deeper, I
realized the cause of my pain this time. I had had a deeply emotional couple of
weeks around a childhood issue I was sure had been completed long ago. My
husband and friend both felt sure my joint pain was probably related to the
emotional distress I had been experiencing.
My friend and husband were right. I had been judging myself about something
regarding my family of origin. I didn't see it clearly until it came out of me
as me apologizing to my loved ones because I was causing them discomfort by
being concerned about me. The little girl in me knew I should not make waves or
cause trouble. Everyone is busy. This was a very old childhood pattern for me.
Memories popped in of Dad getting mad at me for who knows what and he'd say,
"I'm going to hold this against you till the day I die."
When I decided to look at the self-judgment that I was doing something wrong
by being sick, that I was a bad girl (remember this was or had already been
categorized somewhere in my subconscious mind now), I set my intention to give
myself the leeway of being angry at the pain and my body for experiencing it,
instead of beating myself up about it. I also am grateful Soul showed me that in
my subconscious mind I still held a judgment that I am a bad girl if I'm sick or
any trouble. Here is another layer of self-loathing breaking free. The intensity
of my pain began to subside. I was on the right track to something.
Did my self-judgment hold the pain in place? Maybe it did. Maybe it didn't.
If I had simply observed the pain in the beginning, took the necessary medicine
and moved on "down the road" with my life, would the pain have dissolved? Maybe
it would have. Maybe not. Certainly I would have missed the opportunity to
express self-judgment and have it be witnessed for me to be called on it. The
main factor of that particular pain experience was my self-judgment: judging
myself as having done something wrong and not being good enough if I am sick or
need help.
This idea is very new to me: that judgment holds emotions, pain, even
medicines in the body. Certainly judgment has its place in my world, just not
when it comes to harming myself. Whereas if the body-mind is in fluid motion --
meaning allowing what is happening in any moment to be as just that: it is what
it is, no judgment that I am doing something wrong -- no harm "accumulates."
There is more around this for me. I know medicines, herbs, food, environment,
hereditary and a multitude of other factors can be a cause of physical pain for
me. I am vigilant now about my increases in pain and symptoms and any emotional
attachments to my pain from old ways of thinking and feeling about myself. I am
actually quite grateful for the realization that I am not a bad girl if I need
help. This is a very big deal for me since I do need a lot more help these days.
Here was another opportunity for a layer of my "body memories" to come into
alignment with the flow of soul.
So, I've noticed emotions are connected to physical discomforts. It isn't
good or bad. It just is. Often my most excruciating pains have deeply seated
judgments attached. Things aren't always just emotional or just physical.
Something that affects the physical such as medication or surgery, injury, or
genetics may certainly cause emotional imbalance. It is complicated to unravel
the unwanted energy connections, the harmful judgments others or I have made
towards me that may hold me in pain. Thank goodness Spirit is in charge. It is
my task to listen and trust in my process.
Emotions and Immune Power
Emotional health or balance is crucial to my whole being. Emotional health is
as valuable to me as pure air and water.
I have heard it said that emotions are only a small percentage of the cause
of an illness. There are other factors like environment, diet, pollutants,
heredity, genes and other circumstances that make up the total cause of "dis-ease."
My sense is emotions are a powerful force of healing in a person.
In witnessing myself in my healing life process, I can make a realization
about something, feel something about my childhood or myself with new awareness,
and everything in me can shift in a flash. I feel totally integrated with the
new realization and I am never the same again.
Remember my story (earlier in this book) about mustering up all of my anger
and saying I can swim, and in the next second I was swimming? That is an example
of the power of emotions. In that moment, I was experiencing soul aerobics, with
my properly and fully functioning heart, in action!
For the first few years of dealing with rheumatoid arthritis, I tried almost
everything to cure it. I did gold salts, at least 20 different non-steroidal
anti-inflammatory medicines and combinations of medicines, acupuncture three
days a week, Traeger"+ work, Jin Shin Do?, Jin Shin
Jyutsu?, homeopathy, guided imagery, rage therapy, raw juices, fasting,
chiropractic, color therapy, herbs and supplements. Some things helped
sometimes. There were times I still had severe pain.
