Cleaning Up After Ourselves - Emotions and Empowerment

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

-Maya Angelou

Memory created from emotional experience is the strongest type of memory that we have. We decide things that affect us for long periods of time - often our entire lives - based on experiences that cause us to feel some way. Very often we make those decisions in imperceptible fractions of seconds, and we mostly don't even realize that we have. I remember once, when I was very little, deciding that big men with white hair and white mustaches were mean and dangerous to be around because my uncle (a big man with white hair/white mustache of course) had yelled at me and spanked me - hard - for something I didn't do. It took me about half a second to make this decision, and half my life to realize why I got agitated and angry around certain types of men, so that I could finally release it.

If the feeling we get from an experience is especially strong, and/or matches feelings we've had in the past that we've made decisions based on, that decision becomes part of our cellular memory. Once in cellular memory it becomes a part of us - we get to drag those decisions around through future lifetimes, experiencing the impact of them on ourselves and others, and eventually, hopefully - if it's a decision that has impacted us negatively - we gain enough wisdom and knowledge to be able to dismiss the decision as the non-truth that it is. If it was a decision that impacts us positively, yay us!, we have a nice, positive trait to add to our experiences. These decisions become the basis for who we are in any given human life. In other words, the impact of our emotional responses can be far-reaching, and very important to our emotional well-being. And our emotional well-being is crucial to our physical well-being.

Being Aware of How People Respond to Us

So Ms. Angelou's observation strikes me as important in two ways. The first is related to how we treat others - being aware that our intent, words, and actions can have a lasting impact on others. For me, it helps me focus my attention on creating a positive interaction with people wherever I go. That's empowerment - we empower others when our interactions with them, no matter how small, leave them feeling better about themselves.

Empowerment, to me, is at minimum a feeling of "I'm ok." It can be so much more, but that's the gentlest good feeling that I associate with being empowered. There are steps along the continuum of negative emotion that lead toward empowerment, and helping people get to these places is a wonderful thing. But for me, the lowest positive emotion that I personally associate with feeling empowered is "I'm ok." I'd prefer that people I interact with come away with feelings like "I'm awesome!" "I'm worthy" or at least "I'm capable" but I'll settle for "I'm ok". It's a dang site better than any of the negative feelings they might be left with.

In other words, my goal in interacting with others is that they come away feeling good about themselves in some way, no matter what the conversation was about, even if I'm handing them their walking papers (in other words, firing them). Do I always do this? Not by a long shot! Ask any of the various people who've interacted with me over time! ;)

Yet .. even with the best of intentions, can we control how people are going to respond to us? Of course not. But that doesn't mean it isn't worth trying. As I mentioned, it is my goal that people I interact with come away from those interactions empowered. It's how I would like to be treated. If things don't work out and I walk away knowing that they are less than empowered, I have to ask myself "what was being mirrored back to me in that exchange? (what is there for me to see for myself), and "what might I have done to have it go better"?

Being Aware of How We Respond to Others

The other important thing I see about Maya's observation relates to how we respond to others. Not only when people are directly interacting with us, but how we respond to others as we observe them interacting with each other. Whether I feel empowered from an interaction with another - or from simply being in the presence of others - is completely within my control. I have the ability - and in my mind, the response-ability - to be conscious of my reactions, and consciously choose my responses so that I maintain a feeling of empowerment regardless of what's going on around me. That, to me, is mastering the art of being human - being able to powerfully be your Self no matter what is going on around you. It doesn't mean being right, it doesn't mean always winning, it doesn't mean always being liked. It means being Who I Am, no matter what. Do other people need to understand or accept me? Not at all. That I cannot control, and as much as possible I don't even try .. but as the saying goes "old habits die hard". ;)

Another interesting thing I've noticed is that as we grow along our path we sometimes come to a place where we think that it doesn't matter how we treat others, because they are responsible for their own reactions. Our rationale is that if they get hurt, so be it, there's something there for them to learn. If they get angry so be it, there's something there for them to learn. I cannot deny that that is true, each of us is responsible for our own reactions. But .. does knowing that relieve us of our responsibility in the matter of what we say and what we do?

