Katrina Two-Year Anniversary

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Katrina/Levees Broke Update

(My sister who's lived in New Orleans since she was 5 wrote this letter to our family about how things are going, on the two year anniversary of hurricane Katrina.)

She was also featured in a news article that you can find here. Or if that link doesn't
work, you can go to http://www.theage.com.au.

I wanted to write an update give you a taste of life
(for us, anyway) these days in New Orleans for the 2 year
anniversary of The Hurricane... But I'm too tired,
too depressed, too drained... and some say that
people outside of NOLA don't care anyway. (Not you,
of course.) They think we should be over it, move on,
stop dwelling, buck up! It was two years ago!

Well, I don't have time to organize thoughts and edit
and address all of the issues around here...

BUT--- I will say this, as I sit in this FEMA trailer
I've called home since February 14, 2006, things are
looking up! We are about to turn a corner! We're on
the brink of normalcy!

We hope to sign a 10 month lease tomorrow for an
apartment, thanks to FEMA [finally] wanting to get
people out of toxic trailers and offering assistance.
(Those pesky law suits.) I was a bit apprehensive to
use it but Legshe (my sister's husband - he's from Tibet -
how cool is that!) has had enough symptoms to justify
it, not to mention our mental health. I am very
appreciative of this program. (Especially because the
rental prices I reckon are about twice what they were
pre-k, which is why we've remained in the trailer for
this long....) This will be our first stay together
each night in a real house, under a non-FEMA trailer
roof, non-blue roof, for more than a couple months...
and it will be wonderful to live in only one location
every night (instead of moving around between houses
and the trailer). Lets hope all the animals get
along. And people, for that matter.

And still, almost all our conversations are inevitably
Katrina/Levee related... it always comes back to it.
Of course a lot of the focus is on rebuilding. A year
ago we were still exchanging information about how to
get assistance, how to get permits, whether to
elevate, how to kill mold... We now check out each
others' plumbing, examine neighbors' mold remediation,
discussions usually involve house talk.. exchanging
ideas about water heaters, ac, flooring, etc. its as
if we've all become contractors or plumbers or
electricians... learning so much more than we ever
thought we could (or cared to) about rebuilding our
homes.

And then there are those lucky ones who aren't having
to repair but unlucky that they have to listen to us
go on and on and on about our repairs....

Certain restaurants and plenty of other businesses are
still not open. I miss Harry's Ace on Carrollton -
now its all about the you-know-what Depot and the
L---'s. Sorry to see my childhood K&B torn down... we
lost our Popeyes on the corner of Canal and
Carrollton... but I hadn't been there in a decade
anyway. Schwegmann who? (oh yeah, that had already
happened) Well, they say losses bring up past losses.

The streets seem still rather empty at times. I don't
know what the pop. stats are of late. Some comin,
some goin, I suppose.

I hear the news telling a story of a family that just
finally got their FEMA trailer. Which makes me think
also of all those people who have not come back or not
been able to come back.... so sorry for the separation
and sadness they must feel.

As I mentioned before (year ago?) the hospice
patients/families I see still (just today!) say that
the patient became sick right after Katrina.

And despite all of the following -- the apparent (?)
crime increase (so many murders lately!) - and I hear
the suicide rate is higher, the crippling heat (not
exactly Katrina related but both connected to global
warming), the pain and suffering, confusion, political
disappointments, and the fear I see in people's eyes
who love new orleans so much and don't want to move
away but feel it may be slipping away from them....
still there is that hope that always returns. Hope.
Determination. They know that the spirit of New
Orleans cannot die. And, of course we still have
plenty of fun here.

About that hope -- since I learned recently of hope
being a way to actually keep some distance between us
and the present moment -- I prefer to focus on
gratitude... For all that we have.

For example, I am glad to have had this trailer all
this time. And didn't have to pay a penny! Lowest
electric bills ever! Takes only 10 minutes to clean!

And I'm glad to have had all the house sitting
opportunities to get away from this trailer - like the
entire summer at Diana and Maela's.

I am thankful that many people have come to NO to help
rebuild, and SO many volunteers still coming from out
of town.

And thankful for the donations of furniture from
friends and family... just got offered a microwave
today.

I miss ya'll friends that have moved away but
appreciate having more places to stay around the
country.

