This article is written based upon my own perception and experience.
How would you feel if I told you that most negative emotions that you experience (fear, anxiety, rejection, low-self worth etc) is actually your body remembering a stored energy from your childhood?
As we know, children are like sponges, especially before the age of 6-8. And it would make sense that everything that they are taught gets internalised and processed. As adults, we have learned to take or leave information. But children don’t have that choice, as they have not developed their reasoning facilities yet. Most things that they learn are stored in the subconscious mind. And what is the subconscious mind exactly? Who knows. Maybe it could be likened to a vacuum-like vortex, which sucks up all of the experiences it deems significant, and keeps them all stored as a backup, in case the need arises to refer back to them in our future life.
So from this knowledge, we could say that most negative emotions are learned during childhood and stored away in case we need to refer back to them in future. 2 questions here:
1 – Why do I say only negative emotions are learned?
Because they are anti-love. Anything that is anti-love must by definition be manufactured or conjured up. If you think of a newborn baby, what are the natural emotions? Love, joy, and anything that relates to a loving energy. Life = Love. The reason that some don’t feel these states of being is because they learned the emotions of anti-love from childhood, which have unfortunately stuck around due to the person’s lack of self-awareness.
2 – Why would we need to “refer back” to emotions in future?
It’s a safety mechanism. It’s how we learn. Children have several needs, not just the basic ones. Some of these needs include praise, acknowledgement, compassion, validation, encouragement, and many more. The list could be endless. Imagine if, as a child, you were swimming and almost drowned. The basic need of safety has not been met. The fear and panic most probably would have been internalised and stored, and your adult self may now be wary of swimming, unless you learned to override the feelings of fear with safety. Another example – a child that is abused, whether physically or mentally, would most likely instil feelings of fear on many different levels, due to so many needs not being met. Some include fear of being themselves, fear of being seen, fear of rejection, abandonment, and so on. But this doesn’t only relate to abuse; any child can cultivate these feelings, from something as subtle as a parent ignoring their cries, or just a lack of approval or validation.
In most cases, people don’t want to even feel the fear of feeling the emotion, let alone feel the emotion itself. Thinking back to the child who suffered abuse, those feelings of pain and fear due to all of those needs not being met were absorbed and buried within their subconsciousness. These emotions are so painful that as they grew into an adult, or any age for that matter, they would do ANYTHING to ensure that they do not feel those unwanted emotions again. But it’s all subconscious, it’s hidden beneath the surface. The adult does not even realise that he is fearful of feeling those feelings. So he interacts with the world in his own way, unconscious to the fact that his vacuum-packed emotions are orchestrating his entire life. What does this look like? People-pleasing, social anxiety, over-sharing, over-eating, stimulant abuse, avoidance, outspokenness, anger, and even violence, to name just a few of an unlimited spectrum of personalities manifested due to the avoidance of feeling the pent-up emotions from so long ago.
Many are so fearful of feeling the pain that they keeps themselves locked within the walls of their mind, not even thinking about the possibility of stepping through the door to see what is on the other side. This of course then limits the person from living a fulfilling life.
Even though the subconscious buries those emotions down, they are sometimes brought up to the surface. And let us not be resentful to the subconscious mind for its role here. It presents to us these emotions so that they are felt, and with every time they are felt, they dissipate further, meaning that the more we allow ourselves to feel, the more we will grow and overcome so many internal challenges. But the problem is that we rarely even let ourselves get to that point, because we are so avoidant of feeling pain that we unconsciously do everything in our power to mitigate the risk.
And so many of us wonder, “why do I keep creating the same patterns?”. It’s because of the avoidance. The universe is trying to help us to learn and grow by bringing certain situations to our lives, in which we have a choice – we can surrender, let go and FEEL the resulting emotion, or we can try to manipulate situations to ensure we don’t feel hurt in any way. If it’s the latter, then the cycle will continue. And with every cycle, one may experience further depression or anxiety and many other negative side-effects from not aligning with their true path.
If someone is ready to overcome their limitations, they must become self-aware. Self-awareness involves noticing the different and subtle aspects of yourself. How do you interact with others? How do you view yourself? And what triggers you or makes you feel angry, sad, jealous, regretful, or any other negative emotion? Within this awareness lies the magic, where you get to transmute this energy into your expansion. But this is a whole greater story! In my next article, I will be expanding on this and will also share an inner-child exercise to assist you in delving deep into your subconscious programming, so keep your eyes peeled!
~ Jaqui Rungay