|
welcome! to feeling emotional, 5!
after looking things over here at feeling emotional,
5, try out "the layer down under," (part of
the emotional feelings network of sites) & read a special "i just gotta say it" column concerning porn addiction by clicking here! Be sure to scroll down towards the bottom of the right hand column to find it!
another important suggestion... visit
the network's homepage to learn more about the features included within the emotional feelings network of
sites!
| Read my column that changes every month` |
|
|
| I just gotta say it! It's on the homepage! |
develop empathy
I was personally very touched by this inspiring story as I watched it on
television last night (2/27/07); especially after I experienced a life altering injury which took me 2 years to recover from.
What I want to ask you is...
If you can't help out with the helmets, below for our military men, can
you volunteer or help our returning soldiers who are recovering with extreme traumatic brain injury?
Here are some links!
Check them out, I know that my family will be searching for a way we can help!
Remember that those experiencing a traumatic injury can easily develop mental health problems.
What is Operation Helmet?
Founded in 2003 by Dr. Robert H. Meaders whose grandson is an active duty Marine in Iraq, Operation Helmet is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization dedicated
to providing safer helmet pad upgrade kits to the troops in Iraq & Afghanistan.
To date, more than 6,000 kits have been shipped to the troops in the field.
|
| click on the helmet to see how you can help! |
 How this site works best for you!
You'll
notice that there are many underlined link
words in each article below. The reason for this is that you have reached not only, "emotional
feelings, the home site," but the emotional feelings network of sites. There are
many sites included within the network that'll be visited by clicking on these underlined
link words.
If you can't find what you came
here looking for, visit the homepage for the emotional feelings network of sites by clicking above & read the options on
the homepage for the networks index of sites. Try to be specific when looking for an emotion or feeling word & click on the site you need!
It's very simple & very
interesting to follow your way thru the layers of your buried or stuffed emotions & feelings that have accumulated throughout the years!
when you've reached this point, or this website, you know you're making
progress!!!! this part gets difficult because now is the time to look within & become emotionally honest with yourself!!!
Best of luck & if you're
still stuck, send me an e-mail anytime, by clicking here & I'll be glad to send you an immediate personal response!
Sincerely,
Kathleen
 
Sadness
kathleen howe
We've all encountered sadness. Whether it be felt due to the breakup of a relationship, a death of a loved one, or even as a child who
feels left out the playgroup - sadness is often avoided. No one ever tells us what to do if we feel sad, except of course, to "not feel sad." So when we feel sad, we tend to push it around in our minds,
much like the unwanted brussels sprouts on our dinner plate.
I've heard that the nutritional value of brussels sprouts is way up there,
with its Sulfur-Containing Phytonutrients that fight cancer! but truly - who can eat them? They taste horrible! So while
sadness is necessary in our lives, it serves a purpose, we still don't know what to do with it when we experience it.
Instead of turning our noses up and leaving our sadness to try feeling
something else more familiar - I suggest learning why we feel sad and how it helps us. It's better to learn how to cope with
and process our emotions and feelings instead of burying them somewhere deep inside our gut.
Sparing you another reminder
of those horrid brussels sprouts; I added a picture of my grand daughter, Charlotte, feeling sad.
I remember the day well, in the middle of the summer, when we had been out in the front yard watching Charlotte play in the
swimming pool. She was having the time of her life, but after about one hour, I decided she'd had enough sun. So in the house
we went causing Charlotte to open those big blue eyes extra wide and push out that lower lip. She was naturally very sad that she had to stop playing in the pool. I could understand that and she wasn't mad or angry because there was no temper tantrum. She just felt sad and it was written all over her
face.
I brought her up to my bedroom and changed her clothes while she laid
quite abnormally still - using those big blues to tell me that she wasn't very happy. But she's a very good girl and I want her to grow up being able to identify what she feels so that she can decide how to process that emotion or feeling in the best way possible and then be able to let it go!
I laid down next to her and asked her, "Charlotte, are you feeling sad because we had to come in the house now?" She was looking for her binky. I could see her looking
around with a slightly frantic look on her face and I asked her again. "Charlotte, are you feeling
sad because we came into the house and now you want your binky?"
