We have been taught to always think things thru, figure things out, plan and calculate every move and decision. Lets face it, we tend to spend a lot of our time in our heads! Thinking, worrying, and stressing about how things will or wont work out for us. But how much attention do we actually pay to our feelings, what our body is telling us? Do you believe that you are a victim to your emotions? How much attention do we give to our feelings anyway? Do we follow our head despite mainly feeling in our heart something 'doesn't feel right'? I know Ive done this many times before i discovered the concept of the Emotional Guidance Scale!
I few years ago I made a conscious decision that I will live my life according to my feelings first, rather than my thoughts. It was challenging to take on this opposing approach because our society rewards functioning from the ego at all cost. So i thought id try paying attention and allowing my feeling to be my guide. Being more aware of how my body feels when I'm making a decision, rather than what my head is saying.
I wanted to keep an open mind when i first started reading about Esther Hicks and her channeled information thru a collective consciousness called Abraham. To my amazement, she discussed a concept called the Emotional Guidance System. This absolutely fascinated me because Ive always been very sensitive to my emotions and other peoples. I was aware that for most of my life i was encouraged to just ignore my emotions and get on with it. There were jobs that i no longer 'felt' good doing, relationships that no longer 'felt' right to continue but to the outside it 'appeared' that everything was fantastic. So, i disregarded what my emotions were telling me, listened to my ego, and then suffered silently.
According to Abraham Hicks our emotions are our guidance system! They are not good or bad but rather guide us toward our happiness and fulfillment. And there's scientific research that shows our body actually weakens physically if we are around things, people, situations, or have thoughts that don't serve us. And, our body and immune systems strengthens, when we are thinking, talking, doing things that make us feel good!
If we ignore our emotions, they will intensify further to get our attention. I experienced that when I no longer wanted to be in a particular job, that to the outside world seemed fantastic. I started to feel tired, then exhausted, then unable to motivate myself to even go there, then I got very sick! Had I paid attention to my emotions earlier on, I would've saved myself so much suffering, time, and I wasn't giving of myself 100% anyway! But my ego rationalized, gave me reasons of how well I was being paid, how hard it would be to find another job, what will everyone else think.. So I stayed, until I got so physically sick that I had to take a month off! Then, I resigned!
The Emotional Guidance Scale ranges from the most fantastic feelings all the way up, such as joy, love and peace. At the bottom we see the emotions that dont make us feel good such as, greif, anger and fear. So you can look at the scale and get a visual idea of what you're feeling. Are you moving up toward the higher good feeling emotions? Or are you moving down the scale to the not so good feeling emotions? Just seeing this scale gave me a sense of awareness and self responsibility. I always felt a victim to my emotions, that they just seem to come over me and I had no control.
Now knowing about the Emotional Guidance System I could see where I'm at and where im headed. You start to deliberately choose a better feeling thought. For example, if im feeling worried I can either choose to think thoughts of blame which will lead to discouragement and I'm traveling down feeling even worse! Or, i could chose to consider going up the scale and start to feel doubt and disappointment, BUT be traveling up.
Many of us ignore what our emotions are communicating thru our bodily feelings. We ignore the feelings of lack of fulfillment, boredom, suppress our anger and grief. The moment we feel an emotion our whole body chemistry changes, it either supports health and you feel great. Or, we feel disempowered and eventually get a wake up call with an illness. Our stomach is one of the first organs that will give us a physical message of tension and aching if somethings not right. How long do we ignore that for? Til its just an ache, or a bleeding gastric ulcer? Do we pretend to ourselves that its not so bad? We can go out and buy a drug to suppress the symptom. Or lovingly look at how we are feeling, take responsibility and choose to slowly go up the Emotional Guidance Scale to a more empowering feeling.
For people that are highly sensitive, you know whether your'e feeling slightly better or slightly worse. But the major clue is to reach for a feeling that gives you RELEIF. That indicates you have shifted slightly and feel more empowered, as opposed to going down the scale to disempowered. Generally, we only have access to the emotions directly up above a particular emotion, so we need to be patient with ourselves. That's why when people tell a depressed person to just be optimistic, to them it feels like an impossible task. Thats because energetically it is too much of a jump up the scale. Its one step at a time. That's why its called a 'guidance' system. To gently, patiently and lovingly guide us to move up.
There was a time where i printed out the Emotional Guidance Scale and looked at it several times a day to help me understand myself, exactly how i was feeling and where i was headed. I began not to be afraid of my emotions but rather accept them because they were giving feedback! The Emotional Guidance System is a map that guides us back to our True Self.
I have always believed that life is meant to be joyful, fun, and easy and paying attention to our emotions is so important. When you are passionate and excited about something, dont you just feel alive and wish you could feel like that all the time? Thats because connecting to those highest emotions is who we truly are, what we came here to experience. Personally, i now choose to see my life as a constant practice to reach a higher, better feeling.
Our bodies, our immune system, our whole physiology responds amazingly when we feel love, joy and peace. We are designed to feel good, and to want to feel good! I encourage you to consider that your emotions are a gift to you. Learn to trust them and allow them to guide you toward health, fulfillment and happiness.
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