Self-deceiving emotions

[Abram]

I feel as though much of my emotional processing has been self-deceiving or unproductive. I have watched the talk about self-deceiving emotions and am beginning to recognize some times when I am simply throwing a tantrum because "my kids are not loving me" and so I'm feeling unloved. This really isn't a causal emotion. The causal emotion is the grief that my parents didn't love me. I'm feeling really frustrated that I keep thinking I'm getting to some causal emotions and find that my law of attraction doesn't change. It feels hopeless at times that this is so difficult. I'm angry that it is and feel that it is unfair, why would God create such a difficult system to navigate through. "The way" is so challenging for me. I know it is going to take time to figure it out and truly follow this path as it is intended.

I've hear AJ talk about how it is not a good idea to follow this path unless you are going to be sincere about it and fully commit as you will cause yourself and others more pain and it will result in little to no progression. If I'm honest I haven't fully wanted to commit. I've been more humble then I can remember and have progressed some, though know that I'm not fully committed or willing to do what it takes. I wonder if I should stop trying until I am fully committed or to keep working through things to the degree I'm willing to. I feel I can't turn back now with what I know.

[Abram]

To add to the above post after reflecting more on it, I think I should inquire about how to recognize self-deceiving emotions other than my law of attraction not changing after feeling an emotion? I remember AJ saying something about the effect emotion (feel unloved) is not the causal emotion (I was unloved by my parents). These emotions seem similar to an extent and wonder if others have another way to understand the difference? Any other strategies to recognize and/or get to causal emotions?

[Pierrejoseph]

Hi adwilks (is that your real name?),

I am not an expert in reaching causal emotions and I rather have been pretty good at feeling self deceiving emotions, spirits emotions, self punishing addictive emotions, and not avoiding feeling my passive aggressive anger, terror and fears but I notice that when I get in touch with (part of) a causal emotion, I feel and cry like a baby or little child, often in fetal position, and my entire body is fully involved in the experiences (stretching, moving, doing all kinds of uncontrolled things), and I am completely soul, body and mind involved in the experience, and I pray to God and my guide for help and staying into it, and ironically I feel safe during the process, fearless and cared for in this place of strong pain, and if I stay long enough in the emotional experience, then there is this moment when I feel the false belief leaves me - I can still recall the story but have no emotional pain attached to it - and I feel suddenly very relaxed, released, and at times I fall asleep sometimes for hours. Then if I have been deep enough into the layers of the causal emotion, my loa shows me very quickly that I released (part of) a causal emotion, sometimes just hours after the experience and never more the following days.

Personally, when I am in this place, what helps me is to pray to God and my guide to help me to stay in the experience, and sometimes also to hold me in heir arms (when I am very scared), and sometimes for God's love to help. I go though all kinds of thoughts and realizations during the process, and I feel like waves coming into me helping me releasing emotions (I cant do anything else but crying), and then the waves are stopping - I suspect when I have a thought in mind in disharmony with Love and truth - and then I keep praying for help and staying in the process and the waves come again and I start crying again etc etc... I never shared this before and I wonder if others can relate to that?

Personally, when I believe to touch causal emotions, I never experienced though to remember my childhood in terms of the damaging events that happened to me (Jesus said that we will remember every single moment of our life when at one with God), I have just the truth in my heart about what emotions entered me when I was a child, I don't know my age neither, just a feeling that I was then a baby or that it was even before birth, but I don't know exactly neither the time nor the precise situation - no images or visual memories. I believe it might be that my brain was not formed at that time, but then I wonder how we can remember everything? Well that's another question.

This is the best I can attempt to help you at this point in time. Hope that helps in some ways.

[Amanda Stracey]

Hi Adwilks

I feel this is the area where it's really important to look at what God's truth is compared to our truth or my truth so that we can start to get a grasp of what we are up to - as you say a tantrum at not getting our so called needs/addictions met.

As you've described your feelings that God has made this a difficult process - I have that feeling too - Gods truth is though that he is open hearted and passionately desiring a no holds barred beautiful loving (his definition) relationship with us and wants to and is already sharing everything he can with us through all his laws and helpers - as much as our free will allows and when we are resistant the laws are there showing us where the issues are. So the truth is we are the problem/block and have the power to change our end of the relationship and start looking at all the barriers (beliefs etc) we have that are causing us to believe otherwise.

There is a beautiful clip of Mary talking about how she started to incorporate God's truth or relied on God's truth to butt up against her false beliefs in this way that I'll try to find if I can as it will explain the process better.

I feel I've also had to accept that I like deceiving myself or I prefer to believe God has made it all soooo difficult and it's all his fault so there.... Just to avoid what feels like insurmountable mountains of pain. But that's not the truth either - the pain does end there is relief and as Pierre says life changes.