Whether or not she understood anything I said, I do know that she recognized the word, "binky" and she nodded her little head, "yes!" She wanted to self
soothe with her binky and that was fine with me. I offered the binky to her in her hand and she promptly popped it into her
mouth and began sucking on it. She laid perfectly still, looking around the room with that little binky moving quickly back
and forth showing how hard she was sucking on it.
So as you can see from looking
at the next picture, there's a definite look of sadness on her face although she's just
one and a half years old. She knows that she's feeling uncomfortable about something, but does she know she's feeling sad?
No, she doesn't.
That's why I am talking to her and asking her, "Charlotte, are you feeling sad?" This is
how children learn to identify their emotions and feelings. Do you ever remember your mother or father asking you questions
about how you were feeling? Probably not as young as one or two, but as a child let's say eight or nine - did your parents
help you identify what you were feeling?
Children learn language by listening to us speak to them and others. I know that Charlotte was feeling uncomfortable because she wanted the comfort of her binky. So I let her lay on the bed and I talked to her about being sad. I told her
it was okay that we just lay in the bed for a short while and feel sad. And as I talked
to her it forced me to think hard about how to describe the feeling of sadness.
A Sad Mother Asks God a Question
By Gloria Wendroff
Dear God,
I am trying to integrate
Heavenletter, #697, What Does Sadness Teach You? It is so good, and I know I am in the verge
of understanding it, but not quite getting it. I like the orchestra analogy and only hearing the low notes sometimes when the whole orchestra
is playing. My question is: When I am only hearing the low notes, how do I open my ears and heart to the high notes? I mourn the death of my three-year old Molly and know my way through sadness. I know that I will also hear the high notes. You say exonerate sadness.
How do I do this without going through it?
In Great Gratitude for You, Diane
God to Diane:
My dearest
Diane. Exonerate sadness means to not give it such a bad reputation. Exonerate it
is to not give it so much power as My children do. Exonerate is to let it take its course at the same time as you usher it to the door. You can be gracious
to sadness and let it have its say, and then wave goodbye to it.
You have to go through it, My dear daughter, or, rather, you let it go through you – and out. You do not
make it a welcome guest, nor do you evict it. You exonerate it from blame. You give it its freedom. Even sadness has its exquisiteness. You know that.
Of
itself, sadness is neither good nor bad. It’s just sadness.
It comes and go, like any wind that blows. Like any other thought you have. Like any other tune that goes through your head.
Sadness sometimes is
another door for anger. Then do not protest sadness but unclothe it.
In this
moment, with your thoughts, you can make yourself sad, can’t you? At any time. It is easy to. Do not mask the
sadness, but you can talk to yourself in a different way. You cannot change your mind about what seems sad to you, but you can look in another direction. You have
sadness because you had sweetness.
Much of sadness
is longing for sweetness lost, seemingly lost, sweetness taken out of the physical and time domain, at least. You could not
miss your little daughter and feel the yearning unless you had known the treasure of a sweet being named Molly.
Here’s the thing. The sweetness was yours, Diane. Molly brought out your own sweetness.
Sweetness from the outside can only match the sweetness you are. Illusion of loss brings sadness.
Thoughts of loss bring sadness. Whatever you tune into, it reverberates something within you. But
there is no loss within you. Only, the world teaches loss.
When you are alone and feeling sadness overtake you and you don’t want it any longer, look up. Physically look up.
And that will help because the simple act of looking up will open you to more of My blessing at the same time as it takes your mind off sadness. Sadness is only a chapter in the book of life, and you can put it down by looking up.
When you are in a group and you feel sadness overtaking, look around, and
give some of your sweetness to another. Find more places to place your sweetness, beloved Diane.
Molly is ever with Me, as are you. The difference is that Molly in Heaven has no distractions from the presence of love, as you do on earth. Remember that the high notes are always playing. They are there for you to hear. You can hear them now.
Even amidst sadness, you can hear the high notes. You do not have to wait. You hear My love
now, don’t you?
