Proud Cry-Baby

     When I think about my Shift in the Emotional Plane, I have to recognize that I grew up in a culture which revered the stiff upper lip (non-expression) of the Empire building Englishman. The attitudes which surrounded my formative self taught me about bringing civilization to savage peoples,  and justification was offered when their primitive nature was found in willingness to wail in the presence of death; or to shriek in the experience of pain.
     In my early years, no one was ever described as emotional: they were always Over-emotional. I was a sensitive and empathetic child, ridiculed and humiliated for expressing feelings. To be called ‘cry-baby’ was deeply insulting. I heard it a lot.
     This was the way that it was, and not the fault of any individual. I was born at the exactly correct time and place to experience Soul Growth as I overcame this particular starting point. Learning to live with the real and very human experience of emotion is surely one of the reasons I choose to incarnate as human.
     Although there are infinite family systems and cultural interpretations of what constitutes appropriate expression, each of us will, eventually, find a reason to re-evaluate. As we gain experience we adjust when and how we articulate the emotional responses we feel. As we grow towards our Spiritual nature, we consciously change our expression in the Emotional Plane: we Shift.
     When I was a little girl, my grandmother once took me to the circus. I was frightened by the big gaps between the seats and the walk-ways: they were open bleachers which revealed the darkness and dropping distance underneath. My grandmother smacked me and told me off for making a fuss. Being frightened was not acceptable.
     When the clowns tripped each other and threw and squirted assorted substances, I was horrified at the violence and nastiness, and I cried for those I saw as victimized. I was smacked for that, too. I was scared for a woman on roller-skates as I watched her doing tricks on a small round table. Convinced that she would fall off and hurt herself, I cried for my impotence as any sort of help.There were animals in cages, and my heart hurt to see their confinement. I cried.
     My grandmother was thoroughly infuriated. “All she did was cry. I took her as a treat, and she just snivelled and covered her eyes. She’s a cry-baby. She’s over-emotional; far too sensitive.”
     My parents joined in. Clearly I was too young to be taken out into the world. “If you’re going to behave like an infant,” they promised me, “we’re not going to take you anywhere. You can just stay home with your little sister.”
     It was an empty threat, and I continued to encounter a world that triggered my fears and worries. For many years, alone in my bed at night, I would cry out all my stored up hurts and anguishes: the empathies and sympathies that could not be expressed in the daytime were too many. I had a family of dolls and a teddy bear, to whom I would describe the awfulnesses of the day, and they would hug me while I sobbed myself to sleep.
     Over time I learnt the behaviour that was expected of me. I learnt to act as though I was behaving, which required a pretty serious division between my emotions and the face I wore.
     So it was, and I was prepared, exactly correctly, for the effort of understanding how to Shift on the Emotional Plane. Most of my adult life has been engaged in this Shift, as the world has changed as has my understanding of my role within it.
     In 2012 I attended training with the Heart Intelligence Academy  Much of the work was focused on expanding the range of which emotions we are willing to express. Some people are so disconnected that they think they do not feel some emotions; others have been limited, so they can express anger and not fear; or they can laugh and be joyful and yet never reveal their frustrations.
     When any emotional expression is narrowed or amputated, the rest are impeded too. When we engage in the work of Soul Growth, we will be reminded of how very correctly life has prepared us.
     Communicating emotion requires that we correctly identify what we are feeling, and this may require a Shift away from the coping (or not-coping) skills we learnt in our early years. Without the work that I had already completed, I could not possibly have understood the Peak Experience of Cosmic Love that was granted to me in August of 2013: and my ability to Shift further was expanded by that love and bliss.
     Self-understanding is an important, even vital, part of this evolution, and most of the services available on this website are intended to promote exactly that. Make your appointment now!
 
     Jo Leath has been supporting clients through change and growth since the 1980s.
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