The Danger Of Thinking And Feeling

I learned this morning one more time - how important it is to pay attention to my thoughts and feelings. It happened as I was looking at the barriers I've put up to 'receiving'. I was curious to know why I don't receive more love, more success, etc. I knew I must be blocking so much of what I could be experiencing. I guess they're filters, really, more than barriers. And I have many of them. I call them filters because everyone receives, to a certain extent. We wouldn't be alive if we completely shut down our ability to receive. I compare it to breathing. I must receive oxygen to stay alive. Likewise, I must receive energy from what I call the emotional wellspring. It's a flow of energy that becomes my emotions; my thoughts and my feelings. And I am always receiving this flow. Anyway, for most of my life, I turned this flow of energy into a whole bunch of shame. I was obsessed and absorbed with my Big Lie: "There's something fundamentally wrong with me and I can't be fixed." That statement permeated every single part of my life - from who I was, to everything I did. I was very good at 'receiving' shame. Fortunately, those days have mostly ended. Now if I feel a little shame, it's like: "Oh, wow. Look! I'm feeling a little shame. How cute. Well, let me respond to it..." Until this morning, I really didn't believe it was affecting me much anymore. I was meditating. Often, I go to what I call my personal sphere of understanding. It's a glowing white sphere - highly differentiated - and appears to be filled with what looks like nerve cells, or brain cells. Millions of them, all interlaced in a sphere. Surrounded by a thick cortex of something - I'm not sure what. I visualize myself going into this sphere almost daily - as a way to understand more about myself and the world around me. As much as possible, I ' become' the sphere. Today, I brought in the topic of receiving. I saw I had many layers of resistance to receiving. Okay. "Start from where you are", as I always say. "What's the first barrier?" "A layer of envy???" "Ugh! I hate envy!" Oh, there's a clue right there...! So - I found a layer of envy that surrounded me and blocked me from receiving more. It looked like - well, you know what a dried-up pond looks like? The ground gets all cracked and hard and dried out and so forth? Well, in my case, the envy was caused by all those thoughts and feelings of shame I'd been living with for decades. The ones I didn't process (by feeling and releasing them) but instead I shoved 'em down - denied them - rejected them. The ones that were too ugly and painful to look at. And here's one of the places they went to: a prickly barrier that effectively blocked me from receiving more love and joy and abundance and power and all the other wonderful things of life. Not that I'm miserable these days... But still, I'm missing out on what I could be experiencing. And I got a vivid picture of what happens when I don't feel and release my thoughts and feelings: They formed a hard, prickly barrier that surrounded me and kept out so much 'goodness'. Well, I quickly got about the business of forgiving myself, so I could effectively remove this barrier, or filter (whatever you want to call it). After forgiving myself, it practically crumbled under its own weight. A filter of shame and envy that had been there for decades. And I never even knew it was there until an hour ago! And on the other side was what appeared to be pink, tender, skin. I can't wait for it to 'callous up' so I can see what the next filter is! But here's the point for you to keep in mind: Those thoughts and feelings you deny (perhaps because they're so repulsive, or scary, or politically incorrect, or whatever) really do go somewhere. And they can affect you for the rest of your life. I saw that today - more clearly and profoundly than ever before.