Extract from Understanding Holistic Health by Frank Vilaasa

CHAPTER 5 THE EMOTIONAL BODY

Entering into the emotions is, for many of us, an entry into another world. Emotions are nebulous things. They defy clear and easy description. They are not logical - they don't behave in the way we think they should, or would like them to.

Yet they are powerful energies. Emotions are the driving force behind much of what we do. They determine the quality of our relationships. Emotional health is crucial to a happy life, and to developing satisfying relationships with other people.

In writing about emotions, one is confronted with a dilemma - of being confined to the use of words. Words communicate thoughts, ideas, images - none of which are feelings. The word 'joy' is not the feeling of joy. And we can only really understand emotions by experiencing them. So in reading this chapter please note that we are merely describing, in words, certain processes and inner experiences. The actual experiences themselves need to be undergone, either in a therapeutic setting, or as part of your own life journey. As a culture we have traditionally had difficulty with our emotions. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, the influence of Christianity, which taught people to "Love thy neighbour" and to "turn the other cheek" (ie, don't be angry), and emphasised the practice of charity and good deeds to others (ie, don't be selfish). This emphasis on goodness was a denial of the duality of our human nature, and forced people to repress those aspects of themselves which conflicted with the Christian ideal - their anger, their needs, their pain, their selfishness. Unfortunately the nature of the repressive mechanism is such that once you deny and repress one particular feeling, the channel through which feelings flow becomes blocked, and one loses contact with all of one's feelings. Then, in order to live up to this ideal, one starts to pretend - one starts to act lovingly and selflessly without being moved or inspired by any feeling at all. This leads to the situation where, for example, a highly regarded Christian psychotherapist - M.Scott Peck - can say that "love is not a feeling....it is an act of the will." Anyone who is in touch with their feelings knows that this is nonsense, yet it shows how Scott Peck and many others still influenced by this ideal live their lives.

The second reason for our difficulty with emotions is to do with the emphasis that science and the education system have placed on the intellect. Nowadays, we approach life in a very cerebral way. The result of this imbalance in our approach has been discussed in the previous chapter. Finally there is the traditional social conditioning that men in particular have been subjected to. "Don't be vulnerable", "don't cry", "tough it out" are just some of the injunctions that till recently, men have grown up with.

Western culture's alienation from feelings has been well-documented elsewhere. There has been a growing recognition of this fact in recent years. What is less well- known is the devastating effect that estrangement from feeling has on our health and wellbeing. As Frances Vaughan says in her book 'The Inward Arc" "... to the extent that feelings are suppressed or withheld, one feels constricted, cut off, alienated and alone". Feelings are the life blood of our relationships. Without a free, open and honest feeling exchange our relationships are no more than a social convenience, and deep down we will feel alienated.” Which, according to social psychologist Robert Wright, is exactly what is happening. In a recent essay for Time magazine entitled 'The Evolution of Despair,' he states that "....alienation is the hallmark of our time". Social isolation, depression, anxiety, and loneliness are reaching epidemic proportions. Most people are too ashamed or embarrassed to speak out about this situation openly. Many suffer in silence. Doctors can offer little relief, except for anti-depressant medication, the use of which is now higher than it has ever been.

On the individual level, as we saw in the last chapter, suppression of emotion leads to chronic physical tension and constricted breathing. In fact, this is how we suppress feeling. If we don't want to experience anger, or grief or any other emotion, we block it by tensing the muscles of the belly, chest, throat and jaw, and by holding the breath. When this becomes habitual, the tensions become chronic and fixed. Eventually, we can go to sleep and still keep our jaws clenched.

Most of this suppression happens unconsciously. We are not aware that we are doing it. We are just vaguely aware of feeling tense, edgy, nervous, ill-at-ease - or dull, lethargic and numb. Over a number of years, these tensions begin to undermine our physical wellbeing, and lead eventually to all kinds of psychosomatic ailments.

The emotional body, like the rest of us, operates in accordance with certain natural laws. It is only by understanding these laws, and bringing ourselves into harmony with them that we will regain our emotional balance and health.

In the light of the confusion and misunderstanding that still surrounds our emotional nature, in this chapter we will return to basic first principles, and to take a fresh look at them. To put aside our conditioning and to ask ourselves - what are emotions? What purpose do they serve? When are they appropriate, and when are they inappropriate? How can I get back in touch with them?

THE PRIMARY EMOTIONS

John Bradshaw and other psychologists have described emotions as energy-in- motion. They are energies that prepare and motivate us for certain activities. There are four primary emotions - anger, fear, joy and sadness. At first glance it may appear as though nature is giving us a raw deal. There seem to be three "negative" emotions and only one positive one. Are we meant to be suffering 75% of the time?

If one looks a little more deeply into our emotional make-up, we discover that the four primary emotions actually consist of two complementary pairs - anger/fear and joy/sadness. Anger and fear are the emotions corresponding to the fight or flight mechanism. In the face of an external threat we either stand up and assert ourselves, or we cut our losses and run. If we're threatened by some 5'2" person who has had too much to drink, we may just kick some sand in his face. If he's 6'6" and built like the side of a tank, we'll probably choose the "flight" option. Anger and fear are basic, primal, gut- level emotions. They are part of our animal nature.

Joy and sadness are slightly more refined in nature. They are the feelings that tell us what it is that we truly value. Joy is the emotion that accompanies the acquisition or appreciation of something valuable, whether it be a new partner, job, friend, child, house, car, insight, experience etc. Sadness is the emotion that accompanies its loss. We recognise that someone or something we value is leaving us. Our grief tells us that they were precious to us. We may even have taken them for granted - till they left. Viewed from this perspective, both joy and anger can be seen as "positive" or yang emotions, while fear and sadness may be viewed as "negative" or yin. This is not to elevate one emotion over another, but simply to illustrate how everything in nature has a balance and harmony to it. Each emotion, freed from our conditioned attitudes, has its own value and beauty. Too much joy makes us superficial. Sadness gives us depth. Anger has power and strength in it, and the lack of it makes us dull and compliant. To be healthy, a balance and acceptance of all emotions is required.

These are the primary, basic emotions. Each has a certain purpose in our lives, and plays an essential role in our health and wellbeing.

Anger fuels our self-assertion. It gives us energy and power in those situations where we need to take a stand - for example, when our rights are being violated. Any threat to our legal rights, our property, our space, our freedom, our autonomy will evoke a spontaneous rising of the hackles, and the urge to assert ourselves, angrily if necessary. This is a natural response, without which we become "doormats" or "pushovers". Fear arises when an external threat reaches a certain critical size, and the urge to self-assertion suddenly gives way to the desire for self-preservation. Fear releases adrenalin, which gives us the energy needed to put a large distance between ourselves and our adversary in a short space of time. Fear also serves a life-preserving function by warning us of danger - in traffic, at precarious heights, when protecting our children - and gives us the energy to deal with it.

