What's getting lost in Translation? (and creating a lot of confusion!)

Mind the Gap...

In our last newsletter, we explored the concept of emotions changing us for the better. Today, I wanted to focus on the journey from emotion to feeling, and what potentially gets lost in translation, along the way...

When I look back at my life, I recognise that I spent decades in a fairly dissociative state. Now, I understand that I am highly sensitive. Then, it all just felt pretty overwhelming. My way of coping as a child was to isolate myself, and disappear into my own world where my mind could run wild, but without full awareness of the physical reality. While this probably made me feel temporarily 'safer', it also separated me from myself, and from more deeply understanding my interactions with the world around me. Short term relief instead of long term embodiment.

Much of my adult life has been focused on reintroducing myself to Me, to how I think, feel, perceive, interpret, and simply BE within this plane. Part of this reeducation has included spending time simply noticing what I notice in any given situation, through any or all of my senses. What I have found is that as I take the time to observe and learn, I am undoing years of trauma and misunderstanding, based in my own mininterpretations of emotion and feeling.

Broken down - our emotions are experienced in the moment, as we experience life. And our feelings come from how we interpret those responses.

I remember as a child being so excited about my birthday party, but then feeling overwhelmed by the emotion, and pulling myself back down, in, suppressing the sensation. My mind saw that as overwhelm and fear, instead of something that would enhance the experience and bring me into alignment with my deeper, truer self. I have witnessed this same pattern over the years, where I start to experience the beginnings of joy or excitement, and my mind reacts through fear, and I lose my alignment with what I actually want to experience. The more I learn about this gap between emotion and feeling, the more I am able to reframe my stories, and bring better awareness into how my mind is (mis)interpreting a moment.

When I consider the journey of emotion to feeling, the question that came to mind was 'How much gets lost in translation, in the space between?'

We know that as humans, we receive a lot of data, and the quality of our experience, whether it resonates or not, how we react or respond, all depends on our perceptions, beliefs, the ways each of us as individuals perceives what is happening. And a lot of our conditioning over the years gets in the way and confuses the whole matter. So if we are struggling to identify the quality of the emotion, how can we discern a clearer meaning?

I would encourage you this week to spend some time with your body, simply noticing what sensations and emotions you are experiencing. And then notice the meaning that you assign. Does the meaning simply reinforce an old story or pattern from the past? Or are you able to truly discern joy from panic, elation from anxiety?

And meditate on the following:

• Do I allow myself to experience an emotion fully? Or do I try to cut it off or shut it down quickly?
• If I experience anger, sadness, grief, am I able to recognise what it is? Or do I immediately try to disconnect, run away, avoid?
• If I experience joy, elation, calm, can I discern what it is? Or do I immediately try to disconnect, run away, avoid?
• Could I allow some space and time for discernment when an emotion arises, so that I can identify it? Am I willing to allow my mind, my story, my experiences to change?

Remember that as we allow space for grace within that moment of interpretation, we give ourselves a chance to feel differently, respond differently, and to choose differently. Allow yourself to be more curious about yourself and your experience, so that you can move out of the past and into the Present Moment. Your entire life can change there.