Being a spiritual person means being in touch with your emotional life at the same time you are enjoying expanding consciousness. It’s difficult to feel “bliss” and evenness when you are on an emotional roller coaster. Riding the waves, the ups and downs of life require emotional flexibility.
Ultimately, we want a permanent state of emotional balance that we also feel in our bodies. Then our spiritual practices take on a new level of experience and fulfillment.
Repressed feelings are generally the cause of anxiety, fear, and unhappiness. But they can be transformed once they are recognized, acknowledged, and accepted. Acceptance allows our disempowering feelings, emotional reactions, and negative beliefs to be more easily identified. We are then in a position to change them.
Often, being in a relationship will trigger the exact uncomfortable responses that we want to change. Managing our reactions may be useful, but transforming them is a more empowering and permanent healing solution. Uplifting responses not only encourage others but are the real key to our own emotional well-being.
The art of loving yourself means that you accept and transform your negative emotions rather than be driven by them. Physical self-nurturance along with meditation is certainly important remedies and practices to soothe and heal. However, it’s important not to overlook your feelings, but to address them. It is ok to feel afraid, angry, sad, or insecure. No need to resist or escape.