Joy is a signal from within our being that this person, situation, experience, object is meaningful and valuable to us. It can be a most helpful guide in choosing friends, jobs, lifestyle etc. When it is lacking it can also be a signal that something externally or internally needs to change. When asked what was the best advice he could give about how to live one's life, psychologist and author Joseph Campbell replied "Follow your bliss".

Sadness, as we have seen, is the emotion that accompanies the loss of someone or something we value. Allowing our grief to run its course helps us to let go of our attachment to the person or thing we have lost, and prepares us for getting on with the rest of our lives. If we don't grieve, we are likely to remain attached in an unhealthy way, brooding over our loss. At the time grief may be painful, but it is a healing pain, and passes quickly the more we give in to it. The pain and discomfort of avoiding it are far greater than the emotion of grief itself.

The more we become familiar and comfortable with our emotions, the less problematic they become. Sadness has its own beauty, and just as joy and laughter occasionally have tears in them, so too sadness can on occasion have joy in it. There is a poignancy to the sadness that reveals someone's heart. Another's tears can be very touching and endearing to us.

As with colours, the primary emotions can be mixed to give an infinite array of pastel shades. Disappointment is a mixture of anger and sadness. Melancholy is a mixture of sadness with a certain soulfulness - and so on. Emotions also vary in intensity. Anger, for example, can range from annoyance to rage, and fear varies from anxiousness to terror. We can also have empathic feelings, where we tune in to the emotions that someone else is having. Each emotion has its own vibration, and can create a resonance in our own energy field. Hence the importance of surrounding ourselves with positive, harmonious people. As someone once said "How can I soar like an eagle when I'm surrounded by turkeys." Apart from the four primary emotions there are a number of secondary emotions that we can experience, including guilt, shame, unworthiness, inferiority, envy, jealousy, suspicion, bitterness, frustration, sentimentality and antipathy. I call these secondary because, unlike the primary emotions, they are not innate to us. They are the result of certain negative attitudes and beliefs that we have about ourselves or other people, and will disappear once we have dispelled the attitude that is creating them. We will look at healing on the mental level in more detail in the next chapter.

THE HIGHER EMOTIONS

Beyond the primary emotions, which are mostly associated with the gut, there is another group of feelings associated with the heart. These we may call the higher emotions, and include love, compassion, bliss, longing, pain and forgiveness. The association between these feelings and the heart is fairly self-evident, with the possible exception of pain. One may question whether there is anything at all "higher" about a feeling such as pain. What is meant by pain here is really the feeling of ‘heart-ache’. It is included here because of its indispensable role in healing on this level, which we will discuss later.

Another emotion that can arise on this level is that of hatred, which is really a severely thwarted love, or love standing on its head. It has also been described as "frozen anger". It becomes increasingly difficult to categorise and define all the subtleties, variations and nuances of feeling that can occur on this level.

The more refined the emotions, the more individual they become, and one could, indeed, write a whole novel about each person's inner world.

However, for the purposes of this book, I shall confine myself to the description of the basic energies that surround the heart, in order to best understand how healing on this level may be facilitated.

It is through the heart that we reach to the spiritual essence within. Through the heart we contact the qualities of peace, trust, silence, love and wisdom that are part of our spiritual nature. Hence the importance of healing any wounds that have accumulated here, so that this doorway to the divine may once again be opened for us.

EMOTIONAL HEALTH

The first thing that needs to be clearly understood about health on the emotional level is that feelings happen in the body. This fact is often overlooked, resulting in much of the mental confusion and agonising many people experience in trying to come to terms with their emotions. Once we grasp this fact our emotional lives assume a far greater simplicity and innocence.

We experience emotions as a spontaneous feeling that arises in the belly or in the chest. They are not a mental process. We don't have to think about what we feel. We just feel it. This may seem obvious, but it needs to be said. It is surprising how many people, when asked what they feel, will firstly think about what they ought to be feeling, and then somehow manage to convince themselves that that is indeed what they are feeling. This process can even be accompanied by a great display of emotion, which on the surface can appear very convincing. Very few people are simply innocent and spontaneous with their feelings. Yet it is the nature of feelings to be spontaneous. Their initial arising is beyond our conscious control. The conscious mind simply perceives the feeling and then decides what to do with it - to act on it, contain it, experience it, suppress it, enjoy it and so on.

This role that our conscious mind plays in regulating the expression of emotion is a very important one. Even though feelings are spontaneous, their unbridled expression can be as harmful to ourselves and to our relationships, as can excessive control and suppression. At certain times the expression of anger or the heeding of fear is appropriate. At other times they are not. Being able to discriminate between the two is what emotional wisdom and maturity is all about. We will examine the relationship between consciousness and emotions in more detail later on.

As far as health on the emotional level is concerned, there are three ways in which we can become emotionally unbalanced. 1. We can be overly controlled and repressive. 2. We can be lacking in control. 3. We can have an excess or deficiency of one emotion over the others. Emotional health requires that we be in touch with our emotions, that we are able to acknowledge, accept and allow our feelings simply to be and to flow through us. It also requires that we are able, at the same time, to contain our feelings, and to control and channel their expression in appropriate ways. And it requires that we be able to experience all emotions, without shrinking from any of them, or favouring one over another.

On a deeper level, in every human being without exception, emotional health involves the willingness to be vulnerable and to risk the pain that that might bring, It involves the fulfilment of our need for intimacy, and the ability to give and receive love.

EMOTIONAL HEALING Emotional healing is any process that puts us back in touch with our primary emotions, and that heals any wounds we may be carrying in our hearts.

These are essentially two separate processes, so let us consider them one at a time.

HEALING THE PRIMARY EMOTIONS -

To reconnect with our primary emotions we need always to keep in mind the fact that feelings happen in the body. This central fact helps us to understand how we lose contact with our emotions in the first place. If we don't want to experience our feelings, we will firstly direct our attention elsewhere, away from the body. So if a feeling of anger or sadness arises in us, we'll suddenly become interested in what's in the fridge, or what's on TV. We'll discover a lot of work that suddenly needs doing, or we'll reach for some other diversion - people are very creative at distracting themselves.

Unfortunately, these diversions only work temporarily. Once the job is finished, or you've got over the hangover - there's your anger or your grief back again. This nagging thing in the belly simply won't go away. So then we bring in the big guns. We tighten the belly, tense the jaw, squeeze the buttocks in and restrict our breathing. If we keep this up for long enough, the position sets like concrete. The tensions become chronic and fixed, and block the flow of feeling in the body, so that we become emotionally numb. Then we can blithely drift through life untroubled by emotions altogether. We can play act all our relationships, being the perfect lover, the nice guy, the martyr, the sage, the saint. Or we drift into frustration, boredom and depression. Either way, our relationships will suffer.

