Emotional Intelligence…Shadow Fear, Part I

The next Journal entries explore one of our most informative and protective emotions…fear.

Fear is an instinctive emotion which exists in our Emotional Tool Box to:

1. inform us that we may be in danger or under threat
2. that we need to assess if this threat is real and imminent
3. that we may need to form a boundary to protect ourselves against this threat
4. that we should also be considering an evolution of the fear energetic into the next higher emotional frequencies which are desire and anger. These 2 emotions assist our movement beyond the fear triggering and into the boundary formation which may be required.

I shall attempt to simplify these 4 action points over the course of the writings. Please bear in mind that these steps occur in milliseconds of time. Nonetheless, this response pattern can be groomed and improved upon, despite its rapidity of appearance in our body and consciousness.

We all have a collection of key emotional frequencies which we feel in our body. We do not feel emotion states in our brain thinking, per se. However, problems with emotional clarity arise when we begin to think along old negative habituated lines of consciousness as to how to interpret what it is that we are feeling in our body.

I often say the phrase, “If you can feel it, you can heal it.” This statement implies that the emotional frequencies are in our lives for the sake of prompting, protecting, and guiding us into a form of action which is in alignment with our happiness, our life gifts, and our life growth into the development and sharing of these gifts.

Another way of wording this principle is with the words, “you cannot heal what you do not acknowledge.”

Because we live in a world most often fraught with ongoing and overwhelming hardships, our subconscious and conscious mind imprinting and entrainment can veer away from the path of happiness, peace, and love. According to the energetic and dynamics present in our early environment and our experiences in these environments, the deep subconscious memory imprints we form and hold in our flesh as cellular memory serve to form our various belief filters. Our belief filters then inform how we play out the formative dramas of life via our thoughts, words, actions, habits, character, and destiny.

Confusing entanglements of different emotional feeling states most often arise all at once. Emotional feeling states in the body can be understood through a cognitive process of understanding which distinct emotional frequencies may be operational at any moment.  The different emotion states can be recognized and disentangled from one another. Individual feeling states can be sorted out, listened to for their message of direction, and this messaging can be practiced and acted out; all for the sake of protecting and healing our lives.

The purpose of the emotion state is to inform our mind to assist in the formulation of a direction and clarity of thought, speech, and action which is in alignment with our higher goal of life growth and fulfillment.

Because we have to journey through life in a human body which invariably faces the challenges of many unresolved traumatic experiences, we more often than not hold the belief filters of guilt and shame as the predominant filters through which all feelings are processed. Such shadow processing will reinforce perception and feeling states of 6 key emotions in their shadow form.

We owe it to ourselves and our life journey to allow ourselves to feel these shadow states so that we can transform the negative energy into something meaningful, creative, and supportive to our motivators and gifts.

I’ll define the various emotion states over the course of future Journal writings in such a manner that the reader can begin to see a more helpful technology which is always hiding beneath the shadow facade of the 6 key lower frequency emotions: apathy (despair), grief (regret), fear (anxiety), desire (craving), anger (hate), and pride (scorn).

Each of these states can be transformed from its shadow expression into its utilitarian expression which serves to protect and heal. As we master this transformation, we can then move into the higher emotional states of manifestation. These are emotion states which have no shadow correlate. These emotions, which assist us in manifesting our dreams and visions along the way, are: courage (affirmation), neutrality (trust), willingness (optimism), acceptance (forgiveness), and then onward into pure reason (understanding; the Ah-ha! knowing in the flesh), love (reverence), joy (serenity), peace (bliss), and enlightenment (ineffable).

We shall start with fear and have a look at its shadow side, and then consider how we may be able to transform this shadow energy into the tool of protection for which it is intended in our lives.

The following word abstractions are synonyms of shadow fear. If you recognize these feeling states in your body, then you need to take some sort of action to alleviate the fear state:

1. determine if the threat is real
2. be ready, willing, and able to make a declaration of boundary by some means
3. determine what old traumatic grief is being re-triggered by the stimulus which has prompted the fear feeling states
4. prepare to access your utilitarian desire (what you want to do about this) and your utilitarian anger (create a compassionate boundary)

As you contemplate the shadow fear, you will find that most of  it is based on old unresolved grief, which must be forgiven and released as an informant of your conscious Now. In letting go of such a negative influence, you will be able to move forward into higher emotional states and transform these states as well.

