Control

I’ve been using the Sedona Method technique of emotional releasing for a while now and I’ve found it immensely helpful. It’s the simplest, easiest way I’ve yet come across for releasing negative emotions. What’s especially interesting is that whenever you feel bad, you are urged to trace the emotion back to one of four underlying WANTS: wanting control, wanting approval, wanting security or wanting to be separate.

I’ve found it amazing that just about every negative emotion can be traced to a basic sense of wanting control. It seems to me that at a core, fundamental level, human beings (or more specifically, human egos) are control-freaks. However subtly or overtly this manifests itself, we’re in the business of wanting control just about everything, just about all the time.

I suppose from the moment we’re born we learn that to get our needs met we have to try to control our environment and those around us. When we’re hungry or uncomfortable or have a poopy nappy, we don’t hesitate to make our discomfort known - and the louder the better. This in itself is a basic means of control, because we quickly learn that crying gets us what we need. The art of control is thus learned at a very young age and as we grow up, it continues to develop in an infinite number of ways. Life, and other people, are seen as things that we have to control in order to get our needs met and in order to be happy.

It’s not until we stop and think about it that we realise the countless ways in which we try to control our environment, our lives and other people. Sometimes the ways in which we desire to control things are quite obvious, whereas other times they are so subtle as to be imperceptible. But, make no mistake, it’s going on all the time!

From the moment we wake up in the morning (which is normally controlled with the aid of our alarm clock), we enter each situation in our daily lives with an agenda. We want to do and achieve certain things and we want situations, meetings and transactions to go a certain way, so we invest a great deal of effort to ensure that’s what happens. We want people to treat us a certain way, so we spend inordinate amounts of time and energy trying to control them and influence how they respond to us.

If we look closely enough, we can see how we try to control virtually aspect of our lives: from our bodies, health, appearance, diet and sleep patterns to our activities, jobs and careers and our relationships, social standing and the opinions of other people. What is the average human life, if not an exercise in extreme control-freakery?

Now I suppose you could argue that it’s necessary to try to control such things, otherwise our lives would spiral out of control and implode in a catastrophe of chaos and disorder. That’s the way the ego sees it and that’s how it justifies its pathological need to try and micro-manage the universe.

But I’ve come to see that control is ultimately an illusion.

It’s a fiction the mind gets hooked into, a mode of functioning that underlies every nuance of its operating software. It fails to see that its perpetual attempts to control are akin to a hamster running in a wheel. No matter how much energy and effort it invests in trying to control every aspect of life, it’s not going to get you that far.

Because just how much can we actually control in life? Honestly?

I’d argue that ultimately there’s very little we really have control over. As valiantly as we might try, we can’t control other people - at least not completely, and not all the time. Aside from ensuring we give it the proper fuel, rest and exercise it needs, we don’t control our bodies; our bodies do what they do and they’re inevitably going to get grow old and die. We don’t have much, if any, control over our environment and culture, or the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

And here’s the thing: the more we try to control anything, the more we suffer.

We suffer when we don’t get what we want. And we often suffer just as much when we do get what we want. Perhaps this is because we’ve created so much tension and resistance in ourselves that we’re unable to relax enough to enjoy the fruits of our labours. In any case, the mind is rarely satisfied with what it’s got and is immediately ready to fixate on its next object of conquest. It’s a vicious cycle. The more we control, the more we’re dissatisfied and the more we suffer.

Yet letting go of control is a truly heinous notion to most people. The thought of being out of control is unthinkable and is tantamount to a kind of death (and it is a kind of death in a way; death of the ego!). Yet if we take an honest look at the ways in which we try to control life, the ultimate futility of our efforts, and the way it causes us pain, we might find the courage to adopt a totally radical and quite revolutionary approach: letting go of our control over life.

What I’ve discovered is that the moment I let go of wanting to control anything, I feel free and at peace. I believe letting go of the need to control is one of the greatest keys to freedom and peace of mind. Paradoxically, when I know that I’m not in control of life, I feel at one with life and things just seem to flow; no stress, no worry, no resistance!