We are fortunate to have had groups of volunteers,
mostly local, come the last few weekends, (thanks to
staff from the Times Picayune!), to help us put in
insulation and hang drywall. It is amazing how they
come and offer themselves and work so hard, in
ninety-something degree heat! ... and we merely offer
muffins and thank yous. One of the homes they helped
gut was damaged by fire this past weekend so we'll be
going to join in to help them this weekend. I'm happy
to have the opportunity to help them help others.

Oh, did I mention the instulation and sheetrock was
donated through the St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church?


My neighbors have become an important part of my life
and I always look forward to seeing them. Lots of
house-talk.

And although I still have frequent thoughts of moving
away from N.O. (especially after returning from out of
town) and yearn for the days of the past or days of
the expected future, I am thankful every day to have
New Orleans as it is today... to be a part of the
rebuilding... I can appreciate the challenges the
Storm has provided and especially the lessons of
impermanence.


Well, too bad I didn't have time and energy to write
now, eh? (Imagine if I had!) I'm sure I skipped a
lot and rambled in some areas - we still have the
katrina brain excuse here.

So, all this to say, we're moving along at a Big Easy
pace... A lot of the city is changing and rebuilding,
just not quickly. We've had a few neighors move in to
their houses. (Two modular homes in the next block.)
Things like that....

Maybe next time I'll be in my house, 9 feet in the
air...

Ya'll come!

If you made it this far, thanks for allowing me to
share.

With love,
Jennifer

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Making The Past Your Ally

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Here's how I used to feel:

"Something's not right. I'm miserable too much of the time. I barely know happiness. I feel 'down'. My heart aches. When will I feel better?"

I didn't start out this way. Although it often seems like it. I can vaguely remember moments of childhood glee. Life was simpler then. I had my moments - even through the pain of growing up. I had my moments of joy. If I think back hard enough - I can even remember a time or two when I felt on top of the world.

What happened? How did it get so bad? What did I do wrong? I know I started out pure... innocent... fresh in the world. Why do I feel so dirty now?

I hide it. But I can't kill it: those feelings of unworthiness... undeserving... not good enough. I have to keep stuffing down those feelings. Sometimes it's like holding a beach ball under water. I know I didn't come into this world to feel miserable.

It's true. You did come here filled with hope. You really did know dominion as a child. No matter how much you were beaten down.

Search hard enough - you will find those moments, however fleeting... of boundless love and unbridled enthusiasm and spikes of joy. Maybe they were extinguished early on... but you can go back now and RETRIEVE them.

Because you can't really kill that childhood enthusiasm. You can only cover it up with layers of pain and shame and blame and various other energies. They may have stopped you from feeling wonderful again, but they couldn't kill those wonderful feelings you'd already felt.

Those feelings live on. You can find them NOW. Uncover them. Recover them. Discover them, as if for the first time. You can use them now to help you feel better today.

See, the expansive feelings such as love, joy, wonder, happiness, enthusiasm... hold much greater power than the constrictive feelings such as hate and despair and fear. (Although EVERY real emotion holds power.)

The love and joy you felt as a child - however fleeting - still exists today. If you consciously go back and remember those moments, you can use them today as anchors - as beacons of hope - to change your life.

You're already using your memories as anchors and beacons. But all too often, we save and cherish the painful memories. Interestingly, it takes more energy to keep those painful memories in place than it does to keep wonderful moments in place.

Of the thousands and thousands of separate experiences you've had in the past, only a small handful are elevated to the status of anchor or beacon. You choose which moments to elevate. You choose the memories.

By consciously making the effort, you can replace your current memories with others that serve you better.

Why not get out paper and pen and jot down a quick list of your current memories that serve as anchors and beacons? It's easy! You think of them all the time anyway. Now you can get them down on paper. As a way to hold them up to the light of day.

Then decide which ones to replace with more pleasant ones. Find a joyful moment to substitute for each painful one. Make them up, if you must. You're doing it already with the painful ones... if you stop and really look at it you'll see how the painful memories often get embellished. Assuming they're not outright lies.

You can change the direction of your life if you really want to - just by sincerely practicing this simple technique.

It's never too late to relive a happy childhood moment.

Their 'emotional charge' lives on - you can't 'use it up' the way you can so easily discharge the painful moments. That's how you prove to yourself love holds much greater power than fear or pain or hurt. Because to keep those unpleasant moments alive, you must keep remembering them over and over and over.

