Into The Fire With “Good Vibes Only” – Literally.
When working with a client, I consciously avoid using “value judgement” words. Good/bad, positive/negative, etc.
I am asked so often, “How do I get rid of my negative energy?” And I want to say, “Oh, my friend. If only you could see the irony of that question.”
The word “negative” comes from the Latin “negativa” which means, “to deny, to negate.” And by classifying our natural, very organic emotional responses as “negative” is to deny the fullness and authenticity of our experience. We are negating ourselves as whole humans.
We are taught by society, our families and institutions that there is no place for our toughest feelings and urges – that anger is “unbecoming of a lady”, that children “should be seen and not heard,” that “boys don’t cry,” “good vibes only!” (Barf.) There are so many reasons for this – trauma response, co-dependency (where someone else relies on our acting happy all the time so they can feel comfortable), and plain old “fitting in.”
We are shamed and punished for acting out as children, when all we are doing is struggling to make sense of hard emotional energy. We stuff them into tighter and tighter corners of our body as adults to keep them from spilling out. We are not taught healthy ways of release; instead we are taught to deny that our feelings exist entirely.
This constant echo of the unacceptable nature of our natural emotional responses leads to our denial of the beauty of our wholeness.
In actuality, there is incredible value and power in our grief, anger, rage, guilt, jealousy, shame and the like – which are sometimes called our shadow. All of these emotions that feel as if they have no place (nor right to exist), so instead they must be warehoused in our organs and tissues and cells, never to see the light of day – they can actually be an incredibly potent offering to Mother Earth.
I can’t count the number of times I have been guided by Divine Mother to invite the client to allow their tricky feelings to drain down into the soil, down so far that they can be transmuted by the compost and fire of the Earth Herself – and the Earth is so grateful! Mother Earth is incredibly grateful for the gift of our shadow. In all of the messaging about our “negative” feelings, we negate the fact that She accepts all offerings, especially the dark and dank.
She wants to hold what is too heavy for us. She is delighted to contain and transmute what is too unsustainable within our energy bodies. She can handle our toughest and densest energies with ease and grace. She uses the transmutation of the energetic heaviness to power the forces of Earth.
When you feel the weight of the densest of feelings, try this: rather than bemoan your “negative vibes,” take a deep breath in and as you exhale imagine the weight of that emotion trickling down your body, through your legs and central channel. Let it flow through the bottoms of your feet and into the ground. Visualize it flowing down into the very magma core of the Earth – the gorgeous fire of the planet. Let it be burned and transmuted. Invite yourself to see the inherent value of this offering to Mother Earth. Try to see your hard feelings through Her loving and grateful eyes, rather than the narrow slits and furrowed brows of the overculture.
You are a full and worthy human who is allowed a multitude of emotional experiences. There is not a drop of you that is unworthy or unacceptable. I see you, and I love what I see.