Whenever I feel bad, or whenever things have become sticky and messy, it’s usually attributable to trying to impose control on things. This has happened with my physical health. The more I’ve tried to improve my health, the more determined I’ve been to get better and the more regimented I’ve been with my diet, supplements, and so forth, the worse I’ve actually become. I can only assume it’s because the more we struggle with things, the more tension and resistance we create within us. This tends to close us down, cutting us off from the innate flow of life, whereas when we relinquish the need to control, it releases tension and promotes lightness, ease and flow.

I invite everyone to experiment with letting go of their need to control life. If something’s been causing you pain or suffering, it’s a sure sign that instead of trying to exert more control over the situation, you need to do the opposite and practise letting go. It’s so simple yet miraculous in the way it shifts our energy and reconnects us with our innate sense of wellbeing and flow. At the very least, whether the situation changes or not, you’ll experience a deep sense of relief, release and inner peace. But don’t take my word for it - try it for yourself!

When we let go of our attempts to control life, life takes over: and life can do things infinitely better than our precious little egos ever could. It’s as though a deeper intelligence springs into action and gets things back into balance again. When we’re no longer creating obstructions (and our obstructions almost always originate in the mind), things naturally settle themselves and come into harmony. This can be seen in nature. As long as there are no obstructions, a lake remains placid and still, for that is its nature. Our attempts to control creates waves in the water, shattering the calm and stirring up all kinds of muck and debris. Pretty soon the water is choppy and muddy, as a result of our desperation to impose our will. Just letting go is enough to allow the water to naturally balance and settle itself. There’s nothing we need to do. Why not let go of control as much as you possibly can and allow life to flow? You might be amazed at the results.

“Let go of your hold on life and allow life to simply flow around and through you.” John C Parkin

Ahhhhhh. The sense of relief is amazing!

Awakening - a painful process

“Make no mistake about it - enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretence. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imaged to be true.” Adyashanti

I think there’s a widespread notion that becoming enlightened or awakening is a smooth and joyful process, a kind of ever-expanding state of love, light and bliss. At times it maybe is, but that’s not the entirely of it. In spirituality, I think there’s a tendency to cling to positive feeling-states and use them as a means to evade the nasty stuff that’s still lurking deep within our psyche.

This kind of evasion is what is sometimes referred to as a ‘spiritual bypass’ and is, I think, the reason that a lot of people are initially drawn to spiritual pursuits. They use it as a way to circumvent the pain that’s deep within them, the fears, the ravaging self-doubt and the residue of emotional pain from the past.

It maybe works for a while, as well. We become ‘spiritual’ and for a time our attention is shifted away from the black ball of pain that’s lodged somewhere deep within and we feel better, brighter, happier. The problem is, aversion tactics don’t work in the long-run. They don’t remove the underlying unease and unrest, they just temporarily mask it over.

Of course, it’s not just spirituality that people use as means of distraction and denial - some more common ‘weapons of mass distraction’ are addictive use of alcohol, drugs, social interaction, sex and compulsive mental stimuli such as an overabundance of television watching, computer game playing, internet surfing and anything else that keeps us as occupied as possible so we never actually have to feel what’s within.

I think that we all have this black cloud of fear and pain lodged somewhere deep within. My feeling is that it starts the moment we’re born and are forcibly yanked from oneness into a strange and unsettling world of separation, in which we have very real survival needs that must be met and the inevitability of occasional (or, if we’re unfortunate, sustained) pain and suffering. Something deep within us tightly constricts - we become aware on a deep, instinctual level of potential danger and the possibility of annihilation. This primordial, unconscious fear remains within us our entire life, like a tightly clenched fist in our gut, a continual reminder that we are potentially at threat in any and every moment. This fear is at the core of our sense of self and is possibly a biological survival mechanism.

As we go through life, experiencing various hurts and pain, a residue of this pain forms around this core fear. Layer after layer of pain develops, until the black ball gets larger and larger. It gets so large that we begin to mistake it as being who we are. A large proportion of people’s actions are motivated by this mechanism and the desire to avoid future pain and discomfort. This is what Eckhart Tolle calls the ‘pain body’, the accumulation of past pain within us. It’s dormant sometimes, but can easily get triggered and take us over, dramatically colouring our thoughts, perceptions and behaviour. Different people seem to have different key feelings that glue their black ball together: for some it’s fear, for others it might be a sense of unworthiness, abandonment or anger. The circumstances of our lives can trigger this mechanism at any time and set in motion all kinds of subsidiary programs and conditioning.

