Emotional Emancipation

 Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves, can free our minds. 

Bob Marley ( I believe taken from a famous quote of Marcus Garvey) 

Emotional Emancipation 

I picked up a new phrase today and it is sticking to me...resonating with every cell in my body.  That phrase is "emotional emancipation" and it is that that I am moving toward on this path.  Many would call it liberation, yoga, enlightenment, awakening, freedom from suffering...and it is all those things...but to my practical, psychology focused mind...this is the term that hits home.

Freedom from  Being Trapped By Emotion

Do we not all want freedom from the prison our untamed emotions keep us in.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with emotion.  It just that moving ( thus the 'motion'in e-motion) energy...neither good or bad but our judging the feeling of it as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral keeps us trapped to it , doesn't it?  We are so trapped( attached to , desperate for, clinging, addicted) to the pleasant emotions and all we erroneously believe will allow us to experience those emotions all the time so we do not suffer. We are so trapped by our negative emotional energies too...they can stop us in our tracks and keep us imprisoned, so we are fearing those tings that may trigger these emotions,  always fighting to 'avoid' them or to  'escape' from that prison. 

Neutral Response 

We forget that there is another type of feeling  we can experience and that is neutral...These emotions we are attached to because we deem them as pleasant  will never free us. The emotions we deem as unpleasant, that we run from, can never really imprison us unless we let them.  Neutral means no reactivity...just observing, experiencing and allowing all to flow through.  This is what happens when we are emotionally emancipated.  We are free from the effect emotional energy can have on us.  Our lives are no longer determined by our need and desperate seeking for pleasant and our avoidance of unpleasant.  We accept all and are free of suffering. Hmmm! 

This is what so many masters teach...using so many different terms to describe it...but it is all basically just freedom from the power our emotions have over us.  It doesn't mean we stop feeling...we are just no longer trapped by that feeling...no longer attached.   We learn to step back from reactive mind to that spacious Self within and view thee experience from there...neither good or bad...just as it is. 

Thich Nhat Hanh often spoke of and taught about the need to return to the Island and refuge of Self.  It ws one of the last teachings before the Buddha died. And I will share a lovely Gatha that I walk, breathe and mediate to in a separate entry....very soon.

For now, I am hoping you begin the process of setting yourself free.

All is well. 

If we get stuck in a feeling, it is because we still secretly believe that it will accomplish something for us. 

David R. Hawkins