If knowledge is power, then having a sound understanding of your emotional makeup can help to manage emotions more successfully and effectively. To make this happen, requires having the right strategies that provide specific results.
As Tom Waits said, “How you do anything, is how you do everything.” And yes, this applies to our emotions too. Often, a part of the solution is understanding what it is you are working with – at lease short term. It may seem obvious but in my book, asking ‘what is an emotion?’ is a great place to start.
Although there are several theories regarding emotions, the consensus amongst psychologists is that there are six basic human emotions.
These are:
Fear
Anger
Surprise
Happiness
Sadness
Disgust
Further research by psychologist Paul Eckman showed that these emotions are innate, universal, and usually expressed through facial expressions. As children grow up these emotions will become influenced through socialization and education. The kind of emotional associations made during these informative years will have a large impact on the way anger and forgiveness are processed and managed later on in life.
On the surface, emotions may seem a given and therefore straightforward. Yet a study conducted in 2007 by Hockenbury showed that there is more to each emotion than initially thought. An emotion is a complex psychological state that involves three distinct components:
A subjective experience
A physiological response
A behavioural or expressive response.
This psychological observation is important when wanting to change an emotion and create a new emotional response and association. Each of these components needs to be addressed effectively, separately. Missing any of these steps leads to emotional incongruency and could explain why people often feel at the mercy of their emotions and struggle to detach.
Humans are extremely complex in their emotional makeup because there are layers and triggers of all kinds involved. From very young, we are indoctrinated about what each emotion means, and we are told when and how it is or isn’t appropriate to feel that way. The lines are drawn and we are expected to operate within them.
Although there are these common agreements, the subjective component is always at play. Each emotion is experienced individually in a myriad of ways and intensities. Think of a few different times when you felt angry. Was your feeling of anger the same each time? What made you angry each time? Was the way you dealt with your anger the same each time? I am guessing that the answer is probably no.
Depending on how you were raised and how other people like parents, teachers, friends, siblings, partners, spouses etc. responded and encouraged or discouraged you, you may or may not feel more at ease with some of your emotions than others. If emotions are mismanaged, this can lead to suppressed or repressed feelings and erratic behaviour. It is impossible to not feel your emotions. How you behave when feeling these emotions and the response this evoked from others will leave a lasting impression.
An important element here is that most behaviour is learned and influenced by the current social and cultural norms. It is founded mostly in judgmental concepts of polarity like good or bad, right or wrong, positive or negative. This is the cognitive conditioning that most people use to make their choices. But what about what you are feeling about your emotions? What do you feel about anger and forgiveness for instance?
Immediately one can be struck by the desirability of one more than the other, is this not so? It’s okay to feel forgiveness and not okay to feel anger. This puts us in a position of feeling that we have to choose the more favourable option, in spite of our feelings, which are also valid. One thing is certain though and shown scientifically, everything is energy and energy cannot be destroyed. So how is it possible to turn one emotion, like anger, into another emotion, like forgiveness. The answer is quite simply, you cannot! You can, however, transmute the energy of an emotion, which allows the feeling to dissipate in a healthy and conscious way.
Everything in the Universe emits a specific energy frequency. Anger and forgiveness each exist on two specific and different frequencies and on two different spectrums. To move efficiently and effectively between these different levels requires identifying or establishing a common denominator. Do you know what that is?
You!
You are always the common aspect in your life with the ability to align as you choose and process your thoughts and emotions. This requires being present in each emotion and developing your awareness of what the meaning is for you. Your emotions are your personal GPS system. Don’t let them lead you astray and allow them to control you!
Trilby Johnson is a Breakthrough Healer and Mentor, Best-Selling Author and Speaker who assists her clients to alleviate anxiety, relieve physio-emotional pain and reduce stress levels in their lives, relationships, finances, health, mindset and soul energetics and increase inner harmony and outer balance.
To explore your options for a shift in awareness and to experience breakthrough, book in with Trilby for a Breakthrough Assessment
Did you know that public speaking is one of the most frequent and strongest fears that people have? I used to be one of them and here is what I learned. My fears stemmed from memories of numerous failed and embarrassing class speeches that had gone horribly wrong. Additionally, I grew up believing that what I had to say was not interesting anyway. Plus, I hated confrontation and public speaking was the worst case scenario. Can you relate to any of this?
