The Trick to Happiness for Emotionally Sensitive People

The overwhelming belief today is that in order to find happiness, you must first learn how to overcome your negative feelings.

Telling an emotionally sensitive person that in order to be happy you must get rid of your negative feelings is sentencing us to a life of chasing our tail and misery.

Think of it like a guy who has been blessed with an abundance of hair. Let’s say he’s even got a rug growing on his back 😉 He’s told the only way to be attractive is to get rid of that hair. So he spends all his time, energy, and money getting rid of his hair. For a day or two, he feels great! But it doesn’t last. In a few days, he’s back chasing his tail AGAIN!

The only way for this man to be truly free is for him to CLAIM his own attractiveness with having an abundance of hair. His internal dialogue may be something like “Hey, I am a hunky, masculine guy having all this hair!” He owns who he is rather than tries to meet an external standard that he will struggle to ever become.

As silly as that example may seem, there is significance for those of us who are emotionally sensitive. I used an example, like hair, because you can see with your own eyes how hair sneaks back one follicle at a time. You can’t see your negative emotions, however, they can be just as incessant for sensitives.

We too can RECLAIM our negative emotions as being a great part of who we are…yet this can be tricky.

I jumped on the bandwagon that says “I’m going to feel everything!” because I knew it was better than stuffing those feelings down inside.

 

 

My challenge was this…

How do you do you feel your negative feelings,
as an emotionally sensitive person, without taking on all the weight?

Personally, it was exhausting to feel those negative feelings because doing so allowed my gorilla to come out swing at me with cruelness.

The only way I and those I have supported have learned to receive their negative feelings is to understand that there are two sides to each feeling. (Just like there are two sides to a coin!).

Negative emotions are usually interpreted through the voice of your ego, which is all fear. There is another side (most don’t know about yet) that is there to empower you.

The loving, empowered side to your negative emotion is there is signal to you when you are off your path and moving away from your truth. The negative feeling is also present to give you guidance as to what you can do to get back on track.

What is important to understand is…

The signal of your negative emotion is to empower you, not sugar coat the situation.

For example, when you are angry, it’s knowing you are angry for a very good reason. The empowered side of your anger is not about trying to put a positive spin on your anger by talking you out of being angry and instead ask you to be more grateful or compassionate. Doing that would be a judgment that anger is bad or wrong and that you should really feel different than what you are feeling.

Emotional Empowerment utilizes your negative feelings as a signal that is supporting you to grow. Growth tends to be uncomfortable, especially at first. Emotional Empowerment gets to the point of what you need to do in order to take responsibility for your happiness and love yourself more.

When people come to me struggling with anxiety, depression, guilt etc…and I hear their story, what I see is that their feelings are working perfectly as they should be.

My job is to help them see how the feeling they are experiencing is trying to signal to them to create change. Once they receive the signal and it’s guidance, the internal struggle diminishes AND life gets even sweeter.

What we resists persists. By learning how to receive your negative emotions rather than release (and release, and release over and over again), the internal battle ceases.