No one likes to confront the darkness that’s within. I think most people are unconsciously aware of it, but they do anything they can to avoid feeling it. We have this black lump of crap at the core of our psyche and we spend our entire lives both running from it and disguising it as best we can. We try to cover it in paint and make-up, masking it with more and more things, achievements and possessions in order to fill the void. We distract ourselves from it in sometimes the most destructive of ways. For many people, ‘being spiritual’ is just another way of running from the black void within. Most spiritual seekers think they’re seeking enlightenment or whatever, but I see now that most the time we’re just trying to escape the pain that’s within.

Avoidance and aversion are never the answer. I no longer see enlightenment or spiritual awakening as I used to. I used to buy into the notion that it’s something that you add to yourself, an experience of perpetual bliss and peace and knowing. But now I see it differently. I’m not saying this is the final understanding I’ll have on the subject, and I’m always open to shifting perceptions and deeper understandings, but I now see that there’s no way we can ever be enlightened. The ‘we’ I’m referring to is, of course, ego. The ego that seeks enlightenment can never be enlightened, because enlightenment is a shifting of awareness beyond the illusory chimera of ego. There’s nothing to ‘add’ to ourselves. We are already the totality. Perhaps awakening is nothing more than the realisation of this.

Going back to the original quote by Adyashanti (who is one of the clearest teachers on this trickiest of subjects), I can now see the truth of this. Awakening is NOT about achieving extraordinary states of bliss and light. It’s not something that we add to ourselves. It’s more a process of excavation and eradication. It’s the shedding of layers upon layers of masks, stories, beliefs and conditioning. Instead of continually polishing, painting and trying to disguise the black ball that resides at the core of our psyche, we meet it head on.

We begin peeling back the layers and moving deeper and deeper into it. The more we deny and repress it, the more it grows. I know it’s a cliche, but there’s never been a truer one: the only way out IS through. It’s a painful process, confronting our deepest fears and most intense emotional pain. But each layer has to be acknowledged and felt, although it’s also important not to get stuck in it, as some people might have a tendency to do this. Bringing our conscious awareness into it, we can feel it fully and then let it go, moving to the next level. It takes great courage to face our pain and fears like this. Once you’ve started, there’s no going back, only forward. We must persevere as we move deeper and deeper, through layers of fear, anxiety, terror, grief, loss and hurt.

When we move right into the core of this black void, we encounter something inexplicable. I’m almost hesitant to speak of it, because it’s maybe something everyone needs to discover for themselves. But at the core of all these encrusted layers of sediment...is something extraordinary. Well, that’s actually not true. It’s more like nothing, but it is extraordinary. At the deepest core of all this crap is a vast expanse of openness, emptiness, expansiveness. There’s nothing there -- and yet this vast nothing is simultaneously everything. There’s just pure Being; unconditioned awareness, a sense of vast and intangible intelligence and conscious prior to any identification with form or thought. If you’ve experienced this state of being before you’ll know what I’m referring to. If not, you’ll probably be scratching your head about now, utterly perplexed. That’s all right too.

From this core state of simple Being (and I’m on shaky ground here, because words are really inadequate when it comes to putting these experiences into language), we can begin to see through all the pain and fear. It was all based on a misidentification with form. It was based on the illusion that what we are is anything other than this vast, intangible, infinite ocean of awareness. The identifications of mind, ego and conditioning quickly dissolve into this endless ocean of nothing/everything. Tracing consciousness back to its source and being rooted in this primordial sense of ‘I am’ (which exists prior to notions of ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’), is the method of self-enquiry as recommended by two of the spiritual giants of the 20th century, Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj. Nisargadatta called this the ultimate medicine - nothing else is needed. All problems, all fears and pain tend to dissolve when we trace our consciousness back to its root (at least this has been the case in my experience, which is all I can really speak from).

Of course, it’s unlikely that you will remain in this state of being forever more. We have bodies and minds and we have to function in this world, so of course we’re going to come back into our ordinary state of consciousness. What happens then, I can only speak for myself. Each time I move into the state of pure being, I feel it dissolves a little more of the illusions and pain I’ve carried within for so long. Sometimes it’s as though the black ball of fear/pain disappears completely. Even if it doesn’t, it rarely seems quite as dense and impenetrable as it was previously. I think that each time you touch the realm of being, you bring a little of it back with you. It has a transmuting, healing quality. Sometimes it stays with you a long time, sometimes just a few moments. Maybe at some point it with remain as an abiding awareness, but it’s best just to accept the process as it unfolds. There’s no need to understand, grasp or cling.