These habits of avoiding emotions usually develop in childhood, in an unconscious way, as a result of the role-modelling our parents provide. As children, we simply conform to the unspoken family norms. Dad never cries, so the son decides that being a man means not crying. As children we adopt these norms without question. We have nothing to compare them with. It's not till we reach adulthood that we are able to evaluate the conditioning we were subject to.

By then the pattern is established, and we have some work ahead of us if we want to break free of it. To heal ourselves on the level of the primary emotions there are two steps we need to take -

1. to release stored up emotions from the past, 2. to learn to accept and appropriately express feelings in the here & now.

Both these steps require that we bring our awareness back inside the body. We must begin again to "mind our bodies", to tune in to and experience the feelings that arise in the belly and the chest. We must give up our tendency to think about our feelings, to analyse and intellectualise - and allow our minds to simply become passive and receptive, and just feel what is actually happening in the body.

How do we know if we are carrying stored emotion from the past? The answer to this question will be different for each individual, and can only be properly investigated in a therapeutic setting. However, some common indicators are:-

 I find it difficult to relax  I breath mostly in my chest and not in my abdomen  I carry a lot of tension in my body  I am often not aware of what I am feeling  I still think about the past a lot  Certain childhood memories make me uncomfortable and tense.  There are certain family members I never see, and don't want to see.  I find myself over-reacting to trivial situations  I sometimes get emotional for no apparent reason.  I hardly ever get emotional  I still find myself arguing a lot with my parents.

If you find yourself agreeing with four or more of these statements, then in all likelihood you are carrying stored emotion. The first step in healing the primary emotions is to get back in touch with these old feelings and release them. This, again, is best done in a therapeutic setting. Firstly, the emotion needs to be felt, acknowledged and accepted. Any conflict on the mental level about having this emotion needs to be worked through. It is beyond the scope of this book to go into the practical ways in which the therapeutic release of emotion is worked through in detail. It has been described elsewhere, especially in the writings of Alexander Lowen.

The second step of the process - learning to appropriately express feelings in the here and now - becomes possible after we have made some progress with the first. While we continue to carry emotional baggage from the past, and to maintain the tensions that hold it in place, our emotional responses in the here and now will always be inappropriate in some way. We will find ourselves over-reacting, or under-reacting, or blocked in one way or another, in spite of our best efforts to be open. It will be difficult to have confidence in our responses, and to trust in the way we spontaneously react.

Once we have freed ourselves of past emotion, our here and now responses will be in proportion to the current situation, and be untainted by the past. Learning to express them appropriately will then be something we can undertake with ease and confidence.

For most people, anger is the most difficult of the four primary emotions to express. Fear, grief and joy are all relatively straight forward. With any of these emotions, all that is required is that they firstly be experienced, acknowledged and accepted without judgement or condemnation. Then a simple sharing along the lines of "such and such a situation makes me afraid, or sad, or joyful" is enough to communicate your feelings. If the person you are sharing with is understanding enough to accept your feeling without turning it into a problem, or trying to change it, their simple act of understanding and acceptance is often enough for the feeling to spontaneously resolve itself, or for you to allow it to run its course, and be free of it. Some discussion as to its appropriateness may ensue. Learning to discern the appropriateness of feelings is discussed in more depth in the section on "Emotions and Consciousness".

With anger, the situation becomes a lot trickier, especially if the anger has been triggered by the person you are expressing it to. There are situations where we have a legitimate cause to feel aggrieved. We are promised something, and the other person fails us. We are deliberately short changed or sold a defective product. Our neighbour is always playing loud music. A trusted friend betrays a confidence. We are falsely accused of some wrong doing. We are discriminated against as a result of our race, or sex, or religion.

These and similar situations are likely to trigger off a feeling of anger in us. What matters here is how we express our anger. Anger can be expressed destructively or constructively, and the difference between them is enormous. Destructive anger aims to punish the other person for the hurt they have caused us. Whether it is expressed openly, or through a cold silence, its aim is the same - to seek revenge, to get back at the other person. This usually has only one result - the other person becomes defensive, and may counter-attack with their own hostile accusations towards us. The outcome is a vicious circle of blame, defensiveness, counter-accusations and hostility, leading to a destruction of the goodwill and respect that are the basis of any functioning relationship.

Constructive anger, on the other hand, rather than focussing on blaming the other, simply communicates how the other's actions have made me feel. As well as expressing my anger, I also express the hurt that's behind it - ie. I show my vulnerability. For example, I might say "I am angry that you didn't call when you promised, and I feel hurt by your forgetfulness." This is more likely to create understanding in the other, and relieves them of the need to be defensive.

In the heat of the moment, however, our wisdom and rationality will often desert us. This way of expressing anger needs to be practiced till it becomes part of us. Only the recognition of the harm anger can do, and the sincere desire to master it will motivate us to take these steps.

BALANCE AND CONTROL

We saw, in the previous section, that there were three types of emotional imbalance - too much control, not enough control, or a pre-dominance of one emotion over the others.

So far we have spoken about healing for the first type of imbalance. Where there is insufficient control over the emotions - when a person's ego strength is not sufficiently developed to exercise control - this needs to be addressed before it is possible to move into the release of stored emotions. Behavioural Therapy, or Rational Emotive Therapy, both help with ego-development and the attainment of control over one's emotions. These type of therapies are commonly available in mainstream psychology, and have been well described in a wide range of literature. It needs to be kept in mind that while these therapies have something of value to offer, they are only the first step of the journey, and that the attainment of self-control does not necessarily constitute a cure in itself.

The third type of imbalance - where one emotion predominates - is something that many people experience to a greater or lesser extent. There are those who have a "short fuse" and who will fly off the handle at the slightest provocation. There are the "weepers" who can burst into tears at the drop of a hat. Then there are the phobics, for whom fear is a constant companion, and who suffer from either a free-floating anxiety or a phobia of some specific thing or situation. Finally there are the "joy-hogs", people who are constantly in the party mood, always cracking jokes and laughing everything off.

These imbalances can be corrected through applying mindfulness based counselling (see the section on Emotions and Consciousness later in this chapter).

HEALING THE HIGHER EMOTIONS

Beyond the basic emotions, at the deepest level of our emotional being, lies the essence of our feeling selves - the energies of the heart. The journey towards emotional health remains incomplete until we have cleared the wounds that we carry on this level. Only then do we become capable of truly giving and receiving love - which is, as always, the cornerstone of emotional health.

In order to understand what is needed on this level, let's look firstly at how the wound in the heart develops.

