Book 1 - Chapter 11 - Feeling, Healing, and Understanding Emotions - Excerpt 1-9
Going in Circles
When doing emotional healing work, it is par for the course to go through several stages of circling and cycling, where you feel you are in a rut and that healing is impossible and hopeless. During these stages, you are becoming more aware of your activations, issues and denials, even though they may be “after the fact” as you either won’t recognize them as such in the moment you are being activated, but will later. On the other hand, if you do recognize that you are being activated and you choose to deny your true expression for whatever reason, then later you will feel guilt and shame for having knowingly denied a healing opportunity.
This cycling process has many causes and each will have to be addressed as they present themselves. Fear of the unknown is one, as speaking and acting in a manner you have never done is going into unknown territory as it goes against your imprints, programs and beliefs. When confusion and doubt are present, the issues need to be resolved by asking direct questions or challenging who or what is confronting and confusing you. False feelings and emotions are also contributing factors, as what you feel when you are being activated will feel very real and formidable, but when examined, will be found to be false and not representing the present situation. Other issues are guilt and shame that make you feel that any real expression is wrong if it makes another person feel uncomfortable, or it invokes their anger and non-acceptance of you. This then leads to not wanting to express anything in fear of confrontation, and so one tries to find ways to cooperate or compromise, in order to avoid having to face your bigger fear, that of expressing your fear of expressing yourself.
This fear of expression is different from the fear of expressing what you feel. While that may sound confusing, let me explain the difference. Take for example that you want to say something that you know is not what the other person wants to hear. You don’t allow yourself to express yourself as you have an issue with confrontation and of people becoming angry with you if you express what you really feel. So there are two issues happening simultaneously. Before you can express what you really want to say, you need to address the underlying issue and that is your fear of expressing yourself and your fear of confrontation. Before you can say or do anything real, you need to express your fear of expressing yourself, that people will get angry at you if you say what you really want to say. When you have expressed your fear of expressing, that will clear out the denial energy, and it will no longer be an issue and you can then move into expressing what you really wanted to say. Having passed the first hurtle, you are now ready to deal with people’s reactions to what you had to say. Of course, that will bring up all your other issues, like people being angry at you, of being responsible for other peoples happiness, of not wanting to be rejected, etc., that you will need to address, that also ties into your first issue. I didn’t say healing wasn’t complicated.
You will never get to the second stage of addressing your real issues as long as you have fear of expressing yourself, and until you do, it just creates more cycling and circling. It's a classic case of the unseen role of denial, in that by not expressing your fear of expressing, you are denying your fear, and so any expression that you do make after that will also be in a state of denial, and as long as you are in denial, you cannot begin to heal your issues. This applies to every situation when you are afraid to speak or act in the way that you feel, as that relates to your underlying issues where you feel responsible for other people’s feelings, where you try to avoid conflict and confrontation, and while they are separate issues, they are all connected. As you can see, living in the world of denial is not simple, but the truth will set you free.
