1995-03-10-Feelings & Emotions

Session

Opening

Opening prayer

DANIEL: Greetings my children, I am Daniel, your guide and teacher. It is this continuous, on-going communication between yourselves and your teachers and me in this fashion, that brings into your lives a continuity and a stabilizing effect, that does carry you through the unfolding of life. In joy I greet you this evening. In love I gather you in my spiritual arms and in compassion I understand your joys as well as your struggles. I am pleased to be here with you today.

Lesson

Feeling, Emotion

Tonight I would like to address this group regarding the aspects of feelings and emotions. Part of your basis of existence lies in the aspect of your being able to feel and emote. This is for the most part to you something that is conscious, stemming from your material existence.

The feelings that you have on this plane and the emotions are not in the same category as that of a morontial being or a spiritual being. Morontial and spirit beings do have more extensive perceptions and feelings that are very much a part of their being as are the feelings and emotions that you experience in your material sense. You are often able to segregate your feelings in some aspects between the joy of your spirit life and the reality of your human condition. Those of you on this plane who are able to comprehend and envision greater depth of being and purpose are able to allow feelings and emotions to not completely dominate your being, but in a sense you are able to rise above those negative undesirable aspects of feeling or emotion which tend to imprison your progress.

My words are not to confuse you and imply that you should not pay attention to or should not have feelings and emotions. What I am purporting to you this evening is that you realize that often those areas in your life which cause the most emotion and feeling are those areas you may need to work on. And of course I will backstep a moment here to say that emotions that stigmatize you and paralyze you are the ones that will cause the most difficulty in your progress. Those emotions and feelings that bring forth the higher good are not those that I am speaking about. It is my hope that you are seeing the difference between progressive, good emotions and feelings as opposed to those that are stagnant, cause deterioration or cause one to become inappropriately dysfunctional.

Opportunity, Understanding

Feelings that cause you to be angry, feelings that cause you to be intolerant, to be unhappy, those that bring forth a negative response in your being can be put to beneficial use if used appropriately and with understanding. If, for instance, you are growing angry time and again at a certain situation, if you will but stop to consider why and work through the various questions that will help you to either correct the situation, to rectify it, or in some manner be able to move beyond the anger into a more beneficial reaction. Therefor do not feel guilt or shame at your feelings but rather take note of and use this opportunity to understand another aspect of your being and therefor another aspect of your ongoing path to enlightenment.

Feelings generate many responses. The bottom line is how you choose to react to these. Failure to question and to seek answers will in the long run prevent you from moving forward. You will be like a car in a ditch spinning your wheels, never able to move beyond, only feeling the effects of the emotion emitted. Life continues to unfold with daily opportunities to question and to grow into greater self understanding. Self understanding helps you to relate to the outside world and to one another with a greater confidence and a greater sense of purpose.

Self Realization

Self realization enables you to come into closer contact with spiritual guidance, with your own personal Indwelling Spirit and also with the connectedness to others. Those who are in a habitual enclosure of not realizing who they are, why they exist or who play the role of being only a victim reduce the chances of breaking through into greater avenues of spiritual understanding.

This week I would ask that you take note of your emotions and feelings and look closely to your reactions, your way of dealing with that which you feel. Do not do this as a checklist of finding fault but rather as a critique of your person in order that you can grow in greater understanding. Those who would view this as a checklist and fault finding mission will be back spinning wheels. Evaluate from a non-judgmental aspect. Critique with the observant eye of you being your own best friend and helper. Look at your decisions and question wisely with a desire to know and understand so that the process of change can begin. Change in increments and gradual steps will then begin. Emotions/feelings are those things which are a part of your being at a very deep level and will take time to unfold, to understand, and if necessary to bring to a different level in order to change. With these words, then, I will end this lesson and open this floor for questions.

