How to Discover Enlightenment in Negative Feelings
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~Rumi
One of the most common questions people ask is “How do I stop having negative thoughts and feelings? As you know, holding onto a negative emotional state will keep you from manifesting what you truly desire because it holds you stuck in a lower vibrational place. Negative feelings arise because they are trying to push you into a higher positive experience. Each feeling is trying to ignite your spiritual path and help you to grow exponentially. The problem in life occurs not when you have a negative feeling, but when you resist the experience of it.
Avoiding negative feelings means you are attached to having a positive experience, and live as if you were on a life preserver lost at sea. The more you try to resist negative emotions, the more they have a grip on you. Whatever we resist persists. When you cannot feel a negative feeling, you are saying IT is more powerful than you, and are unknowingly advocating that you’re not connected to the all-powerful divine God Source. If you never allow yourself to feel what’s going on inside, you are overly attached to positivity and avoiding negativity. You cannot find clarity until you relinquish all attachment to it. The key is not in control, but in total acceptance of all your parts and pieces. When you stop resisting and start accepting, your energy and consciousness instantly expand and you become more receptive and available to the Divine within.
The good news about negative feelings is that there is a hidden state of divine joy and freedom at every core. Negative feelings are like deep pools of mud, each with a brilliant shimmering diamond buried at the bottom of the muck. Each gem is soooo amazing and perfect that we may not be ready to see it, feel it and own it fully in all its glory. We may be over-identified with negative thoughts about ourselves, so its hard to feel worthy of its all accepting love and Jedi Master quality. So we tend to hide it in the deepest and safest place possible (where nobody will look for it) at the bottom of our inner muck. Here the mud covers the light emanating from the diamond and makes us believe we are dim struggling powerless light beings who need to cleanse, purge and purify our dirty selves. Yet, the truth is that when we dive into the very center of the muck (negative feelings), the beautiful jewel must rise to the surface to be fully revealed.
The secret to success in this wild inner adventure is using your breath as your “life line” as you dive through your most gruesome negative feelings. By using your inhalation and exhalation to guide you into and through a feeling, you will discover the power within you to transcend it. The breath is your passage to freedom, as it naturally releases any resistance or distractions that bubble up and allow you to remain focused and on the healing track. Diving through a large muddy pool of emotions can be scary or exciting, depending on your attitude towards it. It may take you a few minutes or hours to get focused enough to dive completely through a challenging feeling, yet with a solid intention to find the diamond, and using your breath to guide you down, you’ll discover a beautiful state of liberation at your core! Just dive into your feeling and observe the story, judgment, or resistance of it. Whatever you experience will transform when you stay with the breath, feel your feelings, and remain open to the experience.
True inner peace is always found in the last place you would think of looking for it. Only by diving into and through your heaviest, hardest, coldest, and loneliest feelings will you find inner peace. The enlightened state within you is always available, the question is are you willing to face the dark night of your soul to experience it? This highest enlightened experience of life emanates from the deepest most calm stillness inside you. This great lightness is at the very bottom of your well, at the center of your muck, at the core of your being. You’ll find the most beautiful clear mind and lightest feelings from accepting all that is unclear and heavy inside. The enlightened mind knows it is that completely blank screen which is behind every muddy or sparkly movie. It has no judgment, preference or care as to what movie plays on its screen. It simply allows for the images, words and emotions to flicker upon it and it always remains untouched and unharmed.
by Jafree Ozwald
