Make sense of emotions

Notice how emotions unfold in your life, how you react or respond to the world around you.   Notice where emotions come from.  Track them back to see how they arise.  Sense how, why they build up.  What do they teach you? What do they invite you to see within yourself?

Notice how you respond to others as they confront you, get emotional or remain indifferent toward you. Eleanor Roosevelt reminds you that nobody can intimidate you without your consent. If you do not choose to be afraid, then fear cannot touch you. The apparent reasons for fear cannot last unless you believe in them and allow them to control your thoughts.

Notice whether you allow your emotions to escalate and affect your health and well-being or, whether you observe quietly, respond slowly and calmly, to whatever unfolds in your life. What if its all a test? To respond without anxiety or agitation is to exhibit what peace is all about.  You help others to know peace as you respond from this state of being yourself.

Why is it do you figure that people often focus on negative emotions and complaints? It comes back to creating unskillful thought patterns. Each of us has a choice to be mindful and to understand the origins of our thoughts and emotions. If you are angry or afraid, ask why. Every emotion is a pointer to the only emotion heart knows- unconditional love.

Consider that you always have opportunities to respond differently to comments and behaviours than you are taught. Be aware of emotional triggers and conditioned habits that do not serve you.  Fear and anger flow away as you view them as the teachers they are. Be aware that peace is itself an emotion that empowers and inspires you, come what may.

"Everytime you allow someone to trigger a negative emotion or anger or ill will, you do not have to follow that path. Why do you get angry? Anger arises from a series of agitations you think about or dwell upon. Anger is like a fire. It starts like a spark. If you catch it quickly, its easy to put out.  Through your mindfulness, awarenss and mental training, it is not hard to transcend emotions like anger, frustration and grief.  Its not a training of will power, but of wisdom power to see where things come from so you can catch them earlier." -Ajahn Brahm

The significance of tattoos

At different stages of life, people get tattoos for different reasons .  Maybe you have some yourself that echo your own learning curve or act as memorials to loved ones.  Maybe you contemplate getting one to recognize a milestone, personal revelation or life change.  Maybe you know someone who has tattoos or have seen images of them on people you admire.  Even if tattoos do not appeal to you at all, your response to them reveals a lot about yourself.

Notice which tattoo symbols stop you in your tracks.  Which emotions do they elicit? What is this really telling you? Is it the prospect of permanence , a distubing fear or anger that surfaces?

Much like symbols in your night dreams, tattoo symbols that capture attention invite you to be aware of the nature of your judgment and the underlying reasons for it.  Notice whether you assume only 'certain kinds of people' get tattoos, whether tattoos evoke painful memories of suffering for you or whether they turn you off for other reasons you are not yet accepting. 

Notice also who you spend the most time with.  How you feel about tattoos is like an invitation to grow mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. You are better able to do so when surrounded by people who accept you for who you are and who support your evolving choices.

Anything that evokes emotion silently draws attention to love.  Sometimes getting tattoos is a call for love, a gesture of love, an effort to restore balance or to express love.  Even that which has little or no appeal to you echoes your state of mind and state of being.  Peace and tranquility are ever-present.  Everything you do or do not points toward them.  This goes without saying.

“Everyone has secrets. It's just a matter of finding out what they are.”  -Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Forget what's lost

Ever notice that its harder to find certain things when you focus on what you are convinced you have lost? When you are not focusing attention on what is apparently missing, and you turn away toward something else, is it not incredible how missing things mysteriously reappear? Many people ask, "what is it with that?" 

Consider how something in your vibration creates every experience. Consider that as you are vibrating the story, "I do not know where it is," then the thing continues to exist and vibrate in a place beyond the scope you are focusing on. Consider how you feel when something disappears.  Whatever the feelings, irritation, frustration, anger or others, they are in your vibration before the manifestation, before the disappearance of something you are now looking for.  Every experience has at its core the intention to empower you to raise awareness of the real issue. And this is not that which evokes the same feeling o the surface.  It is deeper.

Shrink the monster

As you focus on the experience of feeling healthy, joyful and sharing that, you extend this state of being.  When you focus on difficulties, you feed them, enabling them to grow.  Every unkind thought, word or self-criticism gives the inner monster energy and power over you. Buddha calls them 'anger-eating demons.'

How would your life experience change if you treated situations or people that evoke discomfort with love and kindness?  Imagine all the difficult people you encounter, those who mistreat you or trigger negative feelings.  What do they teach? People are often unaware of what they do.  Rather than get angry, why not view everything as a wonderful opportunity to laugh and grow? Then the world laughs with, not at you. 

What if the most difficult person in life is actually you? In order to learn to live with people who push your buttons, it is first necessary to gain insight into and grow more accepting of your true essence.  Then you realize how people relate to you does not always reflect how they truly feel.  Notice what happens as you show compassion, appreciate everyone as they are.  How you see shifts with your patience and kindness. 

Remember how to stop being your own enemy. Relax. Accept who you are. Knowing the causes of being difficult enables you to recognize how to shrink the monster within. You come to reailze difficult people are projections of your own rejection. Suddenly, difficulty is a figment of your imagination. As you come to understand true self, then nothing and nobody are difficult.  Be still and the source of irritation disappears.

Access the energy you have

You may not realize you currently access energy you can use for inner healing and development work.  Everyone has options to balance anger and acquiescence, love and fear.  This cannot be done by denying all states are part of our being.  As you choose to integrate polarities, balance is achieved.  You decide whether you are driven by individual forces or recognize you have the power to choose.

In truth, complete honesty and openness means the willingness to accept potential for all feelings.  To deny anger is to draw angry or violent people toward you because balance creates itself.  To contribute to  a more peaceful planet, you must be willing to re-align with serenity within.  This implies you grow aware of and cease self-criticism and judgment.  As you sense and accept any enemy is only a self-reflection, you shift perception, begin to heal karma and rebalance patterns of the Earth.  Its all part of Cosmic Synchronicity.