In life we are taught a great many things, but for some reason
we do not learn much about emotions! For most of us our emotions
are something of a mystery. We know that we have them but have
little idea where they come from or how we can experience them
more positively.
A useful model developed, by psychologist Dr C. Spezzano,
allows us to become more self-aware and to better understand our
emotions. At any point in life, our emotions will be experienced
from any of six different perspectives.
Denial > Resistance > Pain > Guilt > Fear > Love
Denial - Many of our fears and insecurities are hidden beneath
the surface of our conscious minds and we can therefore be
completely unaware of them and how they affect our lives. We are
often in denial of these insecurities - an unconscious strategy
designed to avoid us having to face the emotional pain that we
believe might overwhelm us if we were to unearth our hidden
fears. We hide them away for protection and then try to get on
with life. Unfortunately, these insecurities have a nasty habit
of reappearing in our lives as emotional trauma, relationship
difficulties and even health problems.
Resistance - Life will through all sorts of challenges at us
and these will raise the emotional temperature. In a struggle to
keep our insecurities at bay and avoid feeling our negative
emotions we will tend to resist anybody or anything in life that
might trigger these unpleasant sensations. This normally
involves some form of compensatory behavior or distraction from
anything that could trigger our pain. Trying to be very
successful in education or work to gain approval, or trying to
be a really 'nice' person would be typical examples of
compensations, but there are many, many more.
Pain - Sooner or later, usually due to traumatic events in our
life, the resistance is broken and we begin to feel emotional
pain. Our reaction is to either bury it again through more
resistance and denial or hand the pain to somebody else - we
tend to blame other people for our negative emotions. This is
what happens in bad behavior, arguments and rows as we judge and
project our pain outwards into the world.
Guilt - Under our tendency to blame other people for our
problems is a usually unconsciously held belief that, in fact,
we are to blame. This guilt is based around our low self esteem
and unworthiness that we take on at a very early age and comes
out of a belief that we have let people down (often our parents)
and hurt people in some way. Self-blame and guilt are always
mistakes and much of our work focuses on letting go of these
damaging emotions. More information on Guilt & Low Self Esteem
Fear - All these negative emotions are actually hiding our
deeply buried fears. There will be many different fears that we
are unwilling to deal with, but ultimately these will boil down
to our fears about being abandoned, rejected and unloved. As we
gain confidence and greater emotional awareness we are able to
feel, understand and let go of these fears.
Love - As we face and heal our fears, rather than suppressing
or denying them, we discover that they hide our natural state -
that of love, spirit and pure positive energy. As we strip away
the pain, guilt and fear we are left with the beauty of our
essence - full of creativity, abundance and joy.
We usually experience these emotional responses sequentially.
They appear as layers in our reaction to people and events in
our lives. Our negative emotions can be understood as our
defense mechanism to avoid feeling pain, guilt and fear, that
usually originates in our childhood. If we want to gain more
emotional awareness and maturity we need to work down through
our emotional layers and heal or our insecurities and fears. By
understanding the layered nature of emotions we begin to
understand why we have certain thoughts and feelings and also
understand the people around us better. Ultimately we can let go
of all the negative emotions and bring more love into our lives
and improve our relationships and romantic experiences.
About the Author: Peter Granger is an acclaimed relationship
counselor and life coach. He runs relationship and
self-development workshops in the UK. He has recently launched a
book called True Love - The Amazing Truth About Love,
Relationships & Life. For more free relationship advice and
information about his book, go to http://www.iloveyouloveme.com
Source: http://www.isnare.com
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