We have all heard it’s important to feel our feelings. Understanding what you feel is an important part of the healing process. The simple act of observing and naming your emotion helps it dissipate.
While there is a lot of focus on understanding and processing your feelings, I like to use emotion in a different way.
Emotion can be used on purpose
Remember a painful moment. Maybe something from your middle school days, those seem to always have the most charge. Can’t you still feel the emotion? Even though it’s not happening in the present moment. Even though it happened many years ago, you can still bring up the emotion. That’s because your brain doesn’t know the difference between imagination and reality. All you need to do is THINK about something and it creates and emotion.
Our thoughts create emotions, not events or circumstances.
This means that you can create any emotion you want to experience simply by thinking of something specific. I am not saying that emotions aren’t real or that you shouldn’t feel the negative ones. You absolutely should always allow yourself to be present to whatever is there for you, that is part of healing. Understanding that emotions come from thoughts can help you see that your emotion is in your power.
How I Used Emotion To Create
When we first lived together Phil and I lived in a 1,000 sq foot apartment near the beach. It was perfect for us at that time in our life. Then we got married and had a baby. Life happened so fast that even though we wanted to move it was never a good time. As Joaquin grew so did his toys and all the baby stuff. We were outgrowing our little apartment and I was feeling desperate about it. I was trying to manifest a new place for us but the emotion I was feeling was trapped, stuck, and constrained. If like attracts like, then my frequency was doing nothing but attracting more of feeling trapped, stuck, and constrained.
When I took a step back and asked myself, what is it that I want to feel from finding a new place to live? For me predominant feeling was spaciousness. I also wanted to feel freedom and security. I believed that moving would help me feel those feelings. I realized I was doing it backwards. I was hoping that the circumstance would change how I felt. The Law of Attraction works in the opposite way though.
You need to feel the emotion first and that’s how you attract the circumstance.
Initially, I was like, “ok how the heck do I practice feeling spacious? Especially when I feel so trapped?” Turns out this was a bigger lesson for me. I was raised in a culture where you try to stay out of the way. I am also a small person (5 feet tall). I started to realize how I spend a lot of my time, trying to shrink myself so other people have more room. I was very accommodating. I did this physically and energetically. I am on the quiet side and have a lot of friends that are fiery center of attention types, which I love being around, but it’s another way that I shrink myself.
These were big realizations for me. I started to allow myself to take up more room in the world. I let myself stretch and spread out whenever I could. I practiced observing how much room I actually had but never took advantage of it before. Even when I was outside I would just observe how spacious it all was.
I was embodying the emotion of spaciousness.
And guess what?
Magic happened.
At this point I had already wanted to move for a few years but we had actively been looking for a year. Once I started my spaciousness practice, it all happened very quickly. One day I got a call from my bestie, Jojo. She was at a play date and the family was moving. Jojo had a lightbulb moment and thought this place would be great for Carmen. She (politely) asked what the rent was. It was in our price range, which for the neighborhood was an insane deal. The other synchronicity was that I had been to this home before and I remember thinking that I would be happy in a place like it. Well, everything unfolded very quickly after that an we were moving a month later!
How YOU Can Use Emotion To Create
Once you know what it is you want, observe how you believe it would make you feel. Use a one word emotion, be as specific as possible. Go deeper than “happy.” Then practice thinking thoughts that make you feel that way. Ask yourself the question, “how can I feel this way now?”
For example if you are looking for a romantic partner you might want to feel loved. You can find ways to feel loved now, you can practice loving yourself, or have an affirmation, “I am loved.”
If you are wanting to find an amazing career or grow the one you have you might want to feel satisfied or fulfilled. Look for ways to feel satisfied and fulfilled in the present moment. Maybe it’s being on your couch reading a great book, just acknowledging that you feel satisfied and fulfilled and how good it feels.
- Know what you want
- Pick the emotions you believe it will make you feel (safe, secure, loved, etc)
- Practice feeling that way through observation and thoughts
- Keep asking yourself, “how can I feel this way now?”
What emotions are you practicing?