what do i do with this feeling?

This underlying feeling –

At some point I became aware that I often woke up in the morning with an undercurrent of emotion, sometimes sad and often feeling shame or guilt. (this is interesting because these are the primary emotions of enneatype 2). I would find myself searching for what I sad about, or what I had done wrong, or what was wrong with me. This process was unconscious for most of my life. I would just participate without questioning. So at some point I became aware that this was going on. I would figure out the cause and then go about my day. Often this feeling would wear off during the events of my day, and I would feel OK. Only to begin again the next morning.

When I began working on myself this became part of processing. During the first stages of working through this issue I did a lot of processing around family dynamics. My relationship with my mother took up a lot of space. After years of this kind of processing I learned about other ways to approach this problem. I would shift my attention from the thoughts, from the meaning I was giving these feelings, to just paying attention to the feelings. This would work, until they would reappear again. I would also notice that each emotion had a different energetic feel to it. Sadness felt heavy in my heart area, anger was hot and firey in my gut, fear was electric it was through my whole body but also had a mental component, shame felt like a punch to the gut. Noticing the energy and staying with the energetic sensation, instead of the meaning I would have given it, not even labeling what emotion it was, was very helpful.

One of the things I learned from this observation was how this process worked. Sometimes I had thoughts that would cause emotions to arise. I might remember something sad that happened and begin to feel sad. I might tell myself a sad story about what might happen in the future and begin to feel sad. This could happen with any emotion. Or I might have a sensation for no apparent reason, label the sensation as sadness, or fear, or anger, and then make up a story about why the emotion was there.

Another approach was to locate the feeling in my body, make space around it, so that I could realize that it was in me that it was not me. Then wrap the sensation in my body in loving, warm, soft energy. This approach was getting closer to the truth, that these feelings were not me they were arising within me. Because I was aware of them implied that the I that was conscious of the sensations but was not the sensations. But this didn’t quite take it far enough.

We now call this the gradual approach to Awakening. All this time I was meditating and reading the teachings of various spiritual teachers. I was inching up on the crux of the problem, I was inching up on the Truth.

This problem of having an undercurrent of emotion didn’t get resolved until I understood that I am consciousness and that all arises in consciousness. When the shift happened from believing I was the separate person, Lissa, that had to resolve this emotional dilemma, to the boundless, infinite, awareness. Once this happened, whatever emotion was showing up was fine. They didn’t bother awareness. When the struggle to get rid of them stopped they lost their intensity, they were no longer compelling. They would come and go, thoughts would come and go, there was no problem with any of it.

The surprise was that what began to show up along with whatever emotion was present, is an undercurrent of bliss or joy. My heart is full, sometimes overflowing. Tears come easily, and go easily; all flowing in the river of consciousness.

The question arises: Did I have to do all the work I did processing every feeling so deeply. That is what I did so my guess is it had to happen for me. I have always believed that the shortest fastest route is best. So if you can look and see that you are consciousness and that all arises in you, without psychological processing, that is wonderful. If it seems that you need to process aspects of your conditioning that is fine also. Sometimes energy work does the trick. There are as many paths as there are people on the planet.

The bottom line is that until I knew that I was not these emotions, and that they could not affect me, because I am Consciousness itself, no amount of processing could bring relief. All the processing was being done to get rid of the emotions, which can never be done. Once the Truth is known there is a transformation that seems to change how we experience emotions. When we know that we are consciousness and that emotions arise within what we are, we don’t take them so seriously. We are not concerned about their appearance. This is true for thoughts and physical sensations as well.