Everything that is Wrong in Your Life is Because of Unfinished Business!
Everything?????
Yep… I’m afraid so….all that emotional baggage you have been carrying around for longer than you can remember.
So what is unfinished business exactly and why is it ruining my life?
Remember all of those times you felt a certain way but for some reason or another you ignored that feeling, or swallowed it down and basically put it into the “too hard” basket?? Yeah right… of course your intention was to deal with it later….
Well… the sad truth is that all of those feelings are still there… festering…Just waiting for you to finally take them out and deal with them once and for all. And in the meantime… they are playing havoc with your confidence, your relationships… your life!
So what is the reason we have painful emotions?
Emotions are the feelings we allocate to situations in order to learn and therefore navigate in our world. Positive emotions tell us that we are doing well, we are safe and we are having fun. Negative emotions warn us of danger, teach us lessons about what is right and wrong and make us appreciate the good times.
As sentient beings, we are motivated by either pain or pleasure. We naturally want to do everything in our power to avoid the things that cause us pain – either physically or emotionally. And, obviously, we want to do much more of the things that we find pleasurable.
Strong emotions of any kind are an indicator that we need to pay attention to something. Either we need to change it or we need to appreciate it and do more of that! But sometimes… experiencing strong emotions at a time that doesn’t really warrant that type of strong emotion tends to mean that it is time to find out where that strong emotion originated and heal that.
You see… sometimes someone can say something to you and you absolutely explode with emotions that far
outweigh the reaction that the incident should have generated? When this happens, you can be assured that you have just been transported back to an event that happened months, years or even decades ago – in fact… you are probably being transported back to a time in your childhood. In many cases, strong emotions originated during a situation that now we would see as minor but as that child back there … the one with the child understanding of the world - it was quite a major event.
So as a result, majority of bad feelings that you experience in your life are a result of something that happened to you in your past? Something that created a “trigger” so that anytime you experience something similar, you react in exactly the same way. And whilst sometimes that is a good thing…like staying away from the naked flame….there are some things that might be harming your relationships with those closest to you, or maybe they are showing up as fears and phobias which are sabotaging your sport or hobby of choice - or even your work life.
So why did I create this emotional baggage?
Essentially, you created your emotional baggage as a way of protecting yourself from something that you found painful and were unable to deal with at the time. Very few of us are actually taught how to deal with strong emotions such as grief, shame and anger so as a result we “swallow it down”.
How many times have you been upset and your parent/significant other is only focused on making you smile? Of course they mean well… but the fact is that the only way to release negative emotions is to work through that emotion in order to release it and then heal it. So if you don’t allow yourself to feel what you feel at the time you feel it (phew… got that… J) then it will potentially be added to your emotional baggage.
Okay… so how do I “finish” my business and get rid of my emotional baggage?
First of all you need to actually identify the emotion that is being triggered. Take a notebook and write down all of the situations where you know you have reacted in a way that was probably “bigger” than the situation warranted.
If you take the time to work through this, you will realise that there have been several situations where you reacted with this emotion. Try to work out what the key element – or trigger – was about that situation that made you react the way you did. Is the situation linked to when you feel insecure? Or a time when you felt your needs weren’t met by someone who is significant? You might need to take the time to sit quietly, close your eyes and just focus on your breathing and allow the answer to come to you. You might be surprised at what actually does pop up.
Well done if you have managed to get this far! It is not an easy thing to go and address your unfinished business so make sure you are kind to yourself.
Once you have been able to pinpoint the issue, take the time to go back into that situation and feel what you were feeling then. Cry, yell, shout, throw things… or write it all down… keep going until you can feel calm and in control when you think about that situation. You should have been able to gain new insights, or been able to see the situation from a different perspective - an adult perspective maybe. And going forward, you should never be triggered by that kind of situation ever again.
However, sometimes we have “stuff” that is so far buried that it takes the services of a professional to help you to firstly identify the emotion, pinpoint the origin and then help you to heal it. That is where I come in. I have a range of techniques that can gently and effectively help you to finally heal in a way that is gentle and confidential. If you think that I can help you, please do not hesitate to contact me directly (text message is the quickest and easiest way) on 0407 749 025 or PM me on Facebook or contact me via my website happymindaligned.com
