Seeker Magazine

Mastery of the Emotions

Bringing the Understanding of Emotions Out of the Dark Ages

by Gail E. Steuart and Barry Blumstein

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Our understanding of the Emotional System today is still in the Dark Ages. This has its analogy to the time when people's understanding of our Solar System was based upon the belief that the Sun revolved around the Earth, as it certainly appeared that way-however, just the reverse was true. The problem was, as long as we believed the Sun went around the Earth, we were limited as to how far we could go in the Solar System.

We find the same condition existing today in regard to the Emotional System. Society believes that our emotional feelings are a result of our experiences in our environment. In essence: something happened and it made me feel the way I do. This belief, as it is certainly the way it appears, is just the reverse of how it really works.

To know the proof of this is to remember the science experiment where you connected the two ends of a wire to the terminals of a dry cell battery. When an electrical charge flowed through the wire a magnetic field was created around the wire. This was demonstrated by the pattern of the iron filings. The nature of any object with a magnetic field around it is to attract to it over a distance of space another similar object with a magnetic field around it.

What happens to us as we embrace an emotional feeling is that it is first received by our brain, which converts it into electrical energy that flows through our body by means of the central nervous system. We can often "feel the charge" in our body associated with the experience of emotions. When this occurs, an electromagnetic field is generated around our body which attracts to us another person who has an identical electromagnetic field around their body and the same emotional feeling in their heart.

For example, if we view the woman who drowned her two children with anger we will then encounter someone, perhaps while driving, who will express their anger towards us. We might think, "What did I do to deserve that?" Now we know. The emotional feeling came first, and it resulted in a corresponding event subsequently occurring in our environment!

Because society has the understanding of this relationship backwards, we have not been able to make much progress in the emotional area. Let's face it, although this age reflects great advancements in technology, the feelings in the hearts of men and women are still plagued by darkness.

Believing that something or someone made us feel the way we do gives rise to the concept of victimization. To see self as a victim places the responsibility for our feelings on someone or something other than self. The real problem with this view is that if we are not responsible for having created our feelings, we are also unable to change those feelings and create new and different ones.

This dilemma we face creates quite a struggle in life. Although we may externally struggle with different circumstances and situations, the emotional feelings associated with them are always the same--frustration, resentment, anger, etc., etc., etc.

It is as if we have fallen into quicksand, gotten stuck, and the only way we know to extricate ourselves is to struggle. What we find is that the more we struggle to get out, the deeper in we sink. This predicament is exemplified by compulsive behavior. The things we do that we desire to no longer do constitute our compulsive behavior.

The characteristic of compulsive behavior is that it is reactive in nature. In other words, we have done it before we are consciously aware that we have done it. Since we do not like it, we get down on ourselves for having done it again. This only serves to feed and increase the intensity of what we did not like, so it becomes a stronger force within us, compelling us even more strongly to do it the next time. Then we get down on ourselves even more--feeding more energy into it so that it comes back stronger the next time...the more we struggle to get out, the deeper in we sink.

To state a simple rule: there is an inverse relationship between struggling with a problem and understanding the problem. To understand how the emotional system really works allows the resolution of problems without struggle.

To be in this world today is akin to suffering from amnesia, as we have forgotten who we truly are and how we came to be here. Once we again know who we are and understand the process we utilized to get stuck here, we can then reverse the process. This understanding is the key to unlocking the emotional doorway to enter into the Kingdom of Heavenly Feelings within us, the creation of happiness in life that we deserve to experience.


(Copyright 1999 by Gail E. Steuart and Barry Blumstein - No reproduction without express permission from the authors)

[The authors' training program, Mastery of the Emotions, has been presented nationally since 1985. To receive additional information, E-mail: emotionalmastery@netscape.net for a brochure.]


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Letter to the Author:
Gail E. Steuart and Barry Blumstein at bloomart@azstarnet.com