Each child is born in a state of openness and vulnerability. In its early years, it is dependant on its parents, not just for physical survival, but for guidance, approval and love. If, as often happens, the parents are incapable of giving the kind of genuine, unconditional warmth and love that the child longs for - if they are distant and withdrawn on the heart level, or demanding certain behaviours before showing any affection - the child experiences pain. Deep down, it hurts to be rejected by one's own parents. The child is completely powerless, and also has no way of defending itself against this pain. It suffers in great turmoil and with increasing helplessness. When the pain becomes intolerable, the child may decide to conform to its parents wishes, in order to get at least some form of warmth and approval. Or it gives up the hope of ever being loved, and withdraws into itself. Those who comply will always resent what has happened, and may rebel as they grow older.

The result of this compliance or withdrawal is that the unmet need for love becomes buried deep in the heart. By the age of six or seven, the child has learned to block out its vulnerability, and the pain of not being loved. It then grows into a ‘normal’ neurotic adult, just like its parents, and their parents before them.

However, within each adult, the unmet need for love continues to operate in the unconscious. We go through life continuing to hanker for the love we never received as a child. On a conscious level, we may be completely unaware of this. But this unmet need leaks out in all sorts of unconscious ways - in our efforts to get other people's approval, to impress others, to get them to like us, or through being hostile and negative, rejecting others before they can reject us.

The place where we concentrate most of our efforts to get the love we never had is in our personal relationships. What our unconscious does is get us to choose a partner who is most like one or both of our parents. This is what we are familiar and comfortable with. We then set about trying to win from them the love our parents never gave us.

However, because they are like our parents, they are also incapable at some level of loving - so this effort is doomed to failure. On top of this new pain, the failure also triggers off the pain we felt when we were young, and in our desperation to avoid once more this old pain and helplessness, a battle ensues with our partner, involving all sorts of demands, expectations and recriminations - or subtler levels of manipulation, and even feigned indifference and withdrawal.

Our partner will be doing the same with us. Each perceived rejection or thwarted expectation restimulates the old childhood pain, and causes us to react in totally irrational ways. Most of this behaviour is unconscious. We have no idea why we react the way we do. We think it is perfectly reasonable to expect certain things from our partner, and that they are at fault if they cannot comply. Needless to say, this whole battle is utterly futile. Demands for love never work, and are always counter-productive. Relationships of this kind will never satisfy the real longing in our hearts. A healing of old childhood wounds on both sides is needed before any sort of harmonious adult relationship becomes possible.

How is this healing to be achieved? There is only one way - our old wounds have to be exposed to the light of day. Buried wounds never heal. We have to peel back the layers that surround the heart, and experience again the pain and longing we felt when we were young.

There are, in all, four layers to be uncovered in this journey back to the heart. They can be represented in the following way:- Social Personality

anger grief pain

CORE (Unmet need for love)

fear shame

Starting at the core layer, we have within our hearts the unmet need for love and approval. Surrounding this is a layer of pain, which we have spoken about. Resulting from this childhood situation, we may have a number of emotional reactions. We may be angry, or sad, or ashamed about the lack of love we experienced. Usually these emotions also had no outlet, and to protect ourselves and others from them, we developed a fourth layer - that of the social personality. This is our adaptation to family and social norms, and takes the form of the "nice guy", the "rescuer", the "martyr", the "drama queen", the "stoic", the rebel" and many of the other famous social personalities that we have become familiar with. The social personality is an attempt to get our unmet needs met. By becoming nice guys, or martyrs, we think we are going to be loved. Every bit of rescuing or martyring always comes with a price tag. The problem is it doesn't work. People are either unimpressed, or if they do love us none of it gets through, because behind our personality our hearts and our vulnerability are closed. Much has been written about the machinations of the social personality. Eric Berne and the school of Transactional Analysis that he founded are probably the best references for this.

The healing process, therefore, involves firstly recognising and giving up our social personality. We have to give up being a nice guy or a martyr all the time, and start getting in touch with the feelings behind this facade. This puts us in touch with the second layer - the layer of the emotions - which we have discussed in the previous section.

Then we need to recognise that our anger or sadness or other emotions are a reaction to something else. We need to ask ourselves "what am I really angry or sad about?" In most cases, the essential, universal answer to this question will be "I was never really loved". We need to go back into our childhood situation again, and re- experience it as we did when we were young. We need to reawaken the pain we felt then. The pain of not being loved. By feeling this pain again, breathing through it, it will start to dissolve. It is only after we have brought this old pain into our conscious awareness, and through re-experiencing it, allowed it to dissolve, that we are able to enter into the fourth layer - our old unmet needs for love.

When we are once more in touch with our vulnerability on this level, when we are actually experiencing our need and longing for love as a burning in the chest, then some repair work can commence. Then we can begin to nurture the child within. We can, through the creative use of the imagination, begin to re-parent ourselves. There are many ways in which this "repair" work can be carried out - through inner dialogue, visualisation, finding a temporary substitute parent and so on. They all involve re- experiencing and fulfilling our unmet needs for love, and acceptance, and approval.

One note of caution however - the process cannot be rushed. The exercises with the "inner child" are ineffective until one has passed through the layers, and reconnected with one's vulnerability, as described above.

This final step of reconnecting with and healing the "inner child" is a major turning point in most people's therapeutic journey. Whenever I am privileged to witness this in a client or at a workshop I am always touched by the magic and beauty of the transformation that occurs. The change from being basically "needy" to being fulfilled and at peace within the heart is so profound and so moving, I cannot conceive of a greater gift one could offer to anyone. Much of this work has been pioneered and popularised by John Bradshaw in recent years. In his 1990 book "Homecoming - Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child" he states that "...(our) core material becomes the filter through which all new experiences must pass. This explains why some people continually choose the same kind of destructive romantic relationships, why some experience their lives as a series of recycled traumas, and why so many of us fail to learn from our mistakes.... If we want to change, we have to change our core material. Since it was our inner child who first organised our experience, making contact with the inner child is a way to change our core material immediately. Inner child work is an important new therapeutic tool and is vastly different from the way therapy was done in the past.... Three things are striking about this work. The speed with which people change, the depth of that change, and the power and creativity that result when the wounds from the past are healed."

From my own experience, both in my personal journey, and in my work with clients, I would agree with his assessment. I had spent many years exploring various therapies which only dealt with the first two layers. I had come to understand and let go of much of my social personality, and had connected with and released many of the emotions that my "nice guy" persona had been covering. Yet deep down I was still repeating the same patterns in my relationships, and I was still uncomfortable with sharing love and intimacy. It wasn't till I reached to my own core layer, and connected with my inner child, and healed the wounds at the heart level that I finally felt emotionally healed and at peace. It was, indeed, a homecoming.

John Bradshaw's book is recommended reading for anyone wishing more understanding and guidance about this process. Although much of it is geared towards victims of abuse, it is applicable to anyone who suffered neglect or unmet needs in their childhood.

It will be difficult for many people to undertake this healing process on their own. The guidance of a competent therapist is often needed. Unfortunately, therapists working in this area usually fall outside of what is available in mainstream psychology. In choosing a therapist it is best therefore to follow personal recommendations and your own intuition.

