What do you do when a Gun's pointed at you?

In the last blog we talked about three ways to climb the emotional ladder:

1)      What anyone says about you is none of your business

2)      Don’t take things personally

3)      Pray for someone that you fear, are upset with or angry with

These are very important tools to stay in a healthy space within yourself and make your interactions with other people much easier and pleasant.

Now I want to talk about the most important tool, which when used over and over again within situations that keep you in the lower rungs of the emotional ladder, will allow you to live at the peak of your existence here on the planet. What am I talking about? Well it is called forgiveness. 

Forgiveness is the most highly decorated tool that anyone can use and the most forgotten tool in our society.

There are two ways to use forgiveness; one is to forgive another and the other is to forgive you. When you hold a grudge or think of yourself as a victim you will find that you are wasting energy. You may think that you have been wronged and in turn have feelings of anger, irritation, frustration or sadness. The energy used to stay in these emotions is heavy and painful to you and you alone. 

You may spend time trying to talk to people you know about how you have been wronged, wanting them to join you and tell you that is not fair and take your side so that they can help you carry the burden. But even if they take your side it will not help you because they cannot remove the pain you are feeling. If you decide not to talk about it, and just hold onto being wronged silently, you will find yourself in the same trap of pain because you are sitting on a low emotional rung of the ladder, and thus living at a lower vibration. The irony is that this pain you feel is from a story…a story that you continue to tell yourself and re-live over and over again. It is based in the past, it’s not even happening anymore, but you continue to live it because you choose to live from that one moment in time. The longer you hold onto the wrong, the past, the story…the lower down the emotional ladder you go.

So how do you detach from the story and find yourself back in the present? I am going to tell you an intimate story about myself so that you can see how forgiveness has worked in my life. When I was about 6 years old my mother was dating a very dysfunctional man who had a lot of anger, a lot of the time. One night as I rode in the car with my mother we realized we were being followed. The car following us got in front of us and forced our car to stop by blocking the road. We knew it was him, and we knew we were alone in the woods, just our car and his. He came over to our car and by the look of things he was pretty drunk and very angry. The first thing he did was to take the keys out of the car and throw them into the woods. My mom told me to stay in the car as she got out to try to talk to him. He was violent with her and then he got back in his car and drove away. My mom went into the woods to look for the keys but could not find them. He came back again and proceeded to do the same thing to my mom and then left again. He returned yet a third time to find me and my mom looking for the keys in the woods. We both ran back to our car and before my mom could shut the door he stopped her and screamed at her.

This is the part in my ‘story’ that is really bad. There was a gun in our back seat (I believe it was a 22 that actually belonged to him that my mother didn’t even know was there) and he picked it up and pointed it at my mother and then at me. He was saying things like “What are you going to do Todd? You think you’re a man, so what are you going to do?” as I looked down the barrel. I began to cry hard and he kept up his remarks a little longer. He left again, and another car was driving past us and they stopped. We got in their car, and though he did come back, the person that picked us up drove away and we were finally free from the situation.

This story stayed with me and I lived with it for years to come. I would say that not until my early 30’s did I finally neutralize the story and find peace with it. The first step to finding peace was that I forgave him for his actions, deep within my heart and soul. I realized that he did not understand or know what he was doing to my mother and me. I meditated. I saw him in a bright light and connected with him spirit to spirit. I told him within my meditation “I forgive you and hope that you find peace in this life”. It turns out this was actually the easy part of my forgiveness.

My next act of forgiveness was to forgive myself.  I know I did nothing wrong within this story, for I was only a 6 year old child. But what I had to forgive myself for was holding onto the anger, sadness, pain, suffering and resentment I had towards this man. I had been holding onto these feelings, thereby keeping myself in a lower vibration, for over 25 years!

I realized that many of my experiences in life were based in this story. My feelings towards other people and myself were tainted by living in the past…in this story of fear and anger and victimization.  When I realized that I did not have to live in this story and forgave myself for not realizing it sooner, there was a shift in my energy that allowed me to live in a higher vibration, or on a higher rung of the emotional ladder. I found love and gratitude towards myself and towards him. Once I forgave myself for holding on to all that pain and all that time, peace has truly been my present.

This is not to say that once you find peace and forgiveness, your work is done. It is something that I must continually call upon, from the smallest grievance to something more profound for me, like the story I just shared with you. The littlest things can eat us up and lower our vibration. I try to have a deep appreciation for all that comes into my life, knowing that through forgiveness, I will find new ways to love others and myself.