Consequently, for many years I would do everything I could to avoid public speaking in any form and this meant even avoiding speaking up for myself. For a long time, I denied my inner voice that was inviting me to challenge these beliefs and to stand up and speak out fearlessly!
Don’t get me wrong. I did find many creative and ‘safe’ ways of expressing myself. Unwittingly, they have helped me to build my confidence, hone my expertise and most importantly stand in my authority and explore what I am really good at and enjoy. The advent of social media, podcasts, tele-summits, blogging and self-publishing have all contributed greatly to my ‘coaching’.
A key to effective problem solving I have found – and one that addresses all aspects of an issue – is to never face a problem head on! This can create huge resistance and amplifies feelings of frustration and overwhelm and discouragement. For example, if you are driving from A to Z and on the way there is a major road block, you would look for alternative routes and ways to get there, right? Looking for alternatives and solutions is a great way to solve problems and allows other possibilities to show up, which you may not of thought of initially. So what this advent did for me, was that I was actually learning to stand up and speak out, without seeing it as public speaking! This helped removed the fear factor and look at things from a different perspective.
It’s taken many years to finally break through this pattern of fear and shift my mindset around public speaking. Funnily enough, I realized this fully when I recently gave a talk at my local library’s ‘Author’s Evening’ to introduce my book ‘FEARLESSLY ALONE‘ and talk about what had motivated me and why. Was I nervous? You bet! In fact, unusually so. Because this time I was presenting something that was important to me – it wasn’t like those classroom speeches where I spoke about someone else’s ideas – this was about issues that were close to my heart and I felt extremely vulnerable. Yet, I wanted to be able to stand up and speak out fearlessly, even if others were challenging me and didn’t agree. I wanted to present my ideas without being confrontational and yet inspire food for thought and challenge old concepts. And I did just that!
You see, I knew my material well. It was a part of me and my life experience. I was my resource library. To create the mindset I wanted, I looked at all the beliefs that surfaced and I shifted each and every one of them. I also created those I would need as a positive back up – confidence, self-worth, awareness, humour and being willing to be vulnerable. I was able to transmute the fear of judgement of others and the need to be wrong or right. I was there to express my interesting point of view, to offer food for thought and to create connection with those whom my information could support.
More importantly, all the previous online ‘training’ had been preparing me for this moment and as I took action, even feeling really nervous, I was able to connect to that place within where I know who I am and believe in myself. It was such a wonderful and empowering experience! So much so, that it has ignited a burning desire to stand up and speak out fearlessly more often. Who would have thought this was possible? Certainly not that shy and unhappy school girl from way back. It took me six years to manifest this evening and prepare myself mentally and emotionally and spiritually. It all began a long time ago, when my Heart’s Knowing whispered to me, “You can do it!”… and so can you!
Some steps you can take towards standing up and speaking out fearlessly are:
Dare to believe in your dreams, no matter how silly or far away they may seem.
Ask and be willing to receive.
Take the baby steps and actions that come with ease to you.
Change direction as required without losing sight of your destination.
Build a mindset with beliefs that support your growth and that feel good along the way.
Trust that any thing is possible and look for opportunities!
Believe in yourself!
In Light and Appreciation
Trilby
Trilby Johnson is an Emotional Breakthrough Mentor, Author and Speaker whose clients hire her to go from emotional zero to emotional hero, as they heal, alleviate stress and cultivate emotional freedom in their lives, relationships, finances, emotions, health and mindset. She shares her knowledge of how to create inner harmony and outer balance with those seeking to deepen their self-knowing and expand their consciousness.
The spiritual relationship. By its very nature, solitary and deeply personal. Where each individual is called to find the meaning of life, for themselves. The importance of the beliefs around this relationship is evidenced throughout history and through the pivotal role that religion has held. Still today, war is waged in the name of religion and spiritual salvation used as the trump card.
