An Emotional Experience Experiment

Look up the definition of emotions and you will find that you will also have to look up
feelings, moods, behavior, subjectivity and consciousness just to get a good understanding
of what emotions are. Trying to understand emotions has kept psychiatrists and
psychologists very busy and very wealthy, not to mention the pharmacology industry.
Masking your emotions with mood altering drugs is not a good idea, but that is a separate
discussion that we will save for a later date. The point is we all have emotions and our
reaction to emotions varies from person to person. This article will give you my definition of
emotions and an exercise to try the next time you experience an emotional situation.

As a result of having a very emotional experience, you will notice that your body and mind
will start to feel very tired. That is because you have just moved a lot of energy while
working through the emotion. Emotions are just that, Energy in Motion (E - Motion) and
that is why emotions that are kept bottled up are very destructive. This energy if allowed to
build up will in some way manifest itself, as stress or even a physical ailment. You cannot
neglect or ignore your emotions without eventually experiencing some form of
consequence.

Have you ever watched a movie in the company of others and a very sad scene starts
playing and before you know it, you feel you eyes start to well up. You try to hold back the
tears and if you were alone you would probably ball like a baby. Come on, fess up, you know
what I am talking about. Most people do not like to show their emotions to others, because
we were brought up to think that this was a sign of weakness. It is in reality, a sign of
wisdom and strength, the wise one knows that energy must flow and the strong one really
could care less what someone else thinks about the shedding of their tears.

The end result of an emotional experience will depend on what triggered the emotion and
how it was dealt with. People will cry with tears of joy and with loving compassion, or they
could weep uncontrollably with fear, anguish or shame. Whether it is a negative emotion or
a positive one, that energy needs to and will flow somewhere and what we have to do is to
learn to use this energy in a productive way that will enhance our lives, and not impede it.
Just as tears are an emotional expression, so is laughter. Ever hear the phrase; laughter is
the best medicine or laughter doeth good like a medicine? The reason why, is that you are
releasing built up energy and giving it a place to go.

This is where we begin to experiment a little, think back and try to remember a moment
where you were laughing uncontrollably, remember what brought you to that state,
something that triggered you to have that emotional reaction. Feel the joy, the happiness
and the Love; you can experience that same feeling again by remembering the event. Some
people get very sick because they will block bad memories that invoke negative emotions,
they get sick because that emotional energy builds up somewhere in their body. Try and
remember something that made you sad, maybe somebody called you a bad name and hurt
your feelings. Remember what they said, you can begin to feel how upset that made you.
Now can you feel that energy start to build up again? Can you feel what part of your body
that energy is coming from? Now imagine with me if you will, that this energy is starting to
move. Follow the flow of that energy and begin to imagine the energy start to flow through
your arms. This energy begins to build up in your hands; you can feel the energy build and
your hands may even begin to tingle or shake. When you sense that this energy is at its end,
or that your hands can not take any more, clap your hands together sharply and loudly. You
can feel the energy leave your hands and dissipate into the atmosphere around you, to be
recycled. Now go wash your hands and let the water run off your hands and imagine any of
that residual energy flow off your hands and run down the drain.

If that above experiment sounded silly, that's okay, if you tried it and if you are honest with
yourself, you will wonder why you feel better. Practicing this simple exercise over and over
again, remembering past events and releasing that energy build up, will become a valuable
tool for you to use when real time thoughts activate your emotions. You can begin to take
control of your emotions and even begin to learn to use that energy for more productive
purposes. There are many tools available to help you control your emotions and to heal old
emotional wounds. This little experiment, if practiced, is a whole lot easier to use than
having to see a doctor and eventually being put on some regiment of drugs, to cure some
illness or psychosis.

Hopefully, if you do not like this experiment, you will seek out some productive ways to
release the emotional energy and keep it from building up in your body. I have another
definition in the form of an acronym that I would like to share with you for stress, "Sudden
Traumatic Response to Emotionally Stimulated Systems". In your body, an emotionally
stimulated build up of energy will create a sudden traumatic response, called stress. Stress
is a topic for another article, so please try the experiment and let me know how it worked
for you. May all of your emotional experiences be non-traumatic ones!