Loving, joyful moments anchor much quicker and with much less effort. It's one way to start feeling better.

As we elevate the positive moments of the past, it helps to fully release the painful moments. And to really let go of the past, forgive yourself.

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all the best,

Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

FREE E-Book on Emotional Healing

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Feeling Better Now, Step By Step

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If you're a happy loving person then it's easy to tell someone else -

"Just be happy. Just love yourself. Go ahead. Do it!"

But if you're really hurting, or depressed - if you're at the 'low end' of the emotional scale - it's probably just going to increase the hurt or the anger or the frustration or the whatever.

The feelings you're already feeling tend to get amplified when you hear some cocky person (such as myself) tell you to 'just feel better'.

It will likely make you MORE depressed, if you're depressed now. It amps up what you're already feeling, rather than actually helping you.

With that in mind, let me offer a fairly workable solution.

I can remember a time, many, many years ago, when a friend said to me: "Mark, this is the first time I've EVER seen you smiling."

It really stuck with me. I never forgot that statement. And I actually tried to start being happy...

But I couldn't even FAKE IT! I was that miserable. So little happiness could be found anywhere in my life. Maybe a perverted sense of glee... if I were arguing or dragging someone down to my level. But no lasting happiness.

I tried. I honestly tried to be happy. I just could not make it happen. And if it ever did, it seemed I has no control over how long it would last.

Too bad I didn't know then, what I'm about to tell you now.

Essentially, it's a way to climb out of misery. By starting where you are. And by FEELING where you are - and then reaching for a slightly better feeling.

Below you'll find a list of emotions. Simply start reading the list, and jump in when you get to the way you feel right now.

Stop when you get to the way you feel. And feel that feeling for a minute or two - JUST feel - without doing anything else. It's harder than it sounds. Cause your mind will try to drag you all over the place, rather than to simply feel the emotion cleanly.

Then, when you're ready - go to the next one on the list, and feel that one for a minute or so. Keep going down the list. (You might want to write them out or print this page so you'll know what to do next time some smart-aleck tells you to 'just feel better'!)

And if it sounds like too much work, take that as a sign - there's a good indication you may REALLY want to do this! Maybe spend 60 seconds or more FEELING - without thinking or telling yourself a story about what it means to feel it. Then slowly work your way down the list. The key is to keep moving down the list... but not too fast.

Generally speaking, you only need to feel ONE emotion on each line, rather than all of them. For example, you could feel either the hurt, or the humiliation, or the abandonment; rather than all three; before moving to the next level. (Unless you really feel the need...)


Here's The List Of Emotions:

Hopelessness, Despair, Meaninglessness, Emptiness, Depression,
Powerlessness

Loneliness, Worthlessness, Feeling Hollow

Revenge, Rage, Hate

Blame

Jealousy, Envy

Hurt, Humiliation, Abandonment

Fear, Anxiety, Angst

Anger, Resentment, Bitterness

Pessimism

Guilt, Sadness

Pity, Crisis, Overwhelm, Martyr, Victim

Worry, Doubt, Discouraged

Frustration, Confusion, Aggravation

Boredom, Impatience, Irritation

Well-Being, Peace, Contentment

Optimism

Thrill, Enthusiasm

Hope, Trust

Passion, Compassion, Caring

Happiness, Wonder

Love, Joy, Gratitude, Intimacy

***

Now don't you feel better? Just a little bit? And you didn't even have to fake it!

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all the best,

Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

FREE E-Book on Emotional Healing

create-reality.com

forgive-yourself.com

reduce-fear.com

healing-emotional-pain.com

release-emotions.com

Law Of Attraction Didn't Work For Me

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35 years ago, at the tender age of 15, I happened upon a book called "Think And Grow Rich".

I don't remember if it actually mentioned the Law of Attraction by name, but it certainly covered the topic well: All I had to do was focus - with intention, and purpose, and will - focus my thoughts on the object of my dreams, and it MUST manifest.

I was in heaven!

Because I finally had The Answer to all my miserable problems. All those people I despised (there were quite a few, actually) could EAT my DUST. Maybe I would send them a postcard from Successville...

Nah. I'll hire somebody else to do it for me. I'm not going to dirty my hands.

