When we experience a negative outcome or event, research shows we typically begin to ruminate (i.e., over-thinking with a focus on negativity). The step that usually follows rumination is suppression (stuffing the emotion). The Age of Aquarius is the age of the mind, or a time when we lift our consciousness. Rumination is quite possibly an outdated evolutionary strategy. When the event was outside your control, rumination will only boost the negative emotion. Suppressing negative emotions will only save the negativity for another day (tee hee).
One of the most effective strategies for dealing with negative energy is the act of reappraisal. By reassessing how you perceive an event, you can change the way you feel. Instead of focusing on all the negatives you predict will happen, reframe the outcome as motivation to create a new and better emotional strategy. Reappraisal is mostly used with events outside your control. With events you control, it can be more effective to acknowledge the negative energy. For example, if something you did or didn’t do influenced negative emotions, using reappraisal means you’ll come up with things you could have done different. Then you can determine the importance of your actions. When you examine your negative emotions, you’ll become better equipped to make a different choice when facing a similar situation. You can see and feel the positive aspect of learning the life lesson that need not repeated.
Let’s hear the whispers on alternatives to ruminating:
Ruminating indicates an uneven distribution of energy that has collected in the head area. This over-abundance of energy in one area pulls from other parts of the body. Less energy in the stomach area, for example, is usually experienced as depression or emotional constipation. Ruminating represents an energy body process that is revealing a need to take an inventory of emotional content as a strategy to redistribute the vital life-force energy. Some form of movement or action is key to opening the energy channels throughout the system. During the age of the mind, humans are learning to rise above the suffering created by over-thinking.
Self-awareness around the energy collecting in the head area is the first step toward balance. Reappraisal is taking responsibility through an assessment of the current emotional state. Taking ownership of actions is releasing unhealthy attachments and moving toward emotional freedom through enlightenment. Something that seems as small as accepting negative emotions around an experience opens the channels for light to fill the system. Once accomplished, there is nothing left to prove, and you reclaim your power with courage and confidence!
With any situation that life offers, it’s best to keep in mind that the goal is not to win or lose. The goal is ultimately to move toward improving your life by building character and becoming a better person. From an elevated position, the outcome isn’t as important as the journey. The biggest obstacles faced in life represent critical aspects of life purpose. The reassessment of emotions, the taking of responsibility, and a reappraisal of actions are the only true measures of control with destiny. Observing and integrating the nuggets of wisdom that come your way keep life interesting, build character, and create the passion that fuels the journey of the soul through the darkness and into the light. With reappraisal, you will find the master within.
Bring joy, ease suffering and create beauty, then dance like you mean it!
Blessings, Russell
“One of the most difficult things to remember is to remember to remember. We forget that we live in a body with senses and feelings and thoughts and emotions and ideas. We get caught up in rumination and fantasy, isolating us from the world of colors, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations constantly bombarding our input sensors. To stop and pay attention to the moment is one way of snapping out of these mindscapes, and is a definition of meditation. This awareness is a process of deepening self-acceptance. Whatever it observes, it embraces. There is nothing unworthy of acceptance.”
― Stephen Batchelor