Dialogue

Perspective

Isaac: Good evening, Daniel, this is Isaac. This is a very pertinent topic to me, not only as an individual but as a psychologist working with other people. It brings up a point that I wanted to discuss with you in the past, and that is this. It appears to me that you and all of the teachers in the Teaching Mission are now employing what our recent psychology has discovered which is that feelings are tied to belief systems and interpretations that intervene between an event and a resultant feeling.

For example, two boys could be on a baseball team. The game is rained out on Saturday. One boy is depressed because he was the pitcher and planned on winning the game. The other boy is happy because he is the left fielder and he is a klutz. He is always afraid to play because of his clumsiness. The rain ending the game results in two different feelings of these two different individuals because of what they interpret the game ceasing means for them personally. Your emphasis in the past, and all of you teachers, about reinterpreting the meaning of events to see from a broader perspective, etc., is the same concept as our most up to date psychologists rational/emotive theory. Maybe I am wrong in interpreting your 'stuff' this way but I think I am right. I thought I would bring it to the surface here and see if you wanted to comment on it.

DANIEL: Indeed is the level of understanding among psychologists stepping into higher realms. I would ask you to see from this perspective as well.

Part of the mission of Christ Michael upon this earth was to bring forth to the peoples of Urantia and the peoples of this local universe the fact of the Father and Mother's love and the fact of the aspect of God as being personal. It is personally stifling and often not progressive to view God from any other perspective other than personal love and mercy. God is not a God of creed, culture, or chosen individuals.

In order for the majority of Urantians to comprehend a personal God there needs to be an understanding and consciousness of one's own self. Self worth is raised to greater heights when one objectively looks at their life, their reactions, and as you have mentioned, their culture and knowledge of the past. In order to break through, then, the barriers to acceptance of a personal God, a God who truly has meaning and not a God that is outside of the personal life (which I will speak about in a moment) a person must begin by knowing themselves.

The God that I speak about who is outside of the person is often and in too many cases the God that is worshiped throughout much of Urantia. This is the God who is there and who is worshiped out of fear or worry of the consequences that may take place if one does not pay homage to this God. You see, there is such a radical difference between that and a personal God. When many people say they believe in God are they believing or do they actually know? God is known when God becomes personal and in depth. Does this help?

ISAAC: Well certainly you have illustrated what I think I was saying, that in the case of God, if your interpretation of God is that He is outside of you, as you said, that will lead to a very different conclusion about yourself and what happens to you in your life than if you believe God is within you as the Thought Adjuster. I wasn't particularly thinking of belief in a religious sense. I used that term more as an interpretive explanation of what happens. But your point about God and how a person understands God makes a tremendous difference is right.

What I was trying to ask you Daniel was...and I didn't explain what rational/emotive psychology is. I didn't want to get us off on that. It is just a little bit different. The old psychology was that a stimulus caused a response, a mechanistic thing. The reason that everybody is depressed is because it is raining and the ballgame is ruined. But the new psychology says that the reason people are depressed is because of the meaning of that rain, how it stops the game and how that is a big disappointment to some people whereas to the boy I described it's a relief because he doesn't have to play the game which he is frightened to do. So the same event can result in different feelings in different people, or different feelings in the same person at different times depending on what they think that event means. I am not sure that I communicated that clearly to you.

It seems to me that is what you teachers are doing. You are helping us to change our beliefs about first of all ourselves, as you said, and who we are as children of God with an Indwelling Presence of the First Source and Center, and that everyone else does too. And by changing the way we see ourselves and the way we see other people, the way we see life, so that all of this is broadening our perspective and changes the way we feel from what it was before when we had a different perspective.

DANIEL: Indeed, Isaac, I understood your question from that aspect very fully. You wanted to tie me down to saying yes or no regarding a change in psychological thought. It is not my intention to say that this is the course that the teachers are taking. To state emphatically yes would discount many other aspects of psychology that are valid.