In the meantime, I've got some thinking to do! (But that's just a formality, right?) So I focused and I intended and I willed and I thought... till the cows came home. (If you're not from Mississippi, that means 'a long time'.) And lo-and-behold...

Nothing happened. Not even maybe.

It wasn't from lack of effort. I literally slept with that book under my pillow. Just in case the magical information might seep into my subconscious whilst I was sleeping.

Eventually, the book faded away and I returned to my state of hopeless quiet despair. With the inevitable conclusion: there's something wrong with me. I was so devastated, it would be YEARS before I would even consider the possibility that I could improve myself. (Imagine my glee when I found out the author, Napoleon Hill, died poor. Now that's irony!)

Anyway, I put all my faith into a plan that failed; for numerous reasons.

Here's a big one: My motivation was faulty.

See, I really did have a problem with my classmates at school. They all seemed so happy. And I KNEW I was a miserable excuse for a Starkville Mississipian.

For some strange reason, I blamed my misery on outside forces: I blamed my peers. I blamed my parents. I blamed God. I blamed myself. I practically blamed the hot summer winds that blew through the tall pecan trees. Because as long as I was blaming, I didn't have to evaluate and honestly assess the situation.

Now in my case, there really was a lot of pain that I had NO intention of dealing with. Blame distracted me from that pain.

Too bad my blaming took so much effort. It's like using a hand pump to pull water out of the ground so you can keep a rock wet. You work really hard to pump up some blame, then it peters out so quickly. So you have to pump some more. Otherwise that rock of pain will dry out and I'll have to deal with it.

If you stop blaming, who knows what would happen? Not me.

But if I could just think and grow rich... then I'd show everybody! Including those pecan trees. I’m pretty sure they were talking about me behind my back...

So, with a motivation of revenge and validation and vindication, I failed. Or did I? Maybe if I'd looked a little closer (admittedly an almost impossible task at that age) I would've seen the shifting sandy foundation I stood on, and maybe cleaned it up a little.

At the time, I thought I only needed powerful thoughts to create what I wanted. (And mine lacked the punch, anyway.) I thought I had to grit my teeth a little harder, clench my fists a little tighter, furrow my brow a little deeper. And stare with just a little more intensity.

I never once thought to look down at my feet - to see where I was standing. To notice what I was pushing off from.

Motivation matters.

Now, it's usually the first thing I look at when I want to achieve something. "Why do I want this? Let me look at my foundation. Because that's what I'm 'attracting' reality out of."

Your foundation possessed much more power than the thoughts you hold up and place on the shelf; like little glass figurines on display. More of the action - more of the 'attraction' - comes from the foundation.

So that's the real law of attraction - we 'attract' out of the TOTALITY of our beingness - and not the tiny sliver of thoughts that we're aware of.

So what's REALLY in that foundation of yours? Are you sure you want to know? I don't advise clicking the link below, because it will wipe out all your excuses for 'why-not' ==>

create-reality.com

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all the best,

Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

FREE E-Book on Emotional Healing

forgive-yourself.com

reduce-fear.com

healing-emotional-pain.com

release-emotions.com

The Essence Of Success

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I'll never forget the time I finally learned to ride my little red Western Flyer bicycle without the training wheels. I really didn't want to take them off, but my dad felt I was ready.

So off they came. Wouldn't you know it? He was right. And it felt wonderful! I was free - free as the wind - free as a boy could be. Free as a bird released from a cage.

That was my first big success in life.

Another big success occurred when I became an Eagle Scout. The next one was when I finally got my pilot's license. What a thrill! I still remember the words of my instructor after I completed the final testing: "There'll be joy in Mudville tonight."

So what do these three separate incidents - separated by two decades - have in common? Because certainly the form differed widely in each case. How could you compare riding a bicycle with flying an airplane?

Very different forms. But form is just an illusion, right? That's what some people say. (Me included.)

When you look at the form, every single success stands alone. Unique. Different, at least slightly, from every other success. But when you look beyond the form, to the ESSENCE of success, you see a pattern.

First, I enjoyed access to resources: A bicycle. An airplane. Boy Scout merit badges. And I also had access to more esoteric resources; like will and drive and determination. They don't hand out pilot's licenses down at the corner convenience store. You don't get one by purchasing a winning lottery ticket.

You gotta really want it!