In spite of our best intentions, we will find it impossible to give and receive love in a mature way until these old wounds have been healed. We cannot will ourselves to change. The heart has its own ways, which we must understand and follow. Only then will we be truly capable of opening our hearts - to ourselves, to each other and to the world around us.

The completion of the healing process on the emotional level comes with forgiveness. While the journey itself can be a rocky one - the uncovering and release of old fears and angers and sadness; the heartache of not being loved, - the lessons one learns on this journey are invaluable. The most difficult of these is probably the fact that each of us is responsible for our own emotions. At first this realisation is a daunting one. We are thrown back to ourselves, we can no longer play the victim role, there is no-one out there to blame. We are confronted with our own aloneness. However, the very struggle with these difficulties creates a new strength and a new centre in us. We begin to discover that we do indeed have tremendous power within ourselves. When we really need them, the resources, the strength, the love and the wisdom that we so often felt to be lacking suddenly begin to arise within us, from some deep, unknown wellspring in our being.

We begin to realise that self-responsibility, far from being daunting, is a source of great personal power. It gives us the possibility to create our own lives.

This realisation releases within the mind and heart a tremendous sense of freedom and elation. The discovery that one is truly free to create one's own life is a source of great jubilation. No more are we bound to fear, to anxiety, to neediness, to other people's approval, to the conditioning of the past! The urge arises to create something of tremendous beauty and joy with our life. To put the past behind us. Spontaneously, the desire to forgive arises within the heart. All the perceived hurts and transgressions and neglect fade into unimportance. The discovery of oneself and one's freedom and autonomy brings with it the automatic desire to forgive and forget. To let go of the past and begin to create a life of joy, of beauty, and of being true to oneself.

Forgiveness is the end of the journey. But it is an end that has to be earned through the struggle of travelling the journey. Short cuts will not work.

True forgiveness is always spontaneous. It is simply the benevolence that flows from an open heart. Attempts to cultivate it prematurely will only result in a superficial or pseudo-forgiveness. There are certain teachers who advocate going straight to this end point without passing through the struggle with the basic emotions, and the wound in the heart. The message often is that one has to work at forgiveness. One must continuously re-affirm and repeat statements of forgiveness, in spite of one's basic emotions.

This approach is not only ineffective, it also deprives the person of the benefits of the lessons one learns on this journey. Struggle and challenge are not always to be avoided. They can be very beneficial, and they have their own beauty. The emotions operate according to their own innate laws. It is only through understanding these laws, and applying them in our lives, that emotional healing will truly happen for us.

EMOTIONS AND CONSCIOUSNESS Once sufficient healing has occurred, we enter into another phase - that of growth and emotional maturity. This involves one of the most mysterious qualities of the human being - that of consciousness. Even though consciousness functions in a way that is similar to the mind, it cannot be considered to be the same as the mind. Consciousness may be defined as the "awareness of what is". Krishnamurti calls it "choiceless awareness." As such it is like a mirror, simply reflecting the state of things as they are, within ourselves. The clarity of this reflection becomes clouded or distorted by certain mental processes such as wishful thinking, fantasising, desiring, projecting, unrealistic expectations or the effort to change. All of these things get in the way of our seeing things as they are - of our "awareness of what is."

For example, if we desire someone or something to be a certain way - we want the person we have just met to be romantic and caring, - this desire or expectation will cloud our perception of that person. We'll no longer see them as they are, but we will see a distorted image of them. We will idealise them, and subconsciously we will screen out all the aspects of their personality which conflict with our idealisation. We do this all the time - in many ways. We want the traffic light ahead of us to stay green, we buy a lottery ticket and dream about spending the winnings, we project certain qualities onto members of racial or ethnic groups, we keep thinking that one day our partner will change. We all carry certain beliefs, desires and expectations within us. To the extent that we do, we are not relating to the reality of things around us, as they are.

Consciousness, then, is a quality that grows within us as we begin to free ourselves of these mental habits of desire and expectation. It has a key role to play in many aspects of our growth, but for the present I want to examine the role it plays in our growth toward emotional maturity. Emotions and consciousness have a two-way effect on each other. Our emotional reactions change as our consciousness grows. That which made us fearful or angry a year ago may no longer do so today. This is the magic that consciousness can bring about in our being. With no effort on our part, it can transform our previously unconscious, negative reaction patterns into something more positive. We don't have to be stuck in fearful or angry or other undesirable patterns of reacting. As we bring our consciousness to bear on our primary emotions, they automatically lose much of their sting. We no longer have to struggle with our emotions. All we need to do is bring in the light of consciousness. In an instant, and without any struggle, the darkness disappears. This is the nature of light, and the transforming power of consciousness.

Let us look at how this transformational process occurs in relation to each of the emotions in turn.

THE PRIMARY EMOTIONS

In regard to ANGER, we saw earlier how anger is a natural reaction to certain external threats - threats to our legal rights, our property, our space, our freedom. Apart from these kind of threats, we can also get angry when other parts of ourselves are threatened - for example, our demands and expectations (I'm angry that you didn't call), our beliefs (just who are you calling fascist, pal), our ego or pride (how dare you call me a lousy therapist), our needs (I'm angry that you rejected me). The energetic response, the anger, is the same, but in these cases we need to ask ourselves "what am I really protecting?" Are my demands and expectations, or my ego and pride more important to me than my relationship with this person? Protecting these aspects of ourselves may give us a certain ego satisfaction in the short term, but in the long term it will lead to increasing isolation and a string of broken relationships. We can get very self-righteous about those things which anger us, and fall into blaming and criticising others. Some people will inflict great suffering on others as a result of a perceived neglect or lack of care. Anger can become a very destructive emotion in these cases.

When anger arises, it is best therefore to firstly reflect on where it is coming from. Am I protecting my legitimate rights, or am I protecting my ego or beliefs or expectations? Reflecting on this question with a sincere desire to find the truth within ourselves, will bring to light our underlying attitudes, beliefs, judgements, or lack of tolerance which cause much of the latter form of anger. Once we recognise these shortcomings in ourselves, just as light dispels darkness, the spontaneous urge to rid ourselves of them arises in us. If we want more harmony in our relationships, if we want greater love and intimacy with those close to us, our intelligence will tell us to drop the negative attitudes that are creating barriers between ourselves and others.

This is how consciousness transforms our emotions. The process only works, however, if we honestly acknowledge and accept our emotions in the first place. Though I am speaking about anger here, the same applies to all the emotions. Anger, or fear, or any of the primary and secondary emotions, reflect our true state of awareness, and our underlying attitudes and beliefs. Glossing over our emotions, struggling with them, trying to change them or rationalising them away can be dangerous. Our minds can be very tricky in this regard. We can deceive ourselves about how loving, peaceful, tolerant and understanding we are. We are all Buddhas in our own imagination. Then someone insults us, and suddenly we become very offended - and walk off in a huff, or want to punch his lights out.