It's a delicate line that we dance over all the time. Sometimes we are so out of awareness with our own state of being that spewing our emotions is necessary. It serves no one, least of all ourselves, to ignore our feelings or bury them deep inside. Inside they fester and turn into resentment and anger. If held onto long enough, those emotions affect the physical body in unpleasant ways. So releasing emotion is important to our personal well-being, and our personal well-being is important to the planet and to humanity as a whole. But what happens in the aftermath of, say, an emotional explosion? We feel better and those around us feel .. potentially .. a whole lot worse. Certainly not empowered.

When we spill a glass of water on someone's floor, do we just walk away and expect them clean up the mess? or do we apologize, grab a towel, and start cleaning up the mess ourselves? While it's true that the ultimate responsibility for the mess belongs to the owner/tenant of the place where we spilled it, isn't it also our responsibility as the person who made the mess to do something to help clean it up?

Couldn't the same concept be applied to emotional spills? Other people are impacted by the emotional messes we make even more than they are impacted by the physical messes we make. Seems to me that it behooves all of us, particularly as we are moving closer and closer to instant manifestation, to be responsible for the energy that we put out into the world. If we're conscious enough, aware enough, of how we're feeling, we can center ourselves and ground the energy of our negative feelings before it leaks - or blasts - out into the world unrestricted. A worthy goal I think.

But what about when we can't? What about the times when, despite our sincerest wishes and efforts, others get caught in a whirlwind of our emotions? In our upset we don't even notice, perhaps until some time later when we start getting a hint or or clue that we caused a major upheaval. There are options. Please be advised that feeling guilty isn't one of them! Guilt has no place in the life of an empowered human. (For more on this, see my earlier article Learning to Love Yourself - Guilt Free)

If you don't notice an emotional mess when it happens (so you aren't aware enough to clean it up then), or you don't clean it up at the time for whatever reason, it isn't necessary to revisit the event or the people who may have been involved in order to apologize. You can apologize if you desire to do so, but it isn't necessary. For one, that experience has passed. We don't need to go back and revisit every experience and change our reaction to it (though that can be helpful), instead we can create the effect of having changed an experience by changing ourselves going forward. For another, you may not have had the impact on others that you think you did - you could always ask about that, and apologize if it feels right to you to do so.

What you can always do, once you've realized you might have created an emotional mess, is reiterate to yourself that that is not the way you wish to behave. Ask your higher self what might be learned from the experience, if you don't have a sense of it already. Appreciate yourself for having noticed the unwanted behavior, for having examined it for potential learning, for reiterating your intent to be different, then let it go. Send your love energetically to those involved if that feels good to you, but in all cases, let the incident go. If you can't, then examination into that feeling will be helpful.

The thing you really want to avoid is expecting that this behavior will never visit you again. Personal growth doesn't typically occur that quickly, although it certainly can. One thing certain is that the response will keep appearing until it doesn't. What you can expect is that when it does return you will notice it sooner, respond to it quicker, and eventually be able to catch yourself before an unwanted emotional response is released. In other words, you'll have access to the automatic behavior and be able to choose consciously how to deal with the emotional energy yourself, internally, without anyone else being affected.

Emotion is Energy, Energy Impacts Everything

The important thing to remember is that the energy we release, through emotion or any other way, has an impact on the earth itself, and on everyone and everything around us. If you are interested in sending out the most positive energy possible, you can do that at any time, in any place, in any circumstance, in the presence of any thing or any one, even your supposed "enemies". It just takes looking at a given situation from a different vantage point.

Here's something to try: If the work you're doing isn't cooperating with you, rather than swear at it, call it names, and spew upset all over everywhere, why not treat it like you would a respected, even beloved partner? First take a deep breath, center yourself and get grounded. Then tell your work that you believe in it, that you appreciate it (do this in whatever ways and with whatever words feel right to you), then ask it to cooperate with you. Tell it clearly what result you are looking for, and then give it the space to become what you have asked. Begin working again when you feel ready. Be sincere - like a child instinctively does, your work will know if you are simply going through the motions. Be prepared to be amazed at the results!

