By admin 
The word emotion comes from the Latin word emovere: to move out, to stir, or to set in motion. That is already rather beautiful. An emotion is apparently not something that was meant to become permanent. It wants to move.
Yet we often do the opposite. We hold back our tears, swallow our anger, hide our fear and smile politely while something inside us is quietly throwing furniture around.
This often begins in childhood. Imagine a child who is frightened, angry or deeply hurt, but has nobody who can safely receive that emotion. Perhaps the parents are struggling themselves. Perhaps the child is told, “Don’t cry,” “Don’t be silly,” or “Go to your room until you can behave.” The child quickly learns that certain feelings are unwelcome.
But the emotion does not disappear simply because the child stops showing it. It may slip out of conscious awareness and become part of an invisible survival pattern. The child may decide, without putting it into words: I must be good to be loved. I must not make trouble. I must stay alert. I cannot trust anyone. Something must be wrong with me.
Years later, the adult may no longer remember how that decision began. Yet the pattern is still running quietly in the background, like an old app using half the battery without appearing on the screen.
We sometimes say that these emotions are stored in the unconscious. That does not mean there is a dark cupboard somewhere in the mind filled with jars labelled : anger 1963 / fear 1971 / fear 1983
It means that old reactions can continue without our conscious permission. A harmless remark may suddenly feel like rejection. Someone arriving late may awaken the fear of being abandoned. A small criticism may produce a surprisingly large wave of anger.
The present event pressed the button, but it did not install the button.
Suppressed emotion also affects our energy. Not because “negative energy” is a mysterious substance floating through the body, but because it takes enormous effort to keep part of ourselves hidden. We remain tense, careful or emotionally guarded. We scan faces, rehearse conversations and try to control what might happen next. It is rather like holding a beach ball under water all day and wondering why our arms are tired.
Rupert Spira suggests that instead of immediately following the story attached to an emotion, we can feel the raw sensation itself. Where is it in the body? Is it tight, heavy, hot, trembling or restless? If we temporarily remove the mental subtitles.
This should not be happening; I cannot bear this; this proves something is wrong with me….we may discover that the emotion is a changing movement of sensation appearing within Awareness.
We do not have to fight it, analyse it to pieces or turn it into our identity. We can simply give it the space it was denied before.
Federico Faggin adds another fascinating insight. He sees feeling as the carrier of meaning. A computer can process the word sadness, but it does not know what sadness feels like. We do. Our feelings are therefore not meaningless disturbances in an otherwise perfectly organised machine. They tell us something about how we are interpreting our experience.
Fear may say, I believe I am in danger. Anger may say, I believe something has been taken from me. Grief may say, I believe I have lost something I cannot live without. Shame may say, I believe I am unworthy of love.
The feeling is real as an experience, but its interpretation is not necessarily true.
A Course in Miracles takes us one step deeper. It says that beneath all our many emotions are only two fundamental directions: love or fear. Fear can wear hundreds of costumes : anger, guilt, jealousy, anxiety, shame and despair, but underneath them lies the same belief: I am separate from Love, and therefore I am unsafe.
The Course does not ask us to deny emotions. Nor does it ask us to paste a spiritual smile over pain and announce that everything is an illusion. That would merely be another way of pushing the beach ball under water. Instead, it asks us to bring our emotion to the light of a different Teacher.
We might say:
I am feeling this, but I do not yet know what it means.
That little sentence creates an opening. The ego has already written a complete explanation, usually involving blame, guilt and several dramatic conclusions. But the Holy Spirit may show us that the emotion does not prove we are damaged, abandoned or unlovable. It may simply reveal an old belief that is ready to be looked at differently.
This is how the unconscious is gradually freed. Not by digging desperately through every childhood memory, and not by trying to remove all “negative” emotions, but by allowing what was hidden to become visible without condemnation. What we are willing to feel with love no longer has to shout from the basement.
Depression can sometimes be connected with this long inner struggle, but it has no single cause. Biology, loss, loneliness, stress, physical health, childhood experiences and patterns of thinking can all play a part. Sometimes a person has spent so long holding life back that everything feels heavy and colourless. Sometimes the nervous system has simply become exhausted. And sometimes professional help is needed; seeking that help is not a spiritual failure but a loving and sensible decision.
Rupert Spira compares depression to a dark cloud passing in front of the sun. The cloud may be thick and may remain for quite some time, but it has not destroyed the sun. In the same way, our peace may be completely hidden from our present experience without having disappeared from what we truly are.
Perhaps healing begins when we stop asking, How do I get rid of this emotion? and ask instead, Can I meet it without abandoning myself?
An emotion that is resisted becomes an enemy. An emotion that is believed becomes an identity. But an emotion that is quietly welcomed into Awareness can finally complete the movement contained in its own name.
It moves out.
And what remains is not a better, more polished personality. What remains is the loving Presence that was quietly here before the emotion appeared, while it moved through us, and after it was gone.
With love and light,
Gonny