Читать книгу Goodbye, Hurt & Pain - Deborah Sandella - Страница 34

What is your conditioned take on feelings? Did your family embrace feelings or judge them? Did you learn to share your feelings openly or were you shamed for feeling anger, sadness, and envy? Were you celebrated for your successes or cautioned to remain humble or silent?

It's possible to free yourself of these emotions. However, it requires you to look honestly at feelings you have judged as ugly and undesirable.

In nursing school, we learned the “dead man's test” for developing effective patient goals. If a dead man can do it, it doesn't support growth and improvement. For example, a dead man can easily accomplish the goal of not feeling angry. This phrase “if a dead man can do it” is a powerful statement emphasizing how feeling is a sign of life and not feeling is a sign of death. To allow uncomfortable feelings rather than avoid them is to be fully alive. Otherwise, we shut off the emotional faucet that also supplies joy and excitement. We think we can turn off bad feelings and continuously be in good feelings; however, the body keeps score and buried feelings eventually show up in numbness or as emotional or physical symptoms. It's interesting to notice the love-hate relationship we have with emotion. We crave the highs that enliven us and hate the lows that make us feel bad. It's no surprise we seek pleasure to avoid pain.

On the other hand, we can allow the continuous, dynamic river of feelings to flow safely regardless of how terrible they seem. There are many techniques to keep our emotional waters moving safely and evaporating naturally. Let's look at a few for you to practice.