Are Uncomfortable Feelings Sabotaging Your Best Efforts?

Last week a woman in my Nourishing your Hungry Soul group asked an excellent question. I find it hard to sit still and relax because when I do I connect with a huge ball of anger in my stomach and don`t know what to do with that.

I would like to address this issue by telling a story from my early years.

When I was quite young, living in New York City,trying to build a name for myself in the New York art scene,I was dealing with a lot of rage, an intense eating disorder and with a life that seemed insane and crazy. One day I was riding my newly bought pink second-hand bicycle on the cobblestones streets of the city when my back wheel hit a crack in the sidewalk that threw it out of alignment. Being somewhat of a mechanical dummy, a bit impulsive (quite a bit actually) and feeling already out of control and overwhelmed, I noticed a wave of rage surge through my body. Without thinking, I looked down at my bike, threw up my hands in anguish, turned to the first person I saw walking near me on the street and said to him, Here you take this! I don’t want it anymore. The guy grinned and walked away with a lovely almost-new bike.

We are creative beings. When we anesthetize our life-force, when we forget how creative we are, or suppress this creative energy with patterns that keep us stuck in habitually dull and boring activity, we end up destroying ourselves. As we become more conscious, and begin to unwind from the compulsive habitual behaviors that we`ve been using to numb ourselves, that energy can burst forth in the form of intense feeling such as grief and rage.

Those of us dealing with addictive behaviors have powerful underlying negative feelings. We may have experienced abuse, or neglect. Or we may be creative individuals who haven’t figured out how to use our creativity in a way that supports our life.

We may have been born into a world that seems to us to be crazy. Instead of using our powerful creative capacities to create a life that really works for us, we make ourselves wrong, negating our powerful creative capacities and abilities.

Feelings are energy. They are powerful fuel for creative endeavor.

As a creative being, you get to choose how you use this creative energy. You can wipe it out with anesthetizing habits and behaviors, you can use it to destroy yourself or you can use it create something exciting and new.

The first step is recognizing that you are a creative being. The second step is realizing you have the power to choose what you do with your energy. The third step is choosing to use the energy of your feelings to create something life enhancing.