In Western society, freedom to choose your spiritual beliefs, is relatively recent. Yet, the desire to belong and be a part of something is very strong for most humans. When this sense of connection is under threat or lacking – especially with regards to spirituality – you can feel alone and vulnerable.
There are many diverse spiritual beliefs and groups. This can often make it seem even more challenging to find and connect with those who have similar spiritual beliefs and who share and express the same values. Making assumptions about how people with spiritual beliefs behave can also result in disillusion.
A part of being different, is celebrating the diverse qualities and talents that make us an individual. As with any situation in life, I believe how we will experience anything comes down to attitude. So if you are feeling alone in your spiritual beliefs, here are some suggestions:
1. Change your Perspective
If you are feeling that being alone is something negative, then it’s very important to question the quality, viability and source of your spiritual beliefs. The very essence of having a spiritual relationship, is meant to connect you more closely with your divine nature – with yourself. If this sense of connection is lacking, then it’s important to dig deeper. Take a look at the content of your beliefs – ask yourself if they are preventing you from enjoying your life and divine nature more? Be honest.
2. Fish out the False Beliefs
One of the primary reasons you may be feeling unfulfilled and alone when it comes to your spiritual beliefs, in my opinion, lies hidden within the misleading information we have all been fed for eons about our origins and divine nature. How this can show up is in a feeling of ‘there’s something wrong with me’ or ‘I must be from another planet, because I don’t fit in anywhere’. I believe these feelings are linked to what I call ‘the myth of separation’. Belief in this myth, whether conscious or unconscious, has left a huge scar in the human psyche. This lie has dealt a huge blow to us as a race, especially in western culture. I offer an in-depth look at the spiritual intricacies of this myth and how it leads to an unhealthy sense of being alone in my book FEARLESSLY ALONE – Stop The Lonely Crisis And Find Your Happy.
In our current evolutionary pattern, for true soul/spiritual healing to occur, resolving this false belief around being alone appears to be a necessary rite of spiritual passage. If you are ready to fully experience the sacred relationship of your divine nature – however that looks to you – then feeling unhappily alone is an indication that your spiritual beliefs need upgrading to support, not diminish, you.
3. Find a Spiritual Teacher
Look for a spiritual teacher who can help you uncover any limiting beliefs and install new supportive ones. One of the important things to realize when feeling alone, is that it is an act of self-love to ask for help. You are not meant to do it all on your own! The Universe is abundant and brimming with life-force energy. There is no way that this excludes you. Only you exclude you. Is that perhaps what makes you feel alone? Reach out your hand and ask for help to transform your body-mind-soul connection.
4. Reframe the game
Reframe how you look at feeling alone. What if, instead of it being something negative, feeling alone means you are on your way?! You have broken free of the conventional dogma that restricts so many. Simply stop judging yourself. When you follow your own intuitive guidance and inner authority faithfully, you gain confidence and comfortably make the right choices for you.
When it comes to beliefs, choose those that lift you up where you belong. Choose to be a Spiritual Warrior who stands strong and firm and All-One.
In Light and Appreciation
Trilby
Trilby Johnson is an Emotional Breakthrough Mentor, Author and Speaker whose clients hire her to go from emotional zero to emotional hero, as they heal, alleviate stress and cultivate emotional freedom in their lives, relationships, finances, emotions, health and mindset. She shares her knowledge of how to create inner harmony and outer balance with those seeking to deepen their self-knowing and expand their consciousness.
Where does your compass lead you? Does it point to struggle, doubt and ill health with sporadic spurts of happiness and clinging to hope? Or does it point to ease, health, wealth and a state of joy that is sustainable? In the film “Pirates of the Caribbeans”, Captain Jack Sparrow seeks and finds a magical compass that appears faulty as it does not point to nautical True North. What it actually directs the bearer to is their deepest desire of the moment. Once this desire is accomplished, the compass awaits a new desire to fulfill and then shows the way. In much the same way your values, both conscious and subconscious, will impact on the direction in which your compass turns. However, when you are conscious of your value system and the beliefs they fuel, you can prepare for your journey and set your priorities to have the best results. Depending on what it is you are planning on achieving, some values will shuffle around at times as priorities shift. Just like the tides.