Mighty Diane, I attest to your sweetness. I do not attest
to loss. But that does not mean that you can toss thoughts of loss called sadness away with one sweep of your hand. Let sadness
be there if it must, but take not so much notice of it.
Consider sadness
as one of your children. While the child is underfoot, you can still think of and tend to other things and pretty soon you will notice that the child isn’t underfoot any longer.
God
Author's
Bio: Gloria Wendroff
grew up without religion or thoughts about God. No one, least of all Gloria, would have guessed that one day she would become
a Godwriter™ and, through God’s words, bring thousands of people closer to God and their own hearts.
Heavenletters,
Love Letters from God, Book One, with a foreword by Bernie Siegel, M.D., is published in English, Greek, German, and Romanian.
Emailed Heavenletters™ go out very day to over 5,000 subscribers in the U.S. & 71 countries all over the
world & now they are reaching you! In addition to receiving & sending out the daily Heavenletters, Gloria gives Godwriting™
workshops, works on her next book & makes Heaven CD’s, writes a blog – all with an ear to the Still Small
Voice & bringing Earth closer to Heaven.
See Flash Presentation! http://www.deeptrancenow.com/heavenletters.html
http://www.heavenletters.org
http://www.godwriting.org
source site: click here
We enjoy warmth because we have been cold. We appreciate
light because we have been in darkness. By the same token, we can experience joy because
we have known sadness.
David Weatherford
What Does Sad Feel Like?
by Kathleen Howe
The first thing that people think when they're not happy is that they're
sad. If someone asked what the opposite of happy was - it would be sad
or unhappy. Unhappiness is connected to feeling sad, but what is sad
about? Is it a bad thing to feel sad? Some people will do anything to cheer someone who
is feeling sad up. They don't feel comfortable seeing someone feeling sad or feeling sad themselves.
When people are grieving they experience sadness.
When people are angry, depending on the intensity of the anger - it might be connected to sadness.
When there's a loss of love - a person might feel sad as well. It's never something we wish
to feel, sadness that is, but we must experience sadness
to be able to appreciate the feelings of not being sad.
Relationships with other people can cause us sadness.
When someone leaves us, moves away, we feel very sad about not being
able to have an active friendship with that person. We value the fun and happy times we've shared and we realize that we will
miss our friend very much. It's okay to feel sad. Feeling sad allows us the time we need to accept what is happening in our
lives. If it's something we're not happy about - it's okay. We can't be happy about everything. So - your friend moving three
states away or to the other side of the earth - just has to be accepted so your time spent with sadness helps you absorb reality.
Sometimes an object we really like - either wears out or breaks.
It's times like that when we really feel sad. Sometimes we can fix our object of affection, but if we can't or if our object
has been lost and it can't be replaced because of its sentimental value - we can realize that we're sad about that loss. Most
types of loss will find us feeling sad. Things that have sentimental value and are lost can cause us to grieve for that items
sentimental value. Say it was a piece of jewelry that we received as a gift from a dead relative or a long time friend - when
broken, worn out or lost can be honored by writing about the object, drawing the object or just sitting for a time of remembrance
will do.
Our feelings and emotions
deserve to be recognized, identified, processed and then let go when we're done with them. They serve a purpose. Sadness is
a stepping stone feeling. It leads us out of a difficult situation and into acceptance. There is no right emotion or wrong
emotion. Our feelings simply are. No one can tell us how to feel or what to feel. We simply are. Things happen and we react
with whatever comes into play for us.
When someone tells you that you SHOULDN'T feel sad; ignore them. People who use the word should simply want to induce or connect other emotions
and feelings into the mix - like guilt and shame. If you aren't feeling what you "should" be then they want you to feel
a forced feeling of guilt or shame because you aren't following their rules.
Perhaps you need to feel your emotions and feelings
when you recognize that you're feeling something, but no one needs to add additional feelings and emotions to your situation
so that you feel badly in some way for not feeling what they think you SHOULD feel. I've tried to eliminate that word, "should"
from my vocabulary. If you don't need something then forget it! No one can tell you how to feel.