This anger is a truer reflection of our real underlying level of tolerance and understanding than the "enlightened" facade we adopt. If we can honestly acknowledge this anger, and accept our responsibility for it, we create the possibility for transforming it. We must therefore be in touch with our feelings, acknowledge and accept them without trying to change them, or wishing they were different. Then we can reflect on the attitudes and beliefs that are creating these reactions in us - and drop them if we so choose. It is this kind of honesty which leads eventually to true emotional maturity. Trying to live up to an ideal of not being angry, or fearful, just ties us up in knots, and creates a division in our personality.

Emotions therefore play a vital role in the transformation of our consciousness. They are the raw material of the transformation process. They reflect our true state of mind, and in doing so provide us with the opportunity for honest self reflection and real attitudinal change and transformation. They are the seeds from which the flowers of trust, tolerance and truth arise. If the seed is condemned or denied, we destroy the possibility of its flowers blossoming in our being.

To continue with the primary emotions, we saw how FEAR serves a life- preserving function by releasing adrenalin in moments of danger, thus enabling us to avoid threats or situations which are life-threatening.

As with anger, we can also become fearful when other aspects of ourselves are threatened. While threats to our pride, our beliefs and expectations tend to provoke a more hostile reaction, threats to our identity and deepest sense of self will always provoke an initial reaction of fear. Fear is one of our deepest emotions, and most often accompanies threats to our very existence - whether it be to our physical existence, or to our beliefs about who we are, to our self image or to what is known as "face". For example, if I am identified with the work I do, and I am threatened with the loss of my job, I'll react fearfully. If my marriage or relationship breaks down, my identity as spouse is threatened, and I'll react with fear. When my children leave home, my identity as parent evaporates, and I suffer another loss of self identity. In all these ways fear can work against us. Rather than adapting to the changes in life in a fluid, relaxed way, we cling rigidly and fearfully to aspects of our identity which have passed their use-by date.

There is a deeper level to this fear of loss of identity or face. As we grow and become more whole, our personality will change. Sooner or later the "nice guy", the "rescuer", the "martyr", the "drama queen", the "rebel" - whatever form our personalities have developed in - will want to give way to a more balanced and integrated way of being. During the transition from one state to another, there will be a gap when we are uncertain of who we are. Giving up the old personality and entering this transition creates fear. We're not sure who we are, or how to react. Our new identity is still tremulous and uncertain. This fear can also prevent us from growing and becoming whole. It can keep us locked in to our comfort zones. It can keep us comfortably numb.

So the emotion that nature gave us to warn us of danger - our inbuilt "smoke detector" - the emotion that has saved our lives on many occasions, can also prevent us from really living our lives fully. It can stifle our growth, and our sense of adventure.

As with anger, when fear arises we need to reflect on whether it is appropriate or not. What is being threatened here? - is it really my life, or is it a part of my identity or my self-image? If it is the latter, we need to ask ourselves "do I really want to give in to this fear, or do I want to move on in spite of it?"

This kind of self-reflection will awaken in us a recognition of the need to develop courage and trust, and the willingness to grow and expand in spite of our fear. Courage and trust develop through actually doing these things. By challenging ourselves and taking some risks - getting up and giving that speech, leaving that monotonous job, or that dysfunctional relationship, exposing our vulnerability, going and doing that workshop - we learn that taking a jump is not the end of the world. Even if we fail, we know that at least we tried, and that there are valuable lessons we can learn from our mistakes. Then by achieving a few successes, our confidence and courage grows.

It is my belief that we should live our lives not avoiding fear, but learning to become comfortable with it. We cannot grow without some fear. The only time it is useful is when our lives are actually in danger. And that's not very often. The rest of the time it is giving us the energy and adrenalin to meet life's challenges. It is an emotion we need to befriend. By learning to move on in spite of the fear, we become more fully alive. And the more alive we are - the more we experience life and actually live it - the more our consciousness grows. In this way the raw material of fear is transformed into the joy of trust and courage and consciousness. Befriending and transforming fear therefore creates greater possibilities for the third primary emotion, JOY, to arise.

Whereas the problem with anger or fear is often that they are inappropriate, with joy we find that, in many cases, it is lacking. Bringing conscious awareness to the emotion joy will, at first, often highlight its absence. One of the extraordinary qualities of an uncluttered consciousness, free from the mental smokescreen of desire or cynicism, is its ability to illuminate all that is true and beautiful in life, and to dispel all that is illusory. Just as the light of consciousness will eliminate inappropriate anger and fear, so it will also lead us back to finding joy in places we have long ago forgotten to look.

How does this process work? It is similar to that of the other emotions - but in reverse. Firstly, we need to honestly recognise and acknowledge that joy is indeed missing from our lives. So long as we fail to be aware of this, nothing will change. We can kid ourselves that everything is fine, or at least as well as can be expected....you know.... under the circumstances.... the way the world is today etc etc.

Whilst we continue to console ourselves, and rationalise away our lack of joy, we won't even get past first base. The light of consciousness, free from this kind of mental interference, will initially just highlight the fact that we don't often experience the emotion joy. We must keep in mind here that joy, as with all the emotions, is a spontaneous feeling, that is felt in the body. Ask yourself, how often do you actually feel joy, spontaneously in the body?

If the answer is "not much", there are two possible causes. Either you are simply not in touch with your emotions, and need to do some healing work on this level. In which case, an appropriate first step would be to undergo the process described earlier under the section entitled "Healing The Primary Emotions" . The other possible cause is that you are blocking it as a result of certain negative attitudes or beliefs. How do we manage to block joy in this way? We saw earlier that joy is the emotion that accompanies acquiring or appreciating something we value. With the acquisition of someone or something new, the feeling is often spontaneously there. Over time, however, its newness wears off , and we start taking it for granted.

When we are young, there are enough unexplored situations in life, and the joy of new experiences is very much part of our existence. As we get older, new experiences occur less and less frequently, till eventually repetition and routine can lead to a boredom with life. Before we know it, we find ourselves slipping into an apathetic and disillusioned state of mind, in which cleverness and sarcasm have replaced innocence and joy.

One of the unfortunate trends in recent years is that disillusionment and cynicism are appearing in people at an increasingly younger age. It is now considered smart to be cool and disaffected with life. Innocence, enthusiasm, and the joy that accompany them have become passé. I have no wish to pass judgement on this state of affairs, or to go into the sociological factors that have created it. Young people have an unprecedented freedom and sophistication these days, which brings with it its own particular challenges. This book is written as much for them as for anybody else. There is no intention in any of these pages to preach, or to put across any kind of message. The intention at all times is simply to elucidate certain natural laws and age-old processes which, when applied to one's life, are bound to bring about greater health and wellbeing and - in regard to our current topic - joy! I can assert this with confidence because most of what is written here has been tested in my own experience, and has been confirmed time and again in my work with clients. In addition, there is a wider confirmation from the many teachers and authors whose ideas have contributed to my understanding.

