Understanding The Guest House of Emotions

The Guest House

“This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. He may be cleaning you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing and invite them in”

-Rumi

Imagine for a moment that you were raised to feel and honor your emotions as they emerged. Imagine they had a place in your family that was welcoming.

For most of us, this is not the reality and therefore most of us grow up unaccustomed to holding feelings in a sacred honorable manner. Instead, our society often teaches us to find ways to dig a hole, push these natural human emotions down and bury them. The ways that are usually used to keep them buried typically become addictive and destructive… causing those buried feelings to actually grow over time rather than resolving. When they grow, they begin to feel daunting, and we have to work harder and harder to keep them at bay.

When we become brave and begin to honor the guests of our emotions, everything in our life begins to shift into alignment. We honor our natural self and then become more connected to the fabric of life including our internal guidance or intuition.

Our intuition becomes much louder and more reliable guiding us to the higher vision of our SELF.

The journey to this place is naturally uncomfortable, because we have been taught that our feelings and bodily sensations are dangerous rather then recognizing them as messages from a higher part of ourself about the ways we have been hurt and even traumatized. They are messages of boundaries being broken, and hurtful words being said by those we care about.

How do we begin unpacking what has been buried and held down?

Just start by having awareness about the body sensations that emerge in your body. They indicate feelings and instead of running from them try turning towards them with curiosity.

Imagine them coming up to be seen and felt for the first time and once that happens they can evaporate into the ethers.

When we take the smallest step to begin to call our feelings sensations and choose bravery and some discomfort, that energy will flow and eventually begin to float away.

Here is the power and opportunity to release the pain that has been stored in the tissue of our bodies.

Once we learn the language of our bodies and emotions, we can begin to stay in alignment with the truth of our lives and allow that truth to burst forward in honest vulnerability.

Does this seem scary? Only at first. Each time we allow the feelings to emerge, it gets easier. We begin to expand our comfort zone to tolerate more of these sensations and they become less ominous. Instead they begin to be messengers allowing our greater awareness and ownership of who we are.

Developing addictions to keep feelings buried takes time. Learning to tolerate feelings takes time. Different then our addictions, we need to grow consciousness about our feelings vs. choosing to numb out.

Most things are uncomfortable when we embark on something new.

Knowing this makes the path to success lined with determination and curiosity.