Then you can use the experience to help you see other situations from a different perspective.

Children

Children are particularly sensitive to emotional energy, and typically have little if any practice in releasing it from their bodies. They may not even recognize that what they are feeling is not their own emotion but someone else's, and they don't need to deal with it. You can help children understand about emotions, help them learn to separate their own feelings from the feelings of others. For example you can explain how sometimes people - even people who love us - say and do things they don't necessary mean to say or do, and that their upset is theirs, it has nothing to do with us. You can let children talk about how such and such a situation made them feel, and help them release any emotional debris associated with the experience. It's worth the extra few minutes it takes to connect with a child energetically and help them process what might be overpowering emotions. Consider the potential decisions they might be making based on that experience!

And don't be surprised if a child walks up to you someday and helps you get through some upsetting emotion. We are in the presence of a new generation of Masters. In many cases we're going to have to paddle hard to catch up with them!

The Future

In times past, that is, those thousands of years before humanity (at the higher self level) decided to attempt to move into a higher vibration, as a race, along with Earth - in other words before "the Shift" - humans were given help in cleaning up their emotional "messes". Protections were in place, and other entities worked with us, to transmute much of the strong emotional energy that we released unawares. While "bad things" did happen as a result of our thoughts and desires, as bad as some things were, there was not nearly as much havoc created as there might have been, due to the help provided through our buffer of time.

For most of us alive on the planet today, that kind of help is either no longer available or in the process of being removed. We are at the point in our evolution where we each have to be responsible for our own thoughts, beliefs, words, and actions. We must learn how to manage our energy ourselves. If we cannot, we will not be able to move into the higher vibrations. Not because we wouldn't be "allowed to", but because we'd self destruct from the attempt.

In the higher vibrations, manifestation is instantaneous. Can you imagine the havoc we could create if we were to instantaneously manifest "I hate you! I'm going to kill you!"? We say things like that, but usually we don't mean them. All something like that generally means is that we are so enraged in the moment that we don't know how to respond to our rage, we don't know what to do with it. So we say things like that. We think it's harmless.

In a protected third-density reality we had a time lag that protected us from thoughts like those. We had time to reconsider, move off of an unwanted intent ("come to our senses"), and thereby not manifest it. As time collapses, the buffer of time - and the protection it brings - diminishes. Soon it will be completely gone. Will you have mastered your thoughts by then? Will you be ready to see your every whim and upset manifest in your reality instantly?

You can be. Simply by beginning now to be aware of the impact that your thoughts and words and actions have. These are fantastic times. More fantastic than most people can even begin to grasp. Teeming with opportunity! But with the opportunity comes responsibility - the responsibility to manage our own thoughts, our own energy.

We have lots of help. An unbelievable amount of help. Our helpers come from places, and help arrives in ways, that most of us aren't even remotely aware of. In some cases wouldn't be able to comprehend - or accept - even if we were aware of it. Suffice it to say that we are under a kind of Divine Dispensation, given in part to help us learn how to manage our thoughts and emotions - our energy. Extraordinary help is being provided so that humanity, as a race, can move into the higher dimensions, so that we can aid and follow Earth on her journey there, join her in her adventure.

Take advantage of the fact that this help exists, and ask for it. Tell the Universe, your Higher Self, your guides, your angels, the Ascended Masters, whatever beings you trust or whatever terms you use, that you wish to master your thoughts and ask for help. Use whatever words or methods feel right to you, but ask. Then listen for the guidance. You can use ceremony, you can use meditation, you can get quiet in your own mind, or you can just .. ask. Your thoughts are no secret to those dedicated to helping you. But this is a planet of free choice, and that means that help cannot be imposed on you, you must ask for it, consciously and with purpose.

Begin now learning how to manage your thoughts, to ground energy, to empower others, and to find joy in everything you do. There are thousands, if not millions, of human teachers/mentors/healers available to help you, if you want help. Like anything, it takes practice, but as you practice you will gain confidence - and pride! - in your ability. Then, when the time comes and you find yourself in a realty in which your every thought is manifest almost before you think it, you will be confident in the knowledge that you are ready.