Our emotions are the first things we have inner awareness of. When we're little, we react spontaneously: toy breaks, kid cries. Later our reactions feel less spontaneous, more inevitable: "Every time Mom calls, I feel bad."

Frankly, a precise emotional vocabulary is essential for this work and most of us can do better than bad, down, weird, or off. Awareness yearns for the specific quality of each individual emotion like a gourmet who longs for the individual piquancies of Thai curry, not just food.

For example, rather than bad, let's try a more congenial level of specificity like depressed, sad, or guilty. Identifying guilt, for example, as a specific emotion lets Awareness do things it can't do with bad or weird which aren't connected to specific feeling states. Emotions need to be identified. Only then can they can go on the itinerary of places we regularly visit.

The next time you feel a little weird, ask yourself, "What am I really feeling?" What did you come up with?

For example, specificity lets Awareness ask, "Does guilt feel familiar? Are there certain people who always make me feel guilty? Where does guilt come from in my personal history?"

The sweet thing is that Awareness has been longing for this kind of distinct identification. Now it can go to work. It can name the emotion and stay with it where before it could only defend ("It's not my fault."), project ("It's his fault!"), deny ("Guilt? What guilt?"), over-identify ("It's always my fault."), indulge ("Punish me. I'm guilty!").

Now, let's go a step further. Can you feel Awareness being trapped and, at the same time, free to observe and name? In our example, the trapped part of Awareness feels guilt. The free part observes the feeling of guilt.

Choose an emotion that comes up a lot for you. How much of your Awareness is trapped and how much is free to observe?

Someone who's easily irritated can feel irritated as he also feels, "Oh, jeez. Irritated again."

The free part of Awareness can ask, "How much irritation? Under what circumstances?" Awareness can reach out to look for where something comes from: "Gee, Dad was always irritated. In fact, my whole family was annoyed a lot of the time."

If Awareness is completely trapped, it can feel only irritation. Awareness-free, however, can see how irritation occurs again and again and makes life unpleasant. Awareness-free can see how irritation is really only an automatic response. After all, irritation is not the only response to standing in line at the post office.

Exercise: Look at this list of emotions.

Fear Anxiety (specific and free-floating) Tension

Jealousy Apprehensiveness (anticipatory fear) Dread

Panic Terror Fright Paranoia Defensiveness

Feeling threatened Shut down or disconnected (fear of feeling)

Disassociation (distancing from feelings) Trying to control

Anger Aversion, disgust Outrage Irritability

Hostility Rage Hatred Judgment Attacking

Rejection Punishment

Pain Sadness Hoping Abandonment

Isolation Loss Loneliness

Guilt Shame, humiliation, embarrassment

Inadequacy, worthlessness Unloveableness

Depression (clinical, episodic, event-induced)

Heart Love Affection Gratitude

Joy Compassion Outrage

Grief Sorrow Remorse Openness

Pick one that feels old and familiar. ____________

What color is it? __________

What temperature is it? ______________

Where is it located in your body? _________

What are the circumstances under which this emotion comes up?______

Where does this come from in your personal history? ___________

How does this reactive, automatic habit distort what's really going on? _______________

---------------

Unfortunately, many of us have underlying emotions that are too frightening, overwhelming or painful to feel directly. What might you be unwilling to feel directly? Isolation, shame, feeling exposed, needing, worthlessness, vulnerability are some possibilities. Do you have underlying emotions that you are afraid to feel directly? (They could be carefully hidden by other feelings, so be easy on yourself.) If so, what are they? ______________

How do you defend yourself against feeling these directly? Lots of us defend, shut down, disconnect, disassociate, judge, attack, or punish.

For our purposes, we'd like to develop a new relationship with our emotions, especially those that feel painful and hidden. Let's stay with all our emotions with affection and interest. We can turn beet red even as we say to ourselves, "Oh, here's shame. Again."

Awareness needs to be able to just "be with." It needs to be able to connect with everything that's in there. However, this is not the time to change behavior or even your feelings. Don't call up Mom with a list of grievances. Don't confront your boss or anybody else. For right now, let's just to see what's there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The above excerpts are from THE PERSONAL JOURNEY WORKBOOK
Available online at The Rocamora Schools home page
Personal Journey Workbook