1 Access
We have to allow ourselves to access the raw negative emotions we carry around with us. If we don’t do this we cannot begin processing them. To avoid this step is to condemn ourselves to be forever under the hidden and pernicious effects of suppressed negative emotion. We can’t go beyond our negative emotions by making effort to be positive. We have to explore the negative emotions that exist before we are free to be genuinely and wholly positive.
We can access these emotions by finding time to reduce distractions in our life and by becoming more sensitive and more aware of how we are feeling and then acknowledging and encouraging any signs of negative emotion, giving it space to grow within our awareness - rather than our usual and fearful ‘fight or flight’ response to any sign of negative emotion.
2 Express
We can’t avoid or intellectualise away these negative emotions once we become aware of them and access them. They are an energy that is a part of ourselves, an integral aspect of our who we are. They need to be fully and fearlessly explored and expressed. The energy of negative emotions needs to be released fully and freely. The energy behind our negative emotions is the same energy that will generate our joy and bliss. If we do not express this energy that is currently tied up in negative emotion, we will never experience true and deep happiness and contentment.
To express these negative emotions we need to allow them to overcome us whilst at the same time we need to totally own the emotion and not direct it towards anyone else. It is our negative emotion and our negative experience and expression and it has nothing to do with anyone else. We are experiencing a part of ourselves for ourselves with ourselves.
3 Process
We need to step back and allow the negative emotion that has been accessed and expressed to go through it own process of resolution and integration. Insight and understanding may come during this process but they are byproducts, we cannot use intellectual exercises to initialise or complete this process of resolution and integration.
We need to be patient, to let go and to be open to whatever occurs as we allow the energies of negative emotion to work themselves out in our body.
So in summary: find time to allow negative emotion to come to the surface; fearlessly allow it to fully express itself in your body; be open to this experience generating a new understanding of who you are and a new capacity for experiencing authentic positive emotions.