[Patricia Sanders]

Hi Abram,

I just want to add a little bit to what Pierre and Amanda have said.

Your original question and the following comments have really focused on causal emotions. So, I would just like to point out that causal emotions are not the only real emotions.

For example, if my cat died I would feel grief. I need to feel that grief, even though it's not causal. Someday I will get to the causal reason that I feel grief over death, and then I won't feel that grief at all anymore, but until then I will feel grief when I encounter death, and I need to allow myself to feel it.

Also, there are ways it can be useful to express emotions that are not causal. I'll quote Mary for an example, related to anger:

"Anger does arise when our addictions are not being met. While expressing that anger is not releasing a causal emotion, part of letting go of addictions is recognising that from God's perspective our expectations are errors within us. In my experience, there are times when experiencing my rage has helped me to feel what my unloving expectation is and begin to feel why I have that expectation and what fear and grief it is covering." (from viewtopic.php?f=30&t=281)

So although feeling through causal emotions is what really changes our souls and our lives, causals aren't the only emotions we have or the only emotions we need to feel. Feeling non-causal emotions can be necessary and sometimes useful.

I too have often felt frustrated and angry over the notion that this is a difficult and complicated process. However, I'm beginning to see how much I've really just been getting in my own way. For example, I've only very recently realized that probably 80 or 90 percent of my tears in my life ... maybe 99.5 percent ... have actually been angry tears (tantrum) and probably not helpful at all. That's not the path being difficult or complicated, that's been me refusing to feel the real nature of my tears.

I've also allowed myself to stay stuck in feelings of unworthiness and shame, which has really slowed down my progress and kept me from being more loving, but I chose to do that because I wasn't willing to feel the real emotions involved. The fact that I wasn't consciously aware that that was what I was doing doesn't mean it wasn't a choice I was making. It was my will to choose that, and it was also my will to remain unconscious that I was doing it.

It seems that one of the truths that I have to face is that I'm the one who's making things difficult on this path, I'm the "problem" here - not God and not this beautiful Way He made for us. That was a fantastic thing to realize, because it means, (a), that God is a lot better than I had given Her credit for, and (b), I can choose differently in the future and make things easier on myself.

AJ and Mary have used the comparison to peeling an onion, and I believe that applies here - in the sense that I could not see my self-deceptions until I went through a series of emotions to get to a point where I was willing to see those self-deceptions. For example, I don't think I could have become aware that my tears were angry tears until after I had bashed enough with my baseball bat so that I could feel some anger. Then I could perceive the angry nature of my tears. This is a process, and I feel we need to be patient with ourselves going through it.

My feeling is that it takes many people a long time to become committed to this path, and I don't see how a person can increase their level of commitment without working at it. There are emotions that keep us from being more committed, and working on those emotions with God, as much as possible, will help us become more and more committed. And we also need to build our desire for Love and Truth, and that takes time and effort. I think of it like how sometimes when you go for a hike you first have to hike to the trailhead, and then you can get onto the actual trail.

If anyone who is reading perceives that I'm in error, I would like to ask you please to point it out.

Patricia

[Abram]

Pierre,

Thanks for the feedback. I can relate to some of which you described. For instance, feeling like the emotions come in waves and reacting like a child when I get into some deeper emotions. I've prayed during these times, though know I can be more consistent with asking for help to be humble.

Amanda,

Thanks for your feedback. Your right about me blaming God for how difficult this process is when in reality it is my own issues that make it difficult. I'll have to look for God's truth about these and other issues so I can reflect on how my belief's are out of harmony with God's. It's easy to get caught up in our maladaptive beliefs and not even realize what is true universally.

Patricia,

Thanks for the feedback as well. I can see how other emotions besides causal emotions can be productive for me to feel and go through to actually get to the causal emotions. I want to skip this process and go into the casual, though in reality I'm avoiding feeling the causal emotions. I have a tendency to intellectualize everything and want to know the steps of the process instead of just going through the emotions for fear I will do it wrong. In my mind understanding things intellectually gives me faith to go through the emotional processing work to know it will be productive.

I'm so afraid to spend years and years processing emotions thinking I'm getting to something when in actuality I'm not. I remember AJ saying he spent like 6 years or something feeling a certain emotion and eventually realized he was deceiving himself and was avoiding something deeper. My emotional processing work is causing problems in my marriage as my wife is skeptical that what I'm doing is beneficial and so it makes me question this process as well. I know that it is her not wanting to feel her emotions and not understanding this way of living, but it triggers my fear and lack of faith. I guess I feel like I need to know all the intellectual concepts of how to prevent from wasting years of emotional processing work before I truly will commit. Most likely I will still question everything even if I knew everything intellectually and ultimately will just have to have faith.