There are many reasons, therefore, why different people develop negative attitudes that block their experience of joy. It is always a sad thing to see this happening in someone. There is nothing quite like the experience of being filled with joy - a spontaneous joy that arises for no particular reason at all. The joy of being alive, of breathing the air, of smelling the fragrance in the breeze. The joy of taking a walk, of feeling the sunshine on one's back and the earth beneath one's feet. Joy starts with the simple things of life, and then blossoms and deepens as we discover our creativity, and purpose, and spirituality.

Anyone who sincerely wants to create the space within themselves in which this emotion can be re-awakened will have to begin by consciously examining the attitudes that are blocking it, and be willing to replace these with an outlook that fosters and enhances joy.

Ask yourself "Do I want more joy in my life?" If the answer is yes, start to become aware of how your thinking is blocking this emotion. Are you overly critical and judgemental, is there a cynicism behind the way you view things, are you curbing your natural enthusiasm in order to appear cool? If the desire to be joyful is strong enough, simply becoming aware of these attitudes will result in your decision to let go of them.

Then start to ask yourself "What have I been taking for granted?" Taking things for granted is just another way of saying becoming unconscious of their existence. As soon as we start to become consciously aware of all those things that are valuable to us - the air we breath, the sun, the trees, the ocean, our bodies, our health, people close to us, etc - a sense of appreciation and joy immediately arises in us. For example, begin to notice the fact that you are breathing right now. Be aware that you are surrounded by a nurturing atmosphere of air all the time. Imagine how you would feel if it wasn't there for even a few minutes. As you recognise the fact that the air is always there for you, sustaining your life, notice how this awareness makes you feel. Don't try to be grateful or joyous - just become aware, and allow a response to arise spontaneously in you.

It is this kind of enquiry and cultivation of consciousness which will eventually re-awaken the spontaneous joy that is always ready to arise in our being, as soon as we stop getting in the way. The more we can become aware of the life around us with an innocent mind and an open heart, the more gratitude, appreciation and joy will become part of our daily lives.

Our friends may think we have become a little strange. They may want us to collude in their very clever, cool and critical attitudes. This is the price we pay for seeking joy. Innocence doesn't bring much ego-gratification. It does, however, bring joy, whereas the ego brings mostly misery. Awareness of this fact gives us a choice.

Finally, with SADNESS, learning to discriminate between appropriate and inappropriate sadness is not so difficult. We saw how sadness is the emotion that accompanies the loss of something or someone we value. If we find ourselves becoming sad for reasons other than this, it is most likely inappropriate. Sadness can be displaced - we can weep for someone else's misfortune. Or we can dissolve into tears when confronted with an external threat - sadness can be a substitute for anger and self- assertion. In this case, tears are a waste of time and energy, and we need to learn how to get in touch with our anger and express it. It is also possible to get stuck in the natural sadness that occurs after we experience a loss. Mentally we can resist letting go of our attachment, and perpetuate our grief beyond the appropriate grieving period.

As our consciousness grows, our appreciation and enjoyment of people close to us, and the life around us will grow. At the same time there will develop an awareness of the transient nature of most things in life. As we become more self-reliant, and more aware of life's transience, we will become less attached to the people and things around us. This lessening of attachment will make their passing less of a traumatic occurrence, so that the loss of someone or something dear to us is experienced with greater equanimity the more our consciousness grows. This is how consciousness eventually transforms the raw emotional energy of sadness into the more refined state of tranquillity and equanimity.

THE HIGHER EMOTIONS

I mentioned at the beginning of this section how consciousness transforms our emotions without any effort on our part. As we move toward the higher emotions, this becomes even more so. At this level, not only do things happen effortlessly, but any attempt to try to make them happen becomes a barrier. Our very efforts to be more loving are invariably doomed to failure.

This is very difficult for many people to accept. We are conditioned to think that all the good things in life have to be won through our own efforts. "If at first you don't succeed, try and try again" is the American way, which many of us now accept along with our glass of coke and burger.

Why are our efforts doomed to failure at this level? Why is the attempt to be loving not only a waste of time, but in fact a major barrier to finding love? The reason is that our efforts are born out of a lack of acceptance of who we are.

Suppose, for example, I discover that I am not a very loving person - and decide that I want to be more loving. Immediately there is an uneasy feeling about the fact that I'm not very loving. I admit it very shamefully. I feel inadequate, guilty, somehow deficient - I lack something. So I set about trying to improve this situation. I start trying to be more loving. I make affirmations that "I am now a loving person. My heart is opening. I radiate unconditional, universal love" etc etc. I buy some rose quartz crystals and wear them on my chest. I think loving thoughts. I meditate on my heart chakra. I start telling people how much I love them. On and on I go. The result is that people start avoiding me. I offer to hug them, and they shrink back. My love seems to be some kind of disease! So I feel even worse about myself - and double my efforts to improve.

The fact is that I got off on the wrong footing right from the start. I couldn't accept the fact that I'm not very loving. Inwardly, I condemned myself for it, i.e. I started having non-accepting, unloving thoughts about myself. My conscious mind then came in and started affirming that "I am now a loving person", while subconsciously I was condemning myself. This dichotomy sets up a great inner tension, which only adds further to my already miserable state. On the surface I kid myself that I am now a loving person, while deep down my lovelessness continues.

The only way out of this dilemma is to stop trying. You can't make yourself more loving, more blissful, joyful etc. You discover these qualities in yourself once you remove the barriers surrounding them. And one of the biggest barriers is the effort to create them. You need to drop this effort, and honestly and sincerely look inside with an open mind, and with no preconceptions - and accept whatever is there. There's no use trying to find love or forgiveness etc, when I'm really feeling angry, or numb, or hurt. The most loving thing I can do in that moment is accept the tears or anger unconditionally. Or I may look inside and discover negative thoughts, or sexuality, or even the effort to improve! Again, the most loving, forgiving, compassionate thing I can do in that moment is to accept those things as they are - without judgment or condemnation.

The miraculous thing about this kind of honesty is that as soon as I accept myself as I am - something shifts! As soon as I accept, genuinely and sincerely, that I'm not a very loving person - in that moment I have started loving myself. In that moment my heart starts to open. This is, however, not something that I am doing. It is something that happens to me - I discover the quality of love, or forgiveness or compassion within myself. It was there all the time. I didn't need to try to create it. All I needed to do was stop trying, and accept myself honestly as I am - without pretence or self-deception. And then the miracle unfolds. Then the beauty and the mystery of inner transformation happens to me.