Getting back to sadness and what it feels like;
it's difficult to describe sometimes. When we're not sad, it's more difficult to describe what it feels like. For me sadness
can be a "quiet" time. Sadness isn't lively, it's stillness. Maybe that's why it's so difficult for me to sit in sadness to
process the emotion. It might be easier for me to process if I just took the time to give sadness it's due. I just have
a difficult time just sitting still and not doing anything.
When my friend Joseph died at the beginning of the year I became very
sad. I believe that I'm still sad about it but not with the same intensity as before. Until just recently I couldn't
concentrate on anything and my mind would just go to the fact that I missed Joseph's friendship and his conversations with
me via e-mail. I would find myself longing to hear from his family because it was corresponding with someone that knew Joseph
and loved him. When I talk about Joseph with my family, they don't understand the depth of our friendship and they never
met him so they just can't understand the depth of my loss.
I was almost angry for awhile;
it was connected to my sense of grief and loss. It was also connected with my sadness. The overwhelming nature of my sadness
kept me from being able to do what I really needed to do. My responsibilities took a back seat to my need to process my sadness,
but still - I haven't sat quietly and thoughtfully yet. It's never that quiet in my home and I'm usually trying to keep busy.
So instead of concentrating on processing my emotions, I've been restlessly existing.
If I don't take the time to recognize what I'm feeling and what I need
to do to process my emotions and feelings in the time of a tragedy like death, then I might bury my emotions and feelings
and try to force them away somehow or deny that they exist. This just causes me to feel stuck, which is what I've been feeling
recently. But! Aha! I am growing stronger and feeling more powerful within my self so I recognize and am able to identify
what I've been doing and what I am doing now. By writing about sadness and the loss of my friend I am processing my sadness.
See how it works?
So I can say that sadness is quiet, sometimes soft and sometimes hard.
I can say that it's painful and unbearable at its worst but as I allow it to sit with me in quiet and acceptance I can appreciate
it. It's okay to feel sad. It's okay to feel sad for a long time when you've lost someone special. The intensity will become
less and less with time as you begin to heal, but sadness remains as long as it needs to stay with us.
Sadness is like a warm rainy day. It's not sunny, bright and perfect outside,
but the rain has it's own attraction. A rainy day is a good time to sleep in snuggled up with a good book, enjoying the
warmth of the covers, the safety of the moment. That's it! Sadness wants safety. Sadness is something out of our control
- something we can't fix - we just have to accept or resolve to never accept, but we must feel it and now that a change is
in the works.
Sadness needs solitude and taking time to get re-centered within our own
selves. We can appreciate the not so sad times while we're sad and reminisce about what happiness we've experienced at the other end of our sadness. Holding on to those valuable
feelings of warmth and honoring the memories we have. It's time to appreciate our prior experiences that were with other emotions
and feelings that were happier.
Sadness is darkness
sometimes in its deepest intensity and it brings feelings of being lost and far away from being okay. Every person
has their own definition or description of sadness. If it's time for you to feel sad and you don't know what to do with it,
just grab a pen or pencil and write down the things you are thinking. Sit in silence and listen to your sadness. Touch your
sadness, taste your sadness and hear your sadness. No matter what, just know it's okay to be sad.
Feeling Sad
How sad that I'm not sad!
Amy is in her early 50's,
married and has four children. She has written to me because she hasn't been able to experience sadness for the last 18 years. She finds it strange that whenever her friends
discuss tragedies, whether distant (such as the tsunami that struck Southeast Asia)
or close at home (such as the abduction or murder of schoolchildren), she
does not feel sad. In fact, even when a family member mentioned that they had thought about committing suicide, she couldn't feel sad or cry.
She has no problems with
the other emotions and is happy most of the time. She's actively involved in sports and is preparing to go to college to gain more skills. So, Amy's problem
is not debilitating, for she has no problem leading a normal life. However, she's troubled by her inability to feel sad and wonders if affirmations can help.
