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Handling Emotions Honestly: Blowing Off the Soot (Part 1) by Jach Pursel   Harmonic World by Gilbert Williams

Within the consensus reality, many feel that emotions just get in the way. Many see no value in "wasting time" talking or explore emotions as they want to move on to solving or resolving. Many want to skip the feeling it part so they can move swiftly to the fixing it part. It is a chauvinistic attitude, to be sure, but many feel that they do not want to face or talk about emotion because it, "Just screws things up." With the New Age, there are those who, similarly, do not want to deal with emotions. Though these people would use different words, I feel that often the motivation is the same: Emotions get in the way. This is my opinion about what I see happening. Often the idea that we each create our reality is used to discourage feeling emotions and to admonish those of us who want to feel and to express ours. Most of us know the argument too well. Sometimes it sounds like, "Since you create your own reality, I could not have made you feel anything. You created feeling that way, so deal with it." In attempting to deal with it, we sometimes argue with ourselves, "Since I create my own reality, I do not have a right to feeling anything but love." Whether it is coming at us or coming from us, we tell ourselves that any feeling other than love is not valid; any other feeling is often called wrong or inappropriate. Regardless of the label, it turns into a denied emotion. I have found that when something happens in our reality, we always have emotions with feelings around the happening. It seems important to explore those emotions fully before we move on to assessing why we created the particular reality that happened. Lazaris has always enthusiastically supported us in figuring out the why's and how's of reality creation; he has always enthusiastically encouraged us to identify the emotions, to feel the emotions, to express them appropriately, and to release or resolve the emotions first. Lazaris has talked of the Soot on the Screen analogy. I have found it helpful. Emotions, acknowledged or not, stand between us and the event that generated them. They are suspended there in our view of the world and in our view of the particular event within our world. When something happens that produces sadness, anger, hurt, fear, outrage, fury, etc., those emotions stand between us and the reality we created as if they were soot on a screen. Ironically, the consensus (within and without the New Age) is correct: Emotions -- both happy and unhappy ones -- do get in the way just as soot on the screen gets in the way of our view. However, the way of dealing with them is not to ignore them, to pretend they do not matter, or to pretend that they are not there. If we do not blow off that soot first, when we try to understand the event -- when we try to find the meaning and the significance to the event, we will pull all that emotion into us. It will obscure whatever meaning or significance that we find or assess. The point of this Soot on the Screen analogy is that when we step up to the screen, we should exhale first. We should blow off the soot by identifying what the emotions are. Then we would be advised to feel those emotions with intensity and depth. Once felt, we should do whatever is appropriate to express or vent them. Finally we should resolve and release the emotions with their feelings. This is blowing the soot off. It can happen very quickly. Then we can see more clearly. Then when we seek meaning -- when we inhale -- we won't get a mouth full of soot. Without the blowing off, whatever meaning would be polluted. Sometimes it may be polluted with self-punishment and self-blame. Sometimes the pollution will be resentment that is inward or outward. Sometimes it could be nobility and self-righteousness. Whatever it is, it is not as clear a meaning -- as real a meaning -- as it could be. It is not as high a truth as we could seek. Once we blow off the soot, then we can proceed with a certain elegance with figuring out what the lessons are that we can learn from the situation. Then the meaning we find and the significance that we give will be more valuable and empowering. We can change and grow with greater elegance and ease. I have found that this process of dealing with the emotions and feeling them, applies to postive events as well as to the more obvious negative ones. When something incredible happens, Lazaris advises us to identify, feel, express, and resolve the emotions first. When something positive happens, we may feel happiness, joy, excitement, empowerment, etc. These emotions, though wonderful and beautiful, can color or distort the positive meaning of an event, too. The difference comes in the resoluton and release stage. When it is a negative emotion, I want to resolve and release by letting go -- detaching by rising above and beyond. When it is a positive emotion, I want to resolve and release by taking it into me -- detaching by making it a part of who and what I am. Either direction, the resolution and release is vital, I think. It is then that we can honestly -- or more honestly -- seek the higher and highest truth that is so much a part of our spiritual challenge. Every so often, I like to remind myself about the value of identifying, feeling, expressing, and releasing-healing my emotions. I enjoy pondering the Soot on the Screen; even more I enjoy exhaling before I try inhaling.