About three and a half years ago my life hit rock bottom. I found myself penniless, barely recovered from yet another failed relationship, my business was not flourishing and in spite of a bone-weary day job, I found myself living in poverty. I was unable to pay my bills or buy food to eat and things got that bad that I was facing possible eviction. Since the age of 17 I had been independent and earning my own money and taking care of myself. So to find myself decades later in such a predicament was terrifying, shaming and utterly overwhelming. Everything I knew to try and that had worked before, no longer seemed to work or enough to get me through. My life seemingly came to a horrifying standstill. And I had run out of options! How did I turn my finances around fast, rebuild my life and regain my self-trust?
It was at this moment, in my darkest moments of despair, that in response to this question I was surprised by the simplicity of the answer, which came through loud and clear. The answer was not about money or a better job or success in my business. What I wanted and what my compass was directing me to was to have joy in my life. Period. In that moment my life shifted forever as an intense wave of joy filled every cell in my body. There was no overthinking or analyzing. I just knew what Joy was and what it felt like.
As with everything in life, it is about free will, as in choices. Once you make joy your priority, if you so choose, it will show up each time without fail, even whilst life continues to have its ups and downs. And so, I want to share at least 10 reasons for adding joy to your life.
1. Joy feels good
This may seem quite obvious, but some things can seem so obvious that they need to be said. If you have been having a hard time in life, you may feel that joy is so far away and beyond your horizon. What’s so great about feeling good – in your body, mind and soul – is that it simply feels good! You feel complete and fulfilled and successful. And joy can get you there.
2. Joy makes you laugh more
How often do you see someone who is serious or sad laugh? Not often, right? Unless it’s a bit hysterically. When you feel filled with joy you tend to laugh more. And laughter is contagious. So you and often those around you laugh more. As the saying goes, laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone. Admittedly there are those moments too, when you laugh so much that you do have tears running down your face. Tears of joy.
Laughter that is deep belly laughing is really good for your body as it creates a massage effect which is really beneficial and endorphins are released into your bloodstream. These are the body’s natural pain relief and stress release. Your body is rigged for joy!
And you feel better and good things show up easier in your life, because your vibration is more expansive and energized.
3. Joy attracts Money
Money follows Joy. Joy does not follow money. I really got this when I was penniless. The minute I connected with the feeling and state of joy, within 10 days I had shifted my situation. New prospects showed up and my finances started to increase. There are so many intertwined and associated beliefs floating around out there about money and very few of them are linked to joy. Hold a joy party or do something fun and then money and other great things begin to flow in, with ease.
Feeling good, having a raised vibration and laughing a lot means that money cannot be far away, because that’s how energy moves. Energy will always expand. And joy is expansive. If you don’t believe me, just think of how much energy it takes to remain grumpy. Then observe what happens with your money flow!
4. Joy is healthy
The effects of stress on the human body are becoming more and more evident. For so long, and still, stress is not ‘officially’ recognized. The symptoms however cannot be ignored. So many people live with bad health and mostly they are miserable for it. Your health is your wealth and wealth means joy. When you are wealthy you are able to do as you please and well hopefully enjoy yourself. There is an ease to life that may not be there minus wealth. You only have to catch a simple cold or flu to understand the impact of not being healthy. Your body is amazingly resilient and strong and yet it can also be extremely fragile. Joy can turn health into wealth just like that!
Dr. Patch Adams worked on helping terminally ill patients and others to laugh and although many in the medical sector squashed his work, there is no doubt that it had a huge impact in shifting a lot of the pain and suffering of the people he came into contact with. Laughter everyday keeps the doctor away. And it raises the quality of your health.
5. Joy makes joy
When you consciously choose to add joy to your life, you just enjoy life more and guess what. More joyous things show up. Everything in the Universe is made up of vibration so to have a particular quality show up in your life, for example success, abundance, health, you have to vibrate as that quality, so that success, abundance, health can match that consciousness. Joy raises your vibration and you begin to feel good.