The times when I felt some of the greatest permanent relief were when I felt
my feelings completely, as in those times when I cried or screamed in anger,
I'd had enough pain, god damn it, or when I would have a break-through
session with my psychotherapist. Anger is a dynamic emotional force for healing.
One day I finally said I'd had enough of trying to find a cure for rheumatoid
arthritis. To keep trying so hard to find a cure I likened to chasing a dragon's
tail: never would I catch it. I just said, "I give up." Actually I used the "f"
word with a lot of anger behind it. Within seconds, the severe pain which was
attached to my frustration and which triggered my outburst had subsided. The
pressure was off and I felt better from that moment forward.
Even as I began writing the first part of this book, I noticed I was having
more severe pain than I had had in years. It took me a couple of weeks of
enduring pain and being depressed about it and judging myself, then finally
taking medicine, before I realized a relationship between the pain I was
experiencing and the memories I was writing in this book. Again, the pain began
to subside when I made the realization of the correlation of my childhood and my
pain. I find myself releasing layer after layer of emotional stuff that has a
direct relationship to my physical pain. I continue to do my best to pay
attention to what my body is saying through my symptoms, which can be a rigorous
soul workout.
Soul's passion in me cannot understate the power of emotions in my healing.
From my personal experience, emotions are a key part of the healing and health
of the whole person. Healing doesn't mean I am cured. Illness can still exist in
someone who is whole. Strongly do I feel that my loving and non-loving thoughts
and feelings about myself CAN offset diseases, poisons, you name it. Thousands
of pages have been written about the human psyche and its ability to fight off
disease. Believe me, I do not consciously have everything figured out about my
emotions and my immune system -- yet.
In the book The
Immune Power Personality, by Henry Dreher, the author talks about a
study of sisters with a rheumatoid factor. There is a factor detectable in the
blood, which says one is predisposed to rheumatoid arthritis. In case after case
of two sisters, both having the rheumatoid factor in their blood, one would get
full blown rheumatoid arthritis and the other never got it.
What was the difference between the two sisters with the exact same blood
factors that said they both should have rheumatoid arthritis? The book said that
by delving into their personality traits, one sister was a fighter, felt safe
and confident in the world, while the other sister had no personal boundaries,
was always being drained and used by others, gave away everything to everyone
else. You can guess which one got the disease in each case of two sisters with
the same potential for rheumatoid arthritis. This makes sense to me.
After years of "experimenting" with feeling my feelings, I came to realize
that there is great power in emotion. A force from anger or hatred is easily
recognized. The force of unconditional love was not in the beginning as well
known to me, and feeling its vibration seemed more subtle an experience. Having
felt many a wave of emotion (emotions, by the way, are called energy in motion)
in this body of mine, I have noticed that anger has a motion of pushing through
or blasting. Hatred feels like a burning sensation, like a laser. Fear is a
draining action. Self-loathing feels like a heavy weight holding in and pushing
down at the same time. The motion or force of unconditional love feels like a
gentle rocking back and forth motion that fills, nurtures, supports and expands.
"Energy in motion" can be used for good or bad, the same as a pencil can be
used to draw a beautiful picture or to poke someone in the eye. I have noticed
this especially about anger. I have seen the 86-year-old O Sensei of Aikido
break out of the center of a circle of strong men with swords without even
touching them. He used the same force of anger to "push through" or "break out,"
except without any anger or harm attached. I know how I consciously direct my
emotional energy is important and I reach some confidence in doing so by feeling
my feelings.
I will continue my "study" of emotions here in Earth-school until I leave.
There is more I wish to know about that power of emotions and how I can use that
power for the good of others and myself.
This
article is excerpted from:
 Soul Aerobics - Conscious Movement of a Soul into
Wholeness
by Barbara J. Semple.
Reprinted with permission of the
publisher, Blue Topaz Publishing. ©2000. www.bluetopazpublishing.com
Info/Order
this book.
 About the Author
Barbara
Semple has been a practitioner of Jin Shin Jyutsu, a gentle Oriental healing
art, for over ten years. She enjoys Zen painting, and is also the author of Personal
Power Cards, flashcards for emotional wellness.
Barbara spent 20 years working in corporate and marketing communications until
switching her focus to the holistic healing arts. Visit her website at www.healingtouchquicksteps.com.
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