I will, however, validate that, indeed, perspective is, in fact, very important in one's actions. This is a given. Indeed, one's past, one's culture, one's philosophical/theological and scientific thought processes, one's economic status, and the many other elements that go into this area do lend themselves to helping that person perceive any given situation. Therefor in order for you to know why you have done something it behooves you to understand where you are coming from. For in that regard you are able to be less judgmental and are able, then, to understand that, indeed, things are not so firmly in place that change cannot come about. If one views life from a completely mechanistic standpoint it becomes very difficult to change. In this regard what you have said holds great validity.

Isaac: I wish to apologize. I didn't mean to give you the label of rational/emotive...

DANIEL: No apology necessary!

Isaac: ..for the record that this is going to be included in. [[[Laughter]]]

PamElla: For the way that everybody thinks about you! [More laughter]

Isaac: Yes. Well I can understand that to take the label of any particular human thought at this point would be inappropriate for you teachers to do as you are far above us in your experience. So!....you do validate there is validity in what I said; and that was what I thought you would do. So I appreciate your ... What's the word? ... dialoging with me about that Daniel.

DANIEL: It has been my pleasure!

Isaac: I will let somebody else talk.

Luke: Hello, Daniel, this is Luke speaking.

DANIEL: Hello, Luke.

Luke: Attitude and emotion is usually a very heavy subject for every one of us because if someone is pressing the button you usually go off. What I have tried to do, as a suggestion, is that if somebody does press the button to sit back and don't let the blood pressure rise on you. And if necessary take a script that you really like, read on it, and then pray for the person or for the IRS. And eventually your blood pressure will come down. I have had very good success. I think that is the message you would like to bring across. Would you comment please?

DANIEL: Indeed your age long saying on this planet to count to ten has much truth in it! It is always advisable for one to have a cooling down time if emotions become so dominant that wise and clear thinking are not available to the individual. It is always good advice to solicit the powers to be, as you would say, in helping to come to terms with a situation or an event, not only in your own person, but for others. Indeed prayer is healthy from the standpoint that it helps you to become more focused and it helps you to actually clarify parts of what is emitting this emotion. It helps you to come to terms with what really needs to be done; not that the other person needs to change or that you do not like that policy; but what is it about this policy that is bothering you. What is it that violates your emotions? Is it something that you need to change within you; or is it a policy of great social consciousness that needs to be changed through societal means? This has been an example to extend upon your point, Luke. Indeed, those who deal in areas of negotiation realize that there is a necessity to have a cooling down time so that the hostilities, anger and bitter feelings can be resolved. The adrenaline attack can be smoothed out and then there is the ability to think, reason, process and the ability to intuit. Do not forget this aspect of being is very important in negotiating. To intuit, to have knowledge that comes from not always logic and that sort of reasoning but from a deeper sense of what is right. Thank you Lothar, for your comments.

Parenting, Anger, Freedom

Leetah: Good evening, Daniel. Your comments about 'victim' brought to mind the training we give our children and one another with giving someone else the responsibility and the blame for how we respond emotionally. I can't help but think of a very heavy discussion that Bill and I had many years ago. For the first time I realized that no one else can make me angry, no one else can make me mad, but actually I choose to do that. And so often now I find myself biting my tongue because I will start to say, 'That made me so mad' or 'He made me so mad' or 'They made me mad'. I find myself having to say, 'I choose to be angry in this situation'. I think that our culture maybe is waking up but it is a real disservice to our children to have that modeled by us adults.

DANIEL: Indeed, every parent is guilty of saying, 'You make me so mad when you do this or that', instead of realizing that it is, indeed, where you are coming from that is emoting the feelings of anger, hostility, or whatever. Certainly what they have done is a triggering mechanism for you; it can trigger that. But you are not in a box. You are not imprisoned in your mind. You have been given free agency and you can choose to get mad or you can choose to say 'what is it about this that causes me anger?' and work from that. Indeed, this is and will be an ongoing thing for you. It crops up in many ways, in many instances; sometimes subtly, sometime very glaringly. And so, indeed, those who are working with children, those who are working within a relationship need to be aware that they cannot force guilt onto someone else for what they are feeling. Likewise, you should not feel that you are the cause for someone else's feelings. What is the ideal in these situations is when in a relationship this is understood; that the relationship can be strong enough that the two can talk and work out those things. 'I find myself getting mad when you do this'. And it is possible that between you and that other individual a working agreement can be made that will allow for there to be some consensus and some agreement so that these things that are triggering this unwanted emotion are lessened. It is the ideal society that can work in this fashion. It is what is being worked for, indeed.

