[Ann]

Emotional Honesty
(from Joy2MeU)

Honesty like any other arena in recovery is not a black and white issue. There are a multitude of levels to honesty, of perspectives in which to view the concept of honesty. Emotional honesty is the one we are focusing on in this article, but intellectual honesty with ourselves is necessary in order to start becoming emotionally honest.

It is necessary to start seeing ourselves with more clarity in order to recognize the attitudes, beliefs, and definitions that are dictating our emotional reactions. Once we start achieving more honesty in our perspectives of ourselves, then we can get more clarity in our emotional process.

For instance, until I started to recognize how I had been programmed to have a dysfunctional relationship with my own emotions because I am male, I could not start giving myself permission to get in touch with feelings which I had been programmed to believe were unacceptable for a man in this society.

There are numerous levels, relationships, that I had to start seeing with more clarity - getting more intellectually honest with myself about - before I could start changing my relationship in those arenas.

"Attitudes, definitions, and beliefs determine perspective and expectation - which in turn dictates our relationships. Our relationships to our self, to life, to other people, to The God-Force / Goddess Energy / Great Spirit. Our relationships to our own emotions, bodies, gender, etc., are dictated by the attitudes, definitions, and beliefs that we are holding mentally / intellectually. And we acquired those mental constructs / ideas / concepts in early childhood from the emotional experiences, intellectual teachings, and role modeling of the beings around us."

The key in this regard for me, was expectations. I had to start realizing how my expectations were dictating my emotional reactions in order to start changing my relationships with my own emotions.

"By having expectations I was giving power away. In order to become empowered I had to own that I had choices about how I viewed life, about my expectations. I realized that no one can make me feel hurt or angry - that it is my expectations that cause me to generate feelings of hurt or anger. In other words, the reason I feel hurt or anger is because other people, life, or God are not doing what I want them, expect them, to do.

I had to learn to be honest with myself about my expectations - so I could let go of the ones that were insane (like, everyone is going to drive the way I want them to), and own my choices - so I could take responsibility for how I was setting myself up to be a victim in order to change my patterns."

The process of recovery is a journey of continual growth to larger perspectives, higher contexts in which to view everything. Consciousness raising / enLightenment is a process of peeling away layers of denial to get to a Higher Consciousness / expanded perspective / deeper level of honesty. The focus of this article is discernment in relationship to emotional honesty and I just realized that I need to say a few words about why it is so important - about why emotions are important.

Emotions = energy in motion
Feelings, emotions, are energy.

Emotions are energy: E-motion = energy in motion. It is supposed to be in motion, it was meant to flow.

Emotions have a purpose, a very good reason to be - even those emotions that feel uncomfortable. Fear is a warning, anger is for protection, tears are for cleansing and releasing. These are not negative emotional responses! We were taught to react negatively to them. It is our reaction that is dysfunctional and negative, not the emotion.
(Text in this color are quotes from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls)

Emotions have two vitally important purposes for human beings. Emotions are a form of communication. Our feelings are one of the means by which we define ourselves. The interaction of our intellect and our emotions determines how we relate to ourselves.

Our emotional energy is also the fuel that propels us down the pathways of our life journey. E-motions are the orchestra that provide the music for our individual dances - that dictate the rhythmic flow and movement of our human dance. Our feelings help us to define ourselves and then provide the combustible fuel that dictates the speed and direction of our motion - rather we are flowing with it or damming it up within ourselves.

Emotional energy is not only supposed to be in motion, to flow, it is also the energy that gets us in motion. It is what drives us, what propels us forward through life. When emotional flow is blocked and suppressed it does not go away. Energy cannot simply disappear. It can transform but it cannot disappear. That is a law of physics.

Emotional energy that is suppressed still drives us. It is what causes obsessive-compulsive behavior, it is what drives addictions. Repressed emotional energy builds up pressure that has to be released. . . . . .

Human beings are not damned with an n. We are emotionally dammed. Dammed up, blocked up - which is what causes us to feel damned with an n.

"The emotional energy generated by the circumstances of our childhood and early life does not go away just because we were forced to deny it. It is still trapped in our body - in a pressurized, explosive state, as a result of being suppressed. . . . . As long as we have pockets of pressurized emotional energy that we have to avoid dealing with - those emotional wounds will run our lives." - Feeling the Feelings

The reason that it is so important to clear up our relationship with our own emotions, to learn to be emotionally honest with ourselves is because emotions are such a powerful part of our being, such a vital and controlling influence in how we live our lives. The key to learning how to clear up that relationship and start to get some emotional clarity is learning how to have internal boundaries.

"Then we can start setting internal boundaries within the mental, between the mental and emotional, and within the emotional levels of our being. . . . . . .Within the mental we can start discerning and separating the shaming messages that are coming from the disease / critical parent voice from our own wisdom, knowledge and intelligence. . . . . .By learning to set a boundary between emotional and mental, we can stop reacting to life based on the false belief that what we feel is who we are - that what we feel defines our reality. . . . . . Once we start having boundaries within the mental, and between the mental and emotional, then we can also start having boundaries within the emotional level of our being. . . . . . .start discerning between the emotional truth that is coming from our old wounds and the emotional energy that is Truth." - Inner child healing - the process of processing

It is necessary to learn to have a boundary within the emotional component of our being because there are two primary transformers from which emotional energy is generated. Our ego self and our Spiritual Self. Our ego was traumatized in childhood and programmed very dysfunctionally. The ego is the seat of the disease of codependence.

The key to healing our wounded souls is to get clear and honest in our emotional process. Until we can get clear and honest with our human emotional responses - until we change the twisted, distorted, negative perspectives and reactions to our human emotions that are a result of having been born into, and grown up in, a dysfunctional, emotionally repressive, Spiritually hostile environment - we cannot get clearly in touch with the level of emotional energy that is Truth. We cannot get clearly in touch with and reconnected to our Spiritual Self.

Our Spiritual Self is the True Self, the Higher Self that is an extension downward vibrationally from the ONENESS of the Source Energy. Recovery is a process of reprogramming the ego defenses so that we can bring the ego self into alignment with Spiritual Self. Spiritual Self is our guide through the Spiritual evolutionary process. Our Spiritual Self communicates with us through our intuition. Our intuition is emotional energy - an emotional energy communication from our Spirit.

Truth, in my understanding, is not an intellectual concept. I believe that Truth is an emotional-energy, vibrational communication to my consciousness, to my soul/spirit - my being, from my Soul. Truth is an emotion, something that I feel within. . . . . It's that gut feeling, the feeling in my heart. It is the feeling of something resonating within me.

It is very important to start developing internal boundaries so that we can start discerning between the emotional messages that are being generated by the disease, by our wounded self, and the messages that are coming from our Higher Self.

What we feel is our "emotional truth" and it does not necessarily have anything to do with either facts or the emotional energy that is Truth with a capital "T" - especially when we are reacting out of an age of our inner child.