There is no goal to achieve this, and I don’t believe there should be a goal to get rid of the black ball within. The moment we have a goal, we create a resistance within us and we tend to create additional blocks. I don’t recommend this process to everyone. Many probably aren’t ready or willing. It’s fine that they keep doing whatever they’ve been doing, distracting themselves with TV and alcohol. I can’t do that. It’s like I’ve come so far that I no longer have the option of going back.

The ego hates this stuff, because it often ends up in tatters, limping about in the corners of the psyche, broken and battered, quietly plotting ways to reassert itself as it wipes its bloody nose. It’s free to do it’s stuff. There’s a deeper process at work, in all of us. And that’s all it is - a process. It happens, a lot of the time unbidden. We’re drawn to do what we do, what feels right in the moment. The right pointers and teachings appear at the right moment. It might seem like we are, but it’s ultimately a fallacy to think that WE’RE doing anything. The process does itself. We are just a process!

The pain drives us either outward seeking distraction, or it compels us inward, to find its source. Pain is perhaps our greatest teacher and healer. Uncomfortable though it is, it’s certainly not the enemy. It’s pulling us back to ourselves, to what we truly are. It’s the mechanism that invites us to wake up from the dream we’ve been living. We’ve been fighting and resisting it all these years, but perhaps pain is a vital component of this thing we call enlightenment or awakening...

Sedona Method: How to quickly release negative emotions!

I wanted to share about a technique that I’ve found hugely effective at shifting all kinds of negative feelings and emotions, from the superficial surface-level ones to those deep and sticky ones that seem to bubble under the surface for years on end.

It’s called the Sedona Method and it’s actually been around for over 30 years, although I must confess I hadn’t heard much about it. The name was vaguely familiar, but I’d never taken the time to check it out. But, oh boy, I’m glad that I did! It has been hugely helpful in so many ways and it is the essence of simplicity itself.

At the moment, it’s EFT that’s all the rage (Emotional Freedom Technique - a systematic system of tapping various points on the body in order to clear blocked emotions). However, having practised both, I have to say I find the Sedona Method far better: it’s much easier, simpler and you can do it absolutely anywhere at any time and no one will be any the wiser. Try doing EFT in front of your boss at work or on the bus and it’s surely only a matter of time before they’ll have the doctors in white coats knocking on your door.

The Sedona Method is almost ridiculously simple - but it works. As a species, we humans are incredibly emotionally retarded. We simply don’t know how to deal with the ‘bad feelings’ that come up. It’s not something we’ve ever been taught. And so we either suppress them and numb ourselves out with any of the Weapons of Mass Distraction (which include alcohol, drugs and any number of excessive and addictive behaviours even as seemingly harmless as compulsive TV watching and internet surfing) or we blindly react to them, often in very destructive and harmful ways.

I’m absolutely certain that there would be little problem in our society with drugs or violence if people were better educated in how to deal with their emotions. We’re a species of dysfunctional, emotional cripples and this really has to change if we’re to continue living upon this planet without blowing ourselves to smithereens.

I've always found Buddhist psychology far more 'switched on' when it comes to dealing with emotions, than anything else I've come across. I’ll never forget Thich Nhat Hanh’s admission that, instead of ignoring or denying or unconsciously reacting to our emotional state, we must instead befriend it and treat it as a young infant crying out for attention. If we bring our attention to it, our compassion and kindness, holding it in our awareness and cradling it like an upset child, it gradually lessens its hold and dissolves into peace. The light of our awareness - conscious, sustained awareness - is what heals emotion.

Also extremely helpful are Eckhart Tolle’s teachings on what he calls “the pain body”, the accumulated past pain that lives on within us as a kind of energy field, and which can be triggered by even the slightest event which might resonate with that past pain (such as issues of grief, fear or abandonment). This pain body can completely take us over, colouring our entire view of the world, of ourselves and others, making us behave like wounded animals, creating dysfunction in all aspects of our lives and relationships. Again, he recommends that the only way to heal this repository of emotional pain is to bring our conscious attention to it. Awareness changes whatever it touches. It heals. But it can take a long time and a lot of sustained, directed attention to dissolve some of the more deeply-ingrained emotional scars within us.