Forgiveness is a blessing that anyone can give to another and in so doing, give it to themself. It is the gateway to fulfillment because when you stop living in the past, you are able to live in the present.  Ask yourself, who have you not forgiven? What story or stories are you holding on to?

Please leave comments or email me if you have questions. 

www.healingguy.com

todd@healingguy.com
 

 

The Emotional Ladder

Let’s continue our discussion of the emotional ladder. As I described in my last blog, some of the basic emotions that we can all identify with are love, joy, excitement, peace, contentment, boredom, irritation, frustration, anger, depression and many others that fall in between any two of these emotions. If you can visualize this emotional ladder we can take it a bit further. Emotions are based in vibration which means that the higher up you go on the emotional ladder the higher the vibration you are living in and vice a versa.

 

How can you tell if you are living in a high vibration or a low vibration? When living in a high vibration you will find that you are present, or another way of saying this is that you are in the moment. You are more apt to experience the pleasures in life. The feelings you get when you see a beautiful sunset, or enjoy an intimate conversation with your romantic partner, a mother having a baby being placed in her arms for the first time or even watching your favorite sports team win the championship. You are able to experience these moments and feel completely satisfied, and even blissful.

 

When living in a low vibration you find that you are tied to the past or future, or another way of saying this is that you are unconscious. Feelings of stress, resentment, discontentment, disappointment…the rise of anger you might feel in an argument, or when you lose your job, or when you feel you have been wronged or treated unfairly, or you are cut off while driving. In these moments, we have a choice as to whether we react unconsciously or respond from a place of peace and high vibration. If you often find yourself upset and feeling out of control emotionally, chances are you are spending time in a lower vibration.

 

Here are some ways to climb the emotional ladder and allow you to stay in the conscious, present and high vibrational space within your emotional body.

 

First, try to remember that what others say or think about you is none of your business. When you are able to stay in this frame of mind you will find that even the worst of words spoken towards you cannot take you out of your high emotional state. The process that I use in these situations is that anyone that has a negative remark of me, I will pretend that I am a mirror and that these words are reflecting back to them and that these words are their responsibility, not mine. This is very grounding to me and helps me to not get triggered. The only thing I am responsible for is myself…my own words, thoughts and actions. By remembering that another’s energy and thoughts are their business, not mine, I am able to remain in a high vibration most of the time.

 

Another way to climb the emotional ladder is to not take anything personally. This goes hand and hand that what people say is none of my business. There have been many occasions in my life that personal attacks have been thrusted upon me, only to realize that what is being said to me is not about me. Even if it is a close loved one I try to remember that what they are saying is not my responsibility and that they are hurting in some way. I know if I can stay present by not taking what they say personally then the situation will be decompressed and diffused in a matter of minutes. I also know from experience that if I compromise the situation, or succumb to the attack and reinforce it with my own beliefs that it is real, i.e. by taking what they say personally, it will be a long road of low vibrations which will make my life a living hell.

 

Another way to climb the emotional ladder is to pray for a person that I may fear, am upset or angry with. The words that I use in this situation are “I pray for help and health for so and so.” This immediately alchemizes the situation.

Here is an example: when I lived in NY I had a client that ended up in the hospital. She was about 80 at the time and had her daughter call me to see if I would come to the hospital to work on her. I said yes and that day came to see her at the hospital. We talked for a bit and I told her what I wanted to do and she agreed. As I was working on her the primary physician came into the room. His first reaction was one of distrust and suspicion. He demanded to know what I was doing. I told him that she asked me to come in to help her and so I did.

 

Long story short is that he kicked me out. At first this made me angry and upset, and it also made my client upset as well. As I was driving home I realized that I was living in the past already because all I could do was think about the conversation I had with that doctor. So I began to pray for help and health for the doctor. I said it over and over and over for quite a while. I finally found that I was in a higher vibrational state and went on with my day. By praying for the doctor, my anger had dissipated and my judgment of his judgment of me was gone. The next day at my office I got a phone call from the doctor. He asked me a few questions and after answering them he said that I could come back and work with my client.

 

There were two ways of dealing with this situation; being present and sending loving thoughts to the doctor and the situation, or taking it personally and living in the past and thinking mean and angry thoughts about the doctor and the hospital system. By not projecting judgmental thoughts about the system I was allowed to live in a high vibration and be a present and conscious person even in a chaotic situation. I am grateful that I had that conscious awareness to do this. Prayer allows me to live in a higher frequency because I am present within myself and therefore at peace with any situation that may be uncomfortable. I am not focused on the negative; I am focused on the light and beauty of the situation. I know when I pray for another I am also praying for me, because we are all connected. Prayer can change any situation into a great one.