Leetah: Thank you, Daniel. I have often thought that when I say, 'You make me so mad' or 'They make me so mad' or whatever that often I have given them a wrong motive. But it was interesting to hear you say, if I understood it correctly, that with me saying, 'You make me angry' that I am trying to make them feel guilty; that this is the motive behind a statement like that. That is something to really think about. I appreciate very much your words. Thank you, Daniel.

DANIEL: You are most welcome.

Emotion

PamElla: Daniel, I would like to talk about that a little further because I appreciated you saying 'unwanted emotion'. Mom, sometimes when I hear you make your statement about 'I choose to be angry' or 'I choose to be whatever', that seems so black and white and simplistic; because, no, I don't choose this. It is pretty uncomfortable. It is not what is wanted. So I would like you to ... and I'm sorry, Daniel, you may have addressed this. I was tired and fell asleep while you were talking so if I am asking old material to be reiterated I apologize. In emotion I guess I don't think that we freely choose emotion, we choose our response to the emotion we feel. We can choose to let our feelings of anger out on whoever is there or we can choose to go and try and understand ourselves better in terms of why we felt that emotion. But we are still feeling that emotion. Maybe I have gone far enough. Do you understand my question?

DANIEL: Emotion is a part of your being that is tied into your temperament, that is somewhat keyed into heredity to an extent. Emotion is also that which incurs from the moment of conception onward that is part of your background, part of your environment, your upbringing, your education, all those things of which we have already spoken. And so these two together can cause the emotion. It is correct to say that it is reaction to that emotion that is at question. If you understand that you have a quick temperament, that you are quick to anger then you will be able to recognize this in instances when this occurs. Because of this if you willing you will be able to redirect this anger in a more productive and better outcome. It will not be easy. It will have taken a lot of preparation work in the past to help you redirect. This is not saying that you need to bottle up anger. It is saying to redirect it in a way that is productive. Does this help?

Human Condition

PamElla: Yes, Daniel, that does help. And then that brings me to the further question that I think I already know the answer to. A lot of us don't like our emotional reactions to situations. A lot of us wish that we had different emotional reactions, that we could always respond to situations with love and light. But that is not our reality. So I am thinking that we perhaps become more that way as we spend time in the silence. But basically that's part of perfecting, and we are at the very bottom rung and we have a long way to go. Is that accurate?

DANIEL: You are seeing very clearly, yes.

PamElla: Thank you. It is a disappointment but (much laughter) I am getting better with reality.

Closing

DANIEL: I am going to take this pause in questions to close this meeting due to TR fatigue and breakdown in circuits. I say with great sincerity to you that the greatest things that you will work on in this life have to do with the knowledge you have about yourself and the desire to become better and better. It is the human condition that you will tangle with the desire to be divinely inspired at all moments of your life rather than allow your humanness to take over. However, this can be as dangerous as one who completely ignores the spiritual and runs amock with the human aspect.

Integration and balance helps to smooth out the tribulations of a material life. Error, misunderstanding and bad judgment will always play a part. But it is being able to step back and say, 'All right. I need to start again!' that will restore balance. Remember, my friends, there are always fresh beginnings. There is no end to the human condition, no error that cannot be rectified. There are only more and better opportunities to move forward. There is always another door to open. Remember that in opening the doors you are allowing that the next adventure may bring you another step in progress, that this time the anger or the failure or whatever the negative emotion will be lessened. Progress, steady onward going, opening doors, opportunities, willingness to look, to see and to understand, these are all key ingredients in your lives. And underneath all of that is the love, the care, the overcare of the First Source and Center.

Peace be with you this week.