A second characteristic of the essence of success: the fun, the joy, the happiness, the thrill - to one degree or another - that always accompanies success. You just feel good with success.

And thirdly, even though I didn't know it at the time - I used the principles of reality creation to achieve those successes. Every time I succeed, even today - every success I create - big or small - I'm using those principles.

And finally, I was WILLING to attain the success. And once I had it, I felt deserving of it. See, so often we don't attain something because we don't feel we deserve it.

But the issue of deserving doesn't even matter. It doesn't matter if I deserved the Eagle Scout award or not; because I was WILLING to have it. That's the answer to the little voice inside that says 'you don't deserve'. Just be willing instead.

And the willingness must be present for the success to manifest.

When you look closely at any success, you find an essence behind it. An essence more real than the form that manifests out of it. To have more success, greater success, to make success more present in your life, focus on the essence.

Sure, you still have to hammer the nails and lay the groundwork in the physical world. But those nails will hammer a little easier if you hold onto the essence of success as you go about the building: The thrill and happiness and fun. The access to resources. The willingness. And the principles of reality creation.

That's how you bring joy to Mudville tonight.

***

And for more info on those principles of reality creation go to -

create-reality.com

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all the best,

Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

FREE E-Book on Emotional Healing

forgive-yourself.com

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healing-emotional-pain.com

release-emotions.com

Courage From Your Soul

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If you want more courage, one way is to cultivate your soul.

Your soul. Many people seem to have lost theirs. Others don't even believe they have one. Most people don't have a clue about their soul; as indicated by the sorry state of affairs society functions out of.

I've even heard people say, "your Higher Self is your soul". And if I hear that statement one more time, I'm going to scream.

No. Forget that. I'm going crazy. I’m going on a rampage. I’m going absolutely berserk. Overturning cars. Tearing up brick buildings with my bare hands. Crushing everything in my path. I'll make The Incredible Hulk look like a sweet little green pea.

So if you know ANYone - or ANY website - that says "your Higher Self is just the same as your soul" - then PLEASE have them remove that statement immediately. Before they have to call out the National Guard to stop me. I'm not kidding this time.

Okay, now that we've got that settled...

I know a little bit about my soul. And I'm learning more all the time.

You can reestablish a relationship with your soul. And it can bestow you with courage. Along with many other wonderful gifts.

Seeking out your soul is an active process. There's nothing passive about it. You can learn to walk the soul's path. And it doesn't even have to take much time out of your busy day. Here's one way to start:

Find a place in nature where you can go. A quiet place. Let's call it 'the place of your soul'. A place outdoors. Even if it's in a park.

Maybe you go there one hour per week. When no one else is around. Say, early Saturday morning. First, clean up all the cigarette butts and other trash. Then, just sit. And imagine.

Gee, if I really did have a soul, I wonder if I could open up my heart and feel it? I wonder how much it loves me? I wonder what it would look like? I wonder what I can do to touch it; and let it touch me? These are the kinds of questions you could ask, as you sit in a place of soul.

Maybe it's a park bench at a quiet time of day. Maybe it's a crook in a tree - where you can rest your back in such a neat way. Maybe it's down by a stream. Or high on a hill, or a ledge. Maybe it's your own back porch, surrounded by house plants.

Wherever it is, designate it: this is my place of soul. And when I sit here, it will be for the express purpose of moving closer to my own soul. Even if you only visit the spot once a week, I think you'll find after a few weeks that your place really does take on a certain unique atmosphere.

Essentially, you're giving your soul a chance to move closer to you. It could grow to be one of your best friends if you let it. Your soul already takes every opportunity you give it to talk to you. It uses two avenues to speak to you: dignity and tragedy. Which one would you prefer?

It only takes a whimsical choice to set up a place of soul: "Yeah, sure, why not? I'm not doing anything next Tuesday."

But it takes a bit of courage to sustain your place of soul. Week after week. Because things will start to happen. However, your soul holds immense courage. Courage it's willing to share with you. You can receive greater courage. Along with passion, trust, confidence and joy.

The soul's path is an empowered path. Knowing greater courage in your life stands as one of the treasures of that path.

You give it an inch and it'll give you a mile.

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all the best,

Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

FREE E-Book on Emotional Healing

forgive-yourself.com

create-reality.com

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healing-emotional-pain.com

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I Hear Voices In My Head

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It's true. I hear voices in my head. I don't talk about it much. But maybe it's a good time to start. You see, I'm a complex person. A lot goes on inside my head that no one else ever realizes.