 

So to sum up, to stay in a higher vibrational frequency on the emotional ladder try these three things:

    1) What anyone says about you is none of your business

    2) Don’t take things personally

    3) Pray for someone that you fear, are upset or angry with

I have one more way to climb the emotional ladder that I would like to share, but I will discuss this in my next blog! Thanks for reading and please feel free to share, or contact me with any questions or comments you may have.

Emotional Body

In previous blogs, I have written about my work and how I focus on healing the 'whole person'. The whole person is a synergistic combination of bodies which include the spiritual, emotional, mental and physical bodies. I have gone into some detail about the spiritual body. Today I am excited to talk to you about the emotional body.

 

The emotional body can be a very sensitive topic. It is within this body that our ego resides. I like to think that all of our emotions are contained within an emotional ladder. Some of the basic emotions are love, joy, excitement, peace, contentment, boredom, irritation, frustration, anger, depression and many others that fall in between any two of these emotions. Imagine this list in a vertical line with love on top and depression on the bottom; this is a visualization of the emotional ladder. Each emotion can be looked at as a vibrational frequency, just like when you tune into your favorite radio station. At any moment you may find yourself tuning into any one of these emotions based on your daily activities; your reactions to others, your own successes or disappointments, traffic, welcome or unwelcome news, etc.

 

How to maintain any one of these emotions is based on your ability and desire to be a conscious human being. The more conscious you are the easier it is to keep your vibration at the higher end of the emotional ladder. Based on information that I have blogged about in the past you can use the spiritual foundation tools to help stabilize yourself which will allow you to maintain a high vibrational frequency within your emotional state. The journey of emotions is an ongoing process. To have a way to unwind the lower emotions and maintain the higher emotions can be very helpful to you and your loved ones.

 

Emotions are shown by your feelings and how you treat yourself and the ones you surround yourself with. We all know that people close to us have the subconscious tools to trigger us or comfort us. Just think of your parents, your spouse or your children and then think of a past situation that triggered you. You may come up with more than one if not many situations. Remember how fast and unconscious you were in that moment or situation that took you into a spinning frenzy of pain and knots, also known as a low vibrational frequency. It's as if you tuned into a radio station that plays only music which sounds like nails across a chalkboard.

 

Now think of times when those same people comforted you. You may come up with more than one, if not many, moments and situations. Remember how present and conscious you were in those situations; the kind word, the deep connection when you look into the eyes of a loved one, the warm hug, the spontaneous laughter... these experiences take you into an unwavering high vibrational frequency. It is like tuning into that radio station that only plays an enchanting chorus of your favorite music.

 

In the next couple blogs I will go into more detail about the Emotional Ladder and ways to help you climb it and maintain a level of high vibrational frequencies that you deserve to live in. The Emotional Body is a very real part of who you are, and if we look closely at it and identify where we want to reside on the ladder, we can come closer to reaching the highest rungs more often and leave the lower rungs in the far distant past.

 

Active Listening

The third tool in spiritual foundation is Active Listening. Active listening is an ongoing watchfulness of self while another is communicating with you. The idea and goal of this is to refrain from thinking about what you want to say while another is talking to you. If you are thinking while another is communicating you are not giving your total attention to that person. The less you are thinking the more you are listening, and that is a true gift to any conversation.

I have found that when a person has fully communicated what they are saying to me that if I can sum up and repeat back to them what they have said it is truly a gift that I am giving back. A person completely heard is completely fulfilled. This also allows me to be completely present with another. I feel grounded and connected to the person I am communicating with. The art of listening can go a long way in small talk and in deep conversation with a loved one.

Have you ever been so excited and connected to someone that all you want to do is hear what they have to say and be present with them? Then as time goes on you find that your love to hear what they have to say becomes overrun by your need to speak? Eventually, you begin to shut them out, and they feel unheard and unappreciated.

When I am fully committed to listening; not speaking what I think is important to the conversation (which would most likely make me interrupt the conversation in the name of my ego), I find that what I had to say would have turned a deep connection into a frustrating and irritating experience. This will manifest a separation between me and my conversation partner. If I continue to act like I am listening only to make my point when I find the right spot, eventually my conversations with this person will grow stale and complicated. When I am truly open to what the other person is saying, there is no way to predict what my response will be, if any.

A great book to read to further your understanding of this is Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. You can also find schools that offer classes on this way of communicating. Try to think about it the next time you are in a conversation...you will find that if you begin to communicate this way your relationships will become more meaningful and you will feel present within each and every one of them. This is a true gift to you and to those around you.