There is a joke a farmer whose crops kept on failing. Year after year he would try his hardest - but nothing would grow! Each year at harvest time, he would be confronted with the same straggly half-grown crop. Finally, in desperation, he mortgaged his house and spent the last of his money on the best seeds, the best fertiliser, a new irrigation system etc, etc - but again at harvest time there was no crop. In despair he fell to the ground and cried out "Oh God - why do you do this to me?" There was a rumbling in the clouds and this voice boomed out, saying "I don't know son - there's just something about you that pisses me off."

It's a bit like that with emotional healing and growth - God gets pissed off with people who try too hard. There's a beautiful poem by an old Zen master which goes:

"Sitting silently Doing nothing Spring comes And the grass grows by itself."

To really discover the mystery and beauty of love we must learn the art of non- doing. It is what the Taoists call Wu-wei - doing through non-doing. The active approach only gives us a superficial form of love. Through non-doing we discover its depths.

POWER AND EMPOWERMENT

In chapter one, I developed a model of the whole person which had the emotional body divided into power on the yang side, and feelings on the yin side. The growth towards wholeness involves balancing these two aspects of ourselves.

Many of us have issues with power and control. There's a little Hitler inside all of us. Rather than being able to work this issue out across three quarters of the planet, most of us are confined to the arena of family and intimate relationships to fight out our battles for power and control. The distinction between self-empowerment and the exercise of power often becomes blurred. To be healthy, each of us needs to feel that we are autonomous, that we exercise control over our lives. This becomes imbalanced when we either give our power away to another, or we try to have power and control over others in a way that denies their freedom and autonomy.

What is power? When is it healthy, and when is it unhealthy? If one looks into the animal kingdom, one sees the males of many species fighting - for territorial rights, for mating rights. The strongest male usually gets the girl, hence competition and aggression are rewarded. They have survival value - they ensure that the strongest genes are passed on.

The human male has the same drive towards aggression and competition. There is a growing new branch in psychology, in which behaviour, and the motivation behind it, is viewed from the point of view of whether or not it increases the chances of passing one's genes on to the next generation. This is now being recognised as a fundamental, subconscious drive behind much of our behaviour.

One also finds amongst the males of many species in the animal kingdom, an on- going battle, sometimes to the death, for dominance. The most highly desired status amongst, for example, many apes, is that of the dominant male. All members of the group must defer to him. He has mating rights with the females of his choice. He is The Man. He has the power.

Applying this scenario to human affairs is probably how we come to consider power to be an aphrodisiac. In human affairs, the lure of power is further enhanced by the prospects of financial gain, by status, and by ego-gratification. Sex, money, power, influence and ego are, for many people, a very heady and volatile mix. They are also an undeniable part of our animal nature, and come from the same instincts and drives that anger and self assertion come from. When one starts to push anger and self assertion beyond their life-preserving function of warding off external threats, they move into the desire for power and dominance. Hence issues of power and self-empowerment are very much connected with the emotional body.

Much of human history has been caught up with the struggle for power. It wasn't till humanity started to embrace the ideal of democracy that we, as a species, acknowledged that there were human values which over-rode some of our basic animal instincts. Not that democracy has ensured that this ideal should enjoy instant universal acceptance. There are still plenty of animal instincts running rampant out there.

At best we can say that, as a race, we are in some sort of transition stage, endeavouring to evolve beyond the unconsciousness of our animal natures into the light of a more humane world order.

It's early days yet, but I suspect that Adolph Hitler may well be the last of a long line of power-crazed dominant males, which hark back to Genghis Khan, Tambourlain, Alexander The Great, Ivan The Terrible, Napoleon, and all the little Hitlers that never quite made the big time. We are now beginning to see, for the first time in history, negotiation and mediation tentatively replacing warfare as a means of resolving disputes.

We saw earlier that men are, in general, more disposed towards the yang emotions of anger, self assertion, and joy, whilst women tend more towards fear and sadness.

For many people, given these innate dispositions, the search for wholeness will lead men to look for their softer, vulnerable side, while women will need to find their strength and power. This is, in fact, what has been happening in recent years.

One of the central aims of feminism is the empowerment of women, both individually and socially. The men's movement, such as it is, has been more concerned with men acknowledging and accepting their fears and their grief and vulnerability. Both of these movements are very heartening from a holistic health point of view. They show a wider, social trend towards wholeness in both men and women.

To conclude this chapter, I want to give a few simple guidelines regarding the exercise of power, to distinguish between its use in a healthy way and unhealthy way:-

HEALTHY UNHEALTHY

Is assertive Is aggressive

Communicates your position Fits in with others (doormat)

Allows others to be themselves Tries to control others

Exercises humane authority Is domineering and rigid, or laissez faire

Within personal relationships, we need to know ourselves sufficiently so that we can say what we want, or need, in a clear way. We need to know which of our needs are non- negotiable, and which needs or wants are open to negotiation and compromise. We need to be strong enough to assert our non-negotiable needs without backing down. At the same time, we need to respect the other person’s right to freely chose what they feel is right for them.

In a group situation, we need to know our role, and exercise power humanely. As John Heider states in his book "The Tao of Leadership" -

"The leader who understands.... uses as little force as possible. When force is used, conflict and argument follow. The climate is hostile, neither open nor nourishing. The wise leader runs the group without fighting to have things a certain way. The leader's touch is light. Group members will challenge the ego of one who leads egocentrically. But one who leads selflessly and harmoniously will endure."

SUMMARY

We have explored a number of processes relating to healing and growth on the emotional level. Each of them follows a certain pattern, which is common to all of them. In observing this same pattern in operation at all stages of emotional healing and growth, we can see a general principle or natural law which governs healing at this level. The pattern may be divided into four steps, as follows:-

1. Awareness, acknowledgement and acceptance of our blocks. 2. Active release or passive dissolution of block. 3. New awareness of unblocked state. 4. Experience of emotional health and wellbeing

Each of these steps has a crucial role to play in the healing process. None of them can be avoided. There is often a temptation to jump straight from step 1 to step 4.

We think we can manage our emotions through our own efforts. Once we discover a blockage – of either stored anger, or some negative attitude - we think we can re-arrange our emotions to be more harmonious. This is no more than a subtle effort to control and manipulate our own feeling responses. It fails to recognise the spontaneous nature of healthy emotions, and as such is doomed to failure. There is nothing worse than having to stand guard over our emotions all the time, making sure we react only in "acceptable" ways. It is both a tiring and ultimately frustrating way to be.

By following the four steps outlined above, we reach to a state where our emotional responses will spontaneously be appropriate. In this state we can trust our responses at all times. Emotional health and wellbeing are innate to us. There is nothing we have to do to achieve them. All that is required is for us to let go of the blocks that interfere with this state, and then learn to accept and trust our emotions as they arise spontaneously in us.