Joy is expansive and feels like you are in love, all of the time and with everything, not just one person. It is a warm thrumming and sense of excitement at the beginning of each day and falling asleep with gratitude and appreciation as your last feelings of the day. For so many, living life this way may seem like a fantasy because we are so far removed from these emotion of lightness and vibrancy. Joy knows no bounds. There are simply variations in intensity.
6. Joy motivates
Often the opposite of fear is thought of as love. I found that joy is a more powerful opposite. Fear inhibits and this is often felt as a heaviness or uncomfortable feeling. Some people say that fear motivates them. Perhaps yes, but where is the vibration around fear – high or low? Fear is more about moving away from a situation or other, rather than a movement towards.
Joy is a motivator. Joy is a sense of energized excitement and also a constant certainty. That everything is simply wonderful and okay as it is. For me, joy embraces and embodies love and peace at the same time. It’s excitingly whole and very comforting. And I feel inspired and motivated to have and do bigger and better, to see what other possibilities lie beyond this joy.
7. Joy inspires interest
Have you ever noticed how you are naturally drawn to happier people? There are just some people who are really pleasant to be around. They make you feel that everything in life is okay and that you are special. When you are living in joy, this is what you appear like to others. People want to be with you and they want to know what it is you have or are doing that makes you so wonderful to be around. The amazing part is that you are so filled with joy that this is really not important to you because you feel fulfilled and find everything interesting in your own right.
8. Joy creates connection
Joy expands and creates connection. The more you choose to have and be joyful, the more shows up. And very quickly. Even when not so great things show up in life, as soon as you think, where is the joy? Ta da, it is there. There is also a very strong physical sensation afforded by joy. Joy is actually a strong physical feeling. It really grounds you in your body and your body responds instantly with more energy and awareness. You are connected to higher vibrational fields.
9. Joy is freedom
When you get to the point of living each moment of your life with joy, regardless of the nature of what is going on in your life, then you are free from control. Your own and others. Joy is extremely powerful and resilient in a very flexible sort of way. It sweeps up everything that it comes across and transforms it. There is very little that stands up against joy – not for very long anyway.
10. Joy is your natural state
What this means is, you are meant to feel joy most of the time. My experience has show me how natural joy is. I have never had to work at being joyful. It’s not like happiness, hope, being positive. That takes work. Joy doesn’t, because it’s natural and organic. Once you choose to make feeling joy your priority, you will be amazed at how easily it starts to show up. When I was in that space years ago, this is what I experienced. As soon as I thought of joy, voila! The feeling was there. My mind and my body knew what it was! Isn’t that amazing? Things like happiness seem so hard to connect to and yet there I was at the worst part in my life and I felt joy.
Since that moment, whenever life is a bit tough or there is a situation that I wish to shift to another level, I ask myself, where is my joy? What shows up is immediate and unmistakable. Just like that magical compass. Joy makes whatever the situation seem easy and organic. And it makes me wonder what life would like if more people experience this daily and on an amplified level.
When enough people experience and live in a state of joy more and more, there will be sufficient critical mass to create a pivotal point and shift for everyone. And then there will be a new foundation that stems from joy on which to build a new and exciting future. And then, you can begin to live the life you were born to live. A joyful experience better than anything you can imagine.
Once you begin to look for ways in which to add more joy into your life and to pay attention to the places where it shows up naturally, you will see and experience life through different eyes. Don’t take my word for it! Use these points as guidelines and ask joy to show up in your life and then be open to how it shows up.
I found that my compass was set for Joy and I didn’t even know it until that moment when I had been stripped of my false beliefs. My adventure has been exhilarating and most rewarding. I have personally experienced these 10 benefits and that is how I know they are real. Wherever you find yourself in your life, allow yourself to open up to the possibility and invitation of joy. You owe it to yourself.
Here’s to your unlimited supply of joy.
In Light.
Trilby
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Trilby Johnson is an Emotional Breakthrough Mentor, Author and Speaker whose clients hire her to go from emotional zero to emotional hero, as they heal, alleviate stress and cultivate emotional freedom in their lives, relationships, finances, emotions, health and mindset. She shares her knowledge of how to create inner harmony and outer balance with those seeking to deepen their self-knowing and expand their consciousness.
