How to Dialogue with Emotions

One of the very best conversations I've ever had the privilege to overhear came from an interview with a gifted empath named Karla McLaren.  She spoke about the necessary genius of emotions, and spent some time coaching listeners on intelligent ways to work with their own emotions.  I was reminded again about the brilliance that can be found in every human experience.  Unfortunately, however, I was also forced to remember how much of our personal and collective genius gets relegated by our cultures attempts at social control.  Karla pointed out that while we are taught to read, write, do arithmetic, operate computers, and even how to practice safe sex before we graduate elementary school -- our only emotional education centers around learning which emotions are acceptable and which are not.

From her own experience as a survivor of childhood trauma, however, Karla learned the hard way that "bad" emotions do not disappear just because we call them names and try to shut them out.  In fact, they seem to only grow in ferocity and then erupt unconsciously.  Some of the greatest minds and hearts of all time have agreed with this sentiment, FYI (Buddha, Jung, Rumi).  From my own experience working with difficult emotions, I too completely agree that this lop-sided strategy is a sad mismanagement of a brilliant kind of intelligence!

Karla teaches us that we can begin to trust ourselves to dialogue with our emotions by learning the function of each emotion first.  She talks about how free-flowing anger allows us to understand our own boundaries, while fear signals us to pay attention and take appropriate action.  She goes on to redeem even the most shunned emotional experiences -- such as jealousy, envy, major depression, and even suicidal urges.  It's as if she's almost learned to experience these energies as autonomous intelligent beings that arise in order to help the human organism continue intelligently towards it's own unique destiny.  I love it!

Here are four of the questions she suggested we might be able to utilize when we're trying to dialogue with really difficult emotions:

When anger arises:  "What needs to be protected?"
When fear is present:  "What action needs to be taken?"
When sadness presses down on us:  "What needs to be released?"
When a suicidal urge exists:  "What needs to be killed?" (The answer to this is not ever going to be "me" according to Karla, who understands that ALL emotions work to help you experience more abundance in your life).

Here's the full transcript of Karla's interview in case you prefer to read instead of listen to it.