The main voice I hear comes from my ego. My ego takes information from the world - from my surroundings - and delivers it to me. I would die without my ego. You would too.

Well, you wouldn't die without MY ego - but you would die if you didn't have YOUR ego.

My ego actually has it's own thought processes. My ego thinks - independently of me. That can be a hard concept to really grasp. Because we all want to believe we're the only ones doing the thinking upstairs. Not true.

In fact, for some people, their ego does most all of their thinking for them. That's not a good place to be. Because for most of us, our ego wants to cause trouble. At the very least, it may jumble the messages it gives.

Let's say someone tells you: "You did a bad job."

But what you hear is: "You are a bad person."

Those two statements carry quite different meanings. If you go around all day long hearing garbled messages, that creates many problems.

So many people - early in life - decide they just don't want to participate; or they don't want to be responsible for their lives. They don't WANT to interpret the data they receive from their egos. They don't want to make the choices and decisions about what to do.

This forces the ego to do the work of interpretation. But the ego lacks the equipment - the mental prowess - to successfully run our lives. Besides, that's our job anyway.

The ego builds resentment. It starts to resent us. It starts to resent being forced to do the 'dirty work' of running the person's life for them. It's not allowed to just do it's job. And you end up not being able to discern between "You did a bad job" and "You are a bad person".

The ego can become quite negative. Quite destructive. And quite the saboteur in your life. It can drag you down. Especially if you can't distinguish its voice from yours.

Generally speaking, the more bitter, pessimistic, angry, and destructive a person becomes, the greater the chance their life is being run by their ego. They're listening to the wrong voice in their head.

Look, even a healthy positive ego will talk to you. There's no escaping your ego. It goes with you EVERYWHERE.

You want it to be strong, healthy and positive. But right now, it's important to know what it sounds like. You need to be able to distinguish between it, and you.

You would be well-advised to visualize it - get an idea of what it might look like. And deliberately ask it questions. Learn as much as you can. Just keep in mind that a weak, negative ego will lie to you. Often in a loud voice.

It's the number one voice you hear in your head.

Other prominent voices include: martyr, victim, child, adolescent, and parent. Common to all: they exist as lesser parts of you. Meaning, parts of your personality that possess less intelligence, with less access to resources than you.

They're less capable of making choices and decisions than you.

But for many, these lesser voices run their lives. Generally speaking, the less you're willing to choose, to decide, to seek out responsibility - the greater the chance that some other lesser part of you must choose, decide, and accept responsibility for your life.

Bottom line: someone is 'driving your car' all the time you're awake. Who's behind the wheel? Your inner child? Your inner victim? If so, don't blame them if your life enters a crisis. Or if your life slams into a brick wall.

The next time you find yourself acting in less than an exemplary fashion, you might want to stop for a minute and ask - which part of me is running the show right now?

And you might want to stop and listen to what they have to say. Not so you can blindly follow it. But so you can distinguish it from your OWN thoughts and feelings.

You might want to listen to the voices in your head. I do.

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all the best,

Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

FREE E-Book on Emotional Healing

forgive-yourself.com

create-reality.com

reduce-fear.com

healing-emotional-pain.com

release-emotions.com

Finding Courage

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Maybe I shouldn't call it 'finding' courage because courage doesn't lie around waiting to be found. You don't reach down and pick it up from the side of the road - or anywhere else, for that matter. No one is born with courage, so you can't really reclaim it either.

Unlike self-love and self-worth. Which you ARE born with... but usually lose as a child. Which you can therefore find and reclaim. But not courage.

Fortunately, courage makes itself accessible to all.

One way courage comes: from walking the path of 'right-living' that leads to the highest truth.

A simple statement. With many implications. First of all, who's arrogant enough to say what 'right-living' means? (Well, besides me, of course.) Isn't that being judgmental? Aren't we all supposed to find our own way in life? And isn't it all relative anyway?

I'd say not. Right-living could be defined as CHOOSING the way you live. You choosing - not anyone else choosing for you. Right-living means crafting a life of your own. Which is extremely rare, if you think about it.

Almost every single person follows in someone else's footprints. Usually we follow mother or father. Or else we go the exact opposite way