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My emotions have become a never-ending source of self-discovery.

I have now learned to open into them more easily; effortlessly breathing into any resistance; consciously opening, relaxing into the core of any emotion - and I have developed dozens of practical techniques for coaxing myself and others out of resistance.

The truth is that the moment you choose to relax into the core of any emotion, you drop through easily into the next, and open into the infinite.

Once you get the hang of it, consciously opening into your emotions, embracing them, effortlessly breathing into any resistance and relaxing into them, can become an easy process. At first it may take a little longer, since resistance to emotions is often such an ingrained habit, but once you get the hang of it, the whole process can happen in just a few minutes, and you'll find that opening into your emotions, embracing them, relaxing into them, becomes an easy process.

Do You Worship Struggle & Effort?

We adults worship struggle. If something is easy or simple, we often consider it insignificant or insubstantial. We've created a whole paradigm called, "Create resistance so I have something to struggle with."

Is this true for you? Do you evaluate your success by the effort it took? Are you a ranking officer in the emotional army, struggling to win every battle over your emotions?

Love-Hate Relationship with our Emotions

The time has come to stop the war, call off the resistance, and open your being into the infinite, the boundless love that is always here. Even after we commit to this opening, however, we can find the process is not always as cut-and-dried as it seems. In fact, we usually have a love-hate relationship with the same emotions we fight against. We fear certain emotions and are totally transfixed by them at the same time.

When we aren't subduing our difficult emotions, we love to feel them and explore their meaning. We hold onto them, recall them, even obsess about who's to blame for them, dramatize about how we've been victimized by them, gossip to our friends about how bad they are. We go to counselors to find out their origin, to workshops to bring them up and cathart them, and we entertain ourselves with endless mind talk about their significance in our lives. After all, who would we be without the drama of our emotions? They help make up our character, give us our color and our identity, don't they?

Creating a Story Around Our Emotions

One of the things I've found to be absolutely true about emotions is that they are essentially fleeting. Emotions come and go at the drop of a hat. They can't last for more than a few moments, unless we give them meaning, create a story around them, and add our energy to them.

Without a story attached, emotions are just sensations that come and go. They have no more meaning than a bunch of chemicals flooding through the body. However, if we decide that they are significant, important, that they must be explored, analyzed, and understood -- if we keep replaying the drama surrounding them, using our thoughts to enhance them -- then we can keep emotions in play for as long as we want.

Emotions are just momentary sparks flickering in consciousness. However, if you pile on fuel, adding the lighter fluid of a little drama, feeding the flame with your thoughts, adding the newspaper of someone else's opinion, and if you then fan this now roaring fire with gossip or your therapist's opinion, you can really create a huge blazing bonfire out of them. Of course, the fire will eventually burn out, naturally, of its own accord, unless you keep adding more fuel to it.

Belief in the Drama Keeps it Alive

The irony is that you are actually battling, fighting, subduing, and trying to oust emotions that you alone keep alive with your thoughts, dramas, and energy. Emotions require your concentration and belief in your drama, your story, in order to be kept alive.

What if you were to decide to stop the story... just drop it?

It's such a relief. Whenever a pure emotion arises, you can recognize it as your friend, welcome it with open arms, love it, relax in it, and ultimately, find freedom in the heart of it.

From Fighting Your Emotions to Facing Them

This isn't about "catharsis," which is a popular paradigm these days for ousting a "bad" emotion. I can understand why catharsis is enticing. After a good cry, or a temper tantrum, we actually feel some momentary relief -- and that is intoxicating. But it still doesn't solve the problem because catharsis involves only "acting out" or dispelling the emotions, and inevitably those emotions come flooding again at another time. Only full acceptance of and complete surrender into your emotions will lead you into real peace.

So, what I recommend is no dispelling of emotion, no acting it out, no analysis, and no collapsing into emotion either. Don't fight, struggle, or run from emotion -- for eventually it will surely hunt you down and find you if you do. Rather, just turn and face the tiger directly, surrender fully, and discover the love that's in its core. All other avoidances will only prolong your pain. You cannot run from your emotions. If it's peace you seek, your only effective option is to dive into them.

Relaxing, embracing, surrendering, trusting -- these are the only tools of a lover of truth. Turn from a warrior into a lover.

Emotions - they truly are your gateway to the infinite.

This article was excerpted with permission from the book:

Freedom Is: Liberating Your Boundless Potential
by Brandon Bays.

Reprinted with permission from the publisher, New World Library. www.newworldlibrary.com. Copyright © 2006 by Manifest Abundance Unlimited.

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About The Author

Brandon Bays is the author of the international bestseller The Journey. She travels all over the world bringing her teachings of healing and awakening to thousands of people each year. She pioneered her transformative work through her own experience of healing naturally from a large tumor without drugs or surgery. Her website is www.thejourney.com.

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