Everywhere you are being “nice” in your life, would you like to give that up now please? I can’t hear you, so I am just going to assume that you chose to say “yes”. If you did not, well then the rest of this blog will probably not be of interest to you.
It was recently brought home to me that my whole life I have been striving to be nice. Of course underlying this was the fear of rejection and not being good enough. I have bent, twisted, contorted, deformed myself in so many ways to try and please others and to be nice, so that I would be ……….. accepted and acceptable. Well, not only did all those contortions bring me aches and pains, however they left me in a state of disrepair and disconnection with myself. I thought that if I could be nice enough to everyone then, I would be acceptable and ultimately loved and lovable. For me, NICE meant – Not into Conflicting Energy.
I spent many years of my life confused as to why despite my niceness, people still did not respond or treat me like I wanted them to. Nothing manipulative in that train of thought now is there? So, not so nice after all 🙂
A while ago whilst listening to a talk, the speaker mentioned volcanoes and how volcanoes are the only way in which new earth mass is created. Now there is enormous conflicting energy when a volcano erupts, as the very layers of the earth are melted and ejected through the earth crust. And this gives rise to new territory. How many people shy away from conflict because it gives rise to confrontation and haven’t most of us been taught that that is not very nice!
An empath, I feel conflicting energies very keenly and this has caused me much confusion until recently. I thought, that if I was nice and people responded in an un-nice way, well then I was the root of all evil and it was my fault. I would try even harder to be nice to them and ostracise myself at the same time for not being “good enough”. I took the notion of responsability to the extreme, where my 50% of the interaction equalled 100%. STOP! This was brought home to me recently in a way that I really got it. (That’s why I am writing this blog). Whilst being polite and respectful whilst in a training situation, I observed that my questioning was being regarded as a sign of “stupidity”. Now that’s not nice. So what could I do to change this?
Well, I am happy to say, that I have chosen to exacerbate the situation even more by being me – that includes the good, the bad and the ugly. I am going to be so irritating with my questions and feed the idea that I am stupid. I actually find it extremely humourous! Why? I for some strange reason jumped to the assumption that people actually are interested in connecting with others and getting to know them, that a supervisor really wants to support and build up others, to find fulfilment in their own daily lives, and that others’ aim in life is to be nice. Isn’t that NICE?! All that is nice about it, is that it made a not so nice ass out of me. I assumed that everyone else was like me and wanted what I did. Oops. The only one like me is ………… me. So what to do?
Happily, I finally grew tired enough of wanting to please everyone and have handed back others their 50%. People are choosing to be what they are. Nothing I do or say can change that. All I know is that I have to live my life for me. Each Soul does not actually care whether the personality is a nice or not nice one. Did Hitler’s Soul judge him? I doubt it. For the Soul everything is simply an experience of being. How are we to understand cruelty and murder and genocide if we do not go there? Yet our personality likes to pretend and judge and well, as far as I am concerned gets us in a not so nice mess. I am not condoning certain behaviour more than any other and can only add the reminder that when we point the finger, there are more fingers pointing back at us.
There is no way that I can ever please everyone. I am lucky if I manage to please even 5% of the people that I interact with in my life time – and yes this does include family members 🙂 How can I not be disliked and rejected? The odds are stacked up against me regardless, or are they? What if I can find freedom within these odds? If the odds of my pleasing others is so low, well this gives me the freedom to do and be who I like, simple because I will never please sufficient numbers anyway and hell, I might as well be getting what I desire out of my life whilst I am living it, no?! Today, NICE means Now In Concious Expansion. What others think of me, is none of my business and whether I am included or excluded matters not, because I always will be in the best of company, if I choose it now – my own. I Am everything, the good, the bad and the ugly. I Am the Enlightenment that I Am.
I Am Now in Conscious Expansion. For those of you who wish to journey beside me – welcome and fasten your seat belt. As for the rest, enjoy your expansion.
All I know is, that’s the way this NICE cooky crumbles …………….