Before offering suggestions,
it may help to define and clarify the meaning of SADNESS. This word simply means "unhappiness," which, in turn, means "dissatisfied by what is." In other words, we feel sad when people
or circumstances fail to meet our expectations or demands. People set themselves up for unhappiness (sadness)
by making demands. For example, if someone were to say or believe "I expect (demand)
to be treated with respect" they are also saying "I cannot be happy if I am not treated with respect."
The above expectation
or demand is foolish. Why? Because it makes our happiness dependent on the behavior of others. Since we cannot control others, and because someone, someplace, at some time will disrespect
us, when we make such a demand, we guarantee our own unhappiness. That isn't smart, is it?
If I walk in the sun,
I feel warm. Feeling warm is caused by an external reality, the sun. Feeling sad,
however, is not caused by an external reality. Rather, it is a fabrication of our own mind. It is a decision we make. It is
like a child throwing a temper tantrum and saying, "I refuse to be happy if you disrespect me! I refuse to be happy if I lose a person or object I love! I refuse to be happy if I cannot feel sad! (How sad
that I'm not sad!)
When we appreciate what we have, we are able to accept life without making demands. No longer distracted by demands, we will be in a position to enjoy what life offers.
And the more we are thankful for what we have, the more we will have to be thankful for.
Returning to Amy,
what is sad is not her inability to feel sad, but her
inability to accept herself as she is. You see, we are all unique, and part of our uniqueness includes our faults or weaknesses.
When we refuse to reveal our genuine nature, we deny everyone we meet of experiencing our own uniqueness.
Consider these words
of Joseph Campbell (1904 ~ 1987), "Both the artist and the lover know that
perfection is not lovable. It is the clumsiness of a fault that makes a person lovable."
The problem with thinking we have a problem is that it creates stress. And when stressed, the harder we try to do something, the harder it is
to do. This is called the Law of Reverse Effort.
Others express the same
idea by saying "What we resist, persists." So, the more Amy tries to feel sad, the
more elusive the feeling becomes. Rather than trying to force herself to become what she thinks she should be, she will be better off letting go of her expectation and allowing herself to become the person she was meant
to be.
Of course, when
Amy says she wants to feel sad, she doesn't mean she wants to be unhappy; she merely means
that she wishes to experience sorrow at the right occasions. Obviously, she wouldn't want to appear cheerful at the funeral
of a close friend. So, it is okay for her to wish her sadness will return, but instead of
trying to WILL its return, it is more effective to INVITE it to return at its own leisure. Also, avoid asking questions such
as "How long will it take to return?" For that question indicates lack of patience, which invites stress and resistance.
But is it all that bad
not to be able to feel sad? Hospice doctors and nurses, for instance, may emotionally detach themselves
from their patients. After all, mourning for the deaths of their patients would be too draining and make them unable to help
those in need. Besides, by deliberately dissociating from their feelings, they can remain objective and clearheaded.
Enlightened Buddhist monks
also do not experience sadness because they do not cling to or desire anything. Their lives
are one of acceptance, compassion, and serenity. But their state of mind is not something they seek after, but something they awaken to.
Getting back to Amy,
when her friends talk about tragic events, she may mistakenly believe that they are feeling sad.
Yet, like the Buddhist monks, her friends may feel compassionate without feeling sad. Remember, not only do we have a right to be happy, we have a duty to be happy. For there is already too much sadness in the world and others are counting on us to spread
our happiness.
Does what I've written
so far mean we should avoid being sad? No, because grief over the loss of a loved one is
usually needed before we can move on with life and continue helping others.
Also, sorrow increases
our repertoire of emotions and adds to the richness of life.
Now that we've considered
sadness at some length, let's look at some steps Amy can take to move on.
1.
Let go of the need to feel sad. That wish is merely blocking the way. Surrender
to the will of life and sorrow will come of its own accord when you least expect it to.
2. Yes, affirmations can
help. But what you need are not affirmations on feeling sad, but on accepting yourself.
When you learn to accept yourself as you are today, you create the space for sorrow to move in.
For more about affirmations, see:
http://www.personal-development.com/chuck/affirmations.htm
|
