About: Why feelings must be transformed

We have the mistaken belief that we can freeze or avoid our unpleasant feelings, and then live life enjoying just the good ones.

But life doesn’t work that way.

In truth, if we freeze our painful feelings, we freeze the pleasurable ones too. The result is a numbed-out life of overall flatness.

There is only one life force. When aligned with truth, it expresses as the Higher Self—positive, constructive and affirming. When distorted, it expresses as the Lower Self, denying, twisting and destroying life.

Negative emotions cannot be replaced. They can only be transformed.

Uncovering all our feelings

It’s not just negative emotions we try to avoid. The Pathwork Guide teaches that we often have a greater fear of pleasure than of pain. The key in learning to tolerate pleasure is to learn to endure what is inside us right now. This is likely some combination of hate, resentment, spite, jealousy, guilt, rage or terror.

Of course, it is painful to be with these difficult feelings. Nonetheless, we need to let them be present, to expose them to the light of our Higher Self. When we do this, we will discover that all may not be as we thought.

For example, anxiety may be suppressed excitement.

Panic may be fear of fear.

Boredom may be stifled energy.

Anger may be covering old hurt.

When we allow anger to move through us and feel it in an appropriate setting, it often reveals the old hurt beneath it. Healing that buried pain softens and re-enlivens us.

At the same time, we can transform our harsh, judgmental Lower Self voice into perception and discernment, which are vital to our spiritual development.

Best of all, our ability to experience pleasure unfolds organically as a byproduct of going through the darkness within.

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Learn more in:

• Bones, Chapter 1: Emotional growth and its function
• Bones, Chapter 2: The importance of feeling all our feelings, including fear

Restoring our divinity

When we release our blocked emotions and rewire our misguided thoughts to align with truth, we experience an infusion of new strength, resourcefulness and creativity. We are unwinding distorted life energy so it can naturally return to its original state.

That’s how we get our life force back.

There are not two separate beings inside us. The Higher Self and Lower Self are not different energies, but different expressions of the same life force.

The Lower Self is life energy that has become twisted, frozen, or disconnected from truth. As it returns to truth, that same energy naturally becomes creative again.

So our intention is not to cut off or get rid of the Lower Self. We want to convert it—to restore it.

Our goal is to return all our distorted aspects to their original form, through which shines the face of God.

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Learn more in Get a Better Boat, Essay 17: Why did God make war?

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