Please consider these shadow fear feeling states, as expressed in words. Do you feel these states in your body?

Anxious Apprehensive Cautious Clammy Cowardice Defensive Distrust Doubt Dread Embarrassed Evasive Foreboding Frantic Frightened Hesitant Horrified Hysterical Inhibited Insecure Irrational Nauseated Nervous

Panic Paralyzed Paranoid Scared Secretive Shaky Shy Skeptical Stage fright Superstitious Suspicious Tense Terrified Threatened Timid Trapped Uncertain Uneasy Vulnerable Want to escape Wary Worry

Degrees of shadow fear are universally present to some degree in all of us. The cleanest expression of fear is purely instinctive and is hard wired into our psychic awareness. Only when this pure instinctive fear morphs into an unrelenting background feeling state, and then takes over the panorama of our conscious responses do we find ourselves locked into a draining of our life force.

Fear feeling states evoke: 1) a fight-flight response, 2) a freeze response, or 3) both a fight-flight and freeze response simultaneously. The only legitimate response of these 3 possibilities is #1, the fight or flight response. This response allows us to form boundaries and protect ourselves from real threats, if necessary.

The presence of a freeze response indicates that we have been overwhelmed, and need assistance from the outside if we cannot pull out of the dive. The simultaneous feeling of “foot on the gas” (fight-flight) and “foot on the brake” (freeze) is an extremely chaotic energetic and will be signaled from the Heart Mind into the cellular matrix and DNA of all cells; the reality and science of which has been discussed in several prior Journal entries. This is a rather common state.

In allowing ourselves to experience the feeling of shadow fear, we can begin the process of allowing the feeling to come forward and inform our actions. The shadow fear begins to evolve from a raw state to a refined awareness and on into an emotional intelligence. If we deny the feeling, suppress the feeling, or medicate the feeling below our threshold of understanding, then it will persist in the shadow, and the mountain of shadow grief which drives it will never be forgiven and cleared out of the system. Such unforgiven grief will become more burdensome along the way as we face life’s challenges.

Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is moving on into the adventure at hand despite having the fear.

In reflecting and writing about The Course in Miracles, Marianne Williamson said…”Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Forgiveness is the emotional frequency of acceptance. It is the only way we heal. Forgiveness neutralizes shadow fear, and allows us to realign with Spirit.

Just as shadow fear suppression holds shadow grief (trauma) in place, the suppression of shadow fear will also inform the higher emotional frequencies of desire, anger, and pride to express in the shadow. These states will be covered again in future Journal writings related to emotional intelligence. I have touched on these states in past Journal writings.

The next Journal entry will have a look at a vital neurotransmitter chemical known as GABA, and how it relates to anxiety states when it is deficient.

Signing off from Crestone and Beyond.

Peace

Additional Reading

1. How to Combat Fear…a renowned Tibetan Buddhist monk has a few good ideas to consider.
2. Whisper Thoughts and Feelings…Doc Childre, the founder of HeartMath, gives us some good advice about a practice to replace worry and fear with an attitude of managed concern.
3. Five Stars for Hamilton…the Hamilton anxiety rating scale gets some recognition as a useful clinical tool.
4. What to Do When You Don’t Know What’s Next…”There’s so much chaos in the world right now that we have little choice but to wake up to it. Heightened uncertainty is an excellent opportunity for growth.” The author presents 8 steps for personal accountability and growth in difficult times.
5. The Three Things We Fear Most…Zen teacher Ezra Bayda explores how to embrace fear as its own spiritual path to lovingkindness, which awakens in the spaciousness of the heart.
6. Why Is Emotional Intelligence Important?…a writing by Chris Kresser from October 3, 2019, on the five key components of emotional intelligence, and how it can improve your health, professional performance, and personal relationships.
7. No Beginning, No Ending, No Fear…a beautiful writing about fear and why we create it. “When you’re afraid of what might happen, remember that all you have is now.”