By Rena Greenberg
How to let go of the five emotions that derail happiness.
Five emotions can stop you in your tracks if you don’t have awareness of them and the danger they present in your life. That means that, left to their own devices, these emotions are like a speeding train without a conductor. They are ready to derail every goal you have set for yourself, whether the goal is financial success, a healthy mind and body, losing weight, quitting drinking, or having a happy marriage.
The good news is that, when you shine some light on their darkness, you can take your power back as quickly as the blazing sun can soak up the remains of a torrential summer shower. The first step is to stop running from these five painful emotions and, instead, face them with the courage you have at your core. Let’s take a look at them and their antidotes.
Fear
What causes fear? It’s the feeling of being out of control. Ultimately, we experience fear because the truth is we don’t have control. For instance, none of us knows when our death day is coming.
Subconsciously, it may seem that if you distract yourself enough with food, alcohol, drugs, shopping, socializing, working, or surfing the Internet, etc., you can avoid the awful nagging fear that your life will inevitably end. Living this way prevents you not only from experiencing true happiness, but also from achieving a much higher potential within yourself.
The antidote to fear is faith. Faith that even though you will die, your life really matters and contains great meaning.
Anger
Anger is such a difficult emotion, one that causes so much internal anguish. Think about how you feel when you are angry. Chances are you are clenching some part of your body. Maybe your fists, jaw, or belly is constricted and tense. Your breathing is most likely shallow and labored. And your thoughts are replaying an event or scenario that is deeply painful to you. Perhaps you feel betrayed, cheated, or disrespected.
The antidote for anger is compassion. How hard it is to be you right now! Expand your awareness and realize it’s not just you. It’s difficult to be human in general.
Even your perpetrator—the one who disappointed or betrayed you—has great pain and insecurity, no matter how arrogant and smug he or she may appear on the outside. Be generous with yourself and others when it comes to bestowing compassion. Remember you are not alone, even if your feelings tell you that you are.
Jealousy
When you’re feeling jealous, your ego is convinced that someone has more than you, and it’s not fair. Does the object of your jealousy appear to be smarter, happier, or more beautiful? Are they graced with greater wealth, love, and abundance than you?
If so, realize that nothing is as it appears. Though life is surely not fair, we all cycle in and out of abundance in friendship, love, wealth, and success. Each of us will lose our youth. Each of us will experience other losses as well. Coveting someone else’s good fortune only diminishes your awareness of the blessings in your own life.
Perhaps your jealous reaction stems from feeling a lack of attention. Is the one you love focused on someone other than you? The antidote to jealousy is cultivating a grateful heart and patience. It’s true that you may not have the attention, wealth, youth, love, or success you desire in this moment. But that doesn’t mean you won’t have it in the future.
In the meantime, by focusing on the gifts that you do have—whether they be a beautiful home and loving friends or amazing pets and a loving spouse—you can start to feel gratitude for the wonderful life that you do have, while accepting what you don’t appear to have in this moment.
Sadness
At the core of each person is a wound. This wound is a combination of sadness and loneliness. It can be so painful that it’s no wonder that most people will do anything to distract themselves from feeling the intensity of this grief.
Why is this deep sadness present? It’s due to the illusion that we are separate—cut off from our greater nature. All the crazy happenings in this physical world only exacerbate this loneliness and sense of isolation. It takes a lot of food, alcohol, and/or spending to cover up this pain!
The antidote to this deep sadness within, believe it or not, is feeling it. That’s right, and to do that you must summon up all your courage. Sit with the sadness, while at the same time calling on your deepest connection to the Sacred within yourself and all around you.
Bow your head, and with the deepest humility ask/pray for the Divine to surround you in the highest light and eternal love, as you sit with the sadness. The antidote to deep sadness is the courage to sit with your wound, while inviting your higher consciousness and deeper wisdom to bathe you in Truth—beyond what your conscious mind perceives.
Shame
Shame is the most toxic of human emotions. Nothing is worse for most people than feeling ashamed, embarrassed, or humiliated. It’s an emotion that makes us feel like we’ve hit rock bottom.
In some religions, shaming someone or taking away their dignity is considered to be akin to murdering them. In the Sufi way, the greatest gift you can give others is to erase their mistakes in your own mind and to see them purely as if their unwholesome behaviors never happened. Isn’t that what you would like for yourself?
The antidote to shame is to realize that human pain exists in all people. Bathe yourself in Divine love by calling it to you and opening your heart completely. To release yourself from shame, release everyone else, too. Know that your mistake ultimately strengthened you and is making you a better, wiser and stronger person.
Moving Forward
This life journey is not about acquiring more things, but rather uplifting your own consciousness and transcending every emotion and experience that has held you back, real or imagined, past, present, or future.
Self-hypnosis is taking control of your thoughts and feelings to create the life that you deserve, and it can help as a process for releasing these negative emotions. Create a vision of how you want your life to be. Take a deep breath. See it. Feel it. Give thanks for it. Emotion is energy in motion and beyond every emotion is a field of Infinite Presence. Bask in this field, consciously release all toxic emotion, and claim your higher destiny.
Rena Greenberg, a Hay House author, can be reached at http://www.EasyWillpower.com. Her weight loss and gastric bypass hypnosis success has been featured in 150-plus news stories including USA Today, Woman’s World, The Doctor’s, CNN, Good Morning America and Nightline. PBS stations nationally aired Rena’s show, “Easy Willpower,” in August 2015. Her wellness program is sponsored in 75 hospitals and 100-plus corporations. She conducts hypnotherapy sessions with people all over the world on Skype.