The Sedona Method works on this premise, and it works astonishingly quickly. I highly recommend the book ‘The Sedona Method’ by Hale Dwoskin. It’s a complete and comprehensive course on how to use the method yourself. I like the fact that this book isn’t simply some big advertisement which tells you all about the benefits of the technique and then on the last page tells you that in order to learn it you’ll have to sign up for some horrendously expensive course or an over-priced set of CDs. On the contrary, the book leads you through the entire process.

You can learn the technique in two minutes flat, but the book goes on to show you deeper and deeper ways to use it, to clear out all the emotional muck that’s been creating havoc in your life. It has worked wonders for me, and I’ve been teaching my family to use it as well. It never fails to work. I truly believe that this is the kind of thing that needs to be taught in schools.

You can try it now.

Identify something that’s causing you emotional pain, be it grief, fear, disappointment, hurt, jealousy, anger, or whatever it might be.

The process works by asking yourself a set of specific questions which lead you to simply release that feeling. How do you release it? This is actually something that happens quite naturally and spontaneously. If you pick up a burning hot object such as a lump of smouldering coal, how do you let go of it? You just do. You just drop it. You don’t even need to think about it. How do you let go of a negative emotion that is causing you immense emotional pain? You just do. You just drop it. You don’t even need to think about it. The moment you consciously decide to let it go and to stop holding onto it, it just disperses. The sensation is one of sudden relief and lightness, like releasing a tightly-clenched fist.

Here is the process. Try it yourself, right now.

1. Identify something that’s causing you to be upset. Ask yourself: what am I feeling, right in this moment, about this issue? It might be a strong feeling or a subtle feeling, or a mixture of feelings. Try to identify what it is, but keep mental discussion and rumination to a minimum. Stay focussed on the emotion and where you feel it in the body.
2. Ask yourself: could I allow myself to welcome this feeling? Most the time we strenuously resist feeling bad, but for this process it’s vital to welcome the feeling, no matter how painful. Allow it to be. Embrace it with your awareness and allow yourself to REALLY move into it and feel it. Witness the energy of this feeling.
3. Next, ask yourself: could I let this feeling go? Allow a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to come. No matter the answer, proceed to the next step.
4. Ask yourself: am I willing to let it go? Avoid mental debate, just see what answer comes up within you. If the answer is ‘yes’, proceed to step 5. If ‘no’, then ask yourself would I rather have this feeling, or would I rather be free? Work with this until you get a ‘yes’ answer or else proceed to step 5 anyway.
5. The last question is, to simply ask yourself: When? This is an invitation to let it go NOW. You may find yourself easily releasing it.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 as often as needed until you feel free of the initial feeling you wanted to clear.

If you find it difficult to clear something, then it might help to give yourself permission to hold onto it for a minute. Allow it to be there, in your attention for a while longer, until you move on to release it. Sometimes we have unconscious attachments to our feelings, even the ones that are causing us immense suffering. Bringing awareness to this and seeing the insanity of it really helps us dissolve that attachment. In any moment we can choose to hold onto our pain, or we can choose to be free.

Now, some people might say that to simply blast away our feelings like this is a bad thing, that our feelings are part of who we are. Whilst they can sometimes be helpful messengers, it is a grave mistake to think our feelings are ‘who’ we are or can tell us anything about who we are. The majority of the time they are simply the body’s reaction to the content of our mind and the thoughts we are thinking. To invest emotions with a sense of self is a dangerous thing, for when we become attached to our feelings - however painful they might be - we become chained to them and they literally sap the life energy out of us. It’s a perfect recipe for a life of misery.

Emotion might be thought of as energy in motion (e-motion). Like clouds in the sky, they drift by, ever changing. Emotions are not a problem in themselves, but when we get ‘stuck’ on them, and caught up in a certain emotional reaction, it creates a blockage in our system which will eventually lead to all kinds of mental, emotional and physical problems. So if you find yourself particularly attached to a certain emotion or emotional reaction/pattern, then this is a warning sign and an indication that you most certainly need to let go of it. It’s likely that you’ve invested a sense of ‘self’ in the emotion and this will create all kinds of imbalance and problems, as well as skewing your entire perception of reality. It’s important to be willing to release that emotion now...or even just to allow yourself to release your attachment to it.

Some might argue that it’s important for us to hold onto our grievances and anger, believing that without them we wouldn’t have the impetus to take action in life, or to tackle situations that require change. Letting go of our painful emotions does not make us less effective in life, however. On the contrary, it makes us infinitely more effective. It’s natural to be angry and upset at certain situations but the longer we remain choked by those emotional reactions, the more we tend to perpetuate and even worsen the situation.

Action is far more effective when it comes from a place of peace and balance, as opposed to anger, resentment and knee-jerk emotional reaction. That’s why I’m learning that when something upsets me, it’s important to first release the emotion and THEN take whatever action I can to change the situation. This enables us to be more effective and balanced in everything that we do instead of being walking tornadoes of emotional chaos and unrest.

To take this process a little deeper, you can trace each emotion back to one or more of the four underlying WANTS. Every emotional reaction that we have can be traced to wanting approval, wanting control, wanting security or wanting to be separate. Sometimes it’s a combination of these.

So, for each feeling that you are dealing with, ask yourself: what underlies this feeling? Is it wanting approval, wanting control, wanting security or wanting to be separate? Again, look for an intuitional rather than analytical response. Allow the answer to come to you.

Once you have identified the wants that are at the core of your emotional reaction, you can release them using the same process:

1. Get a feeling for this sense of wanting approval, control, security or separation. Can you locate the sense of this want in your body? Where is it and what does it feel like?
2. Ask yourself: can I allow myself to welcome and accept this want?
3. Could I let go of wanting (whichever want it is)?
4. Am I willing to let go of it?
5. When?
6. Repeat the process until you feel you have cleared the underlying want and then move onto the next if there is one.

By clearing the sense of want that lies at the core of the emotion, you can clear it by the roots rather than just by the surface. As with weeding your garden, tackling the issue at the root will allow for a deeper clearing and will usually prevent it from re-appearing.

It’s amazing when we realise just how much of our lives, our behaviour and reactions are based upon the desire for approval, control, security and from wanting be separate. Letting go of these wants frees up great amounts of energy within us, dismantling long-held pockets of resistance, allowing us to truly be free. Your mind might initially object to the idea of giving up wanting things such as approval, security and control. The thought of giving up such seemingly-important desires might seem insane. But, ironically it’s usually our deep-seated need for something that prevents us from ever actually getting it.

As the saying goes, “want doesn’t get”. Can you see where this is true in your own experience? Have you ever wanted someone’s approval so desperately that you unconsciously sabotaged yourself and ended up behaving like a complete idiot, therefore eliciting precisely the opposite response than you’d intended? Experiment with letting of of the four big wants. You will come to see that giving up ‘wanting’ something is usually the best and most effective way to actually get it! And the real bonus is that whether or not you do actually get it, you’ll be at peace.

I hope you find this process helpful. The book goes onto elaborate in greater detail, with a range of ways to apply it to your life in every area, including goals, relationships and letting go of resistance. You find that as you work with it, more and more things rise to the surface to be cleared. This is a actually a good thing and is not reason to be discouraged. We all carry so much baggage around with us and it all has to rise up in order to be cleared. It can be an exhausting process at times, but I believe it’s a necessary part of the journey if you truly want to be freer, happier and more at peace in life.

So, release, release, release! The more we let go of this crap, which is totally foreign to what we truly are, the more we come into contact with this deep and ineffable peace and joy which lies at the core of our being. When all the obstructions are cleared, it’s like stormy clouds dissipating in the sky, allowing the sun to shine unhindered, bringing everything to radiant life.

The Sedona Method is the perfect way to clear out the emotional aspects of an issue, and can be used well with Byron Katie’s The Work, which is excellent at clearing out the mental levels, such as negative thoughts and belief patterns. These are the two methods of psychological/mental/emotional clearing that I recommend the most. Psychologists would do well to adapt them into their line of work and, indeed, a growing number do.

So there’s really no excuse for continuing to pollute yourself and the world with our toxic emotional energy. It’s not that negative feelings will never come up again, for such is the nature of being human, but at least now you have the ability to deal with them.

So there’s really no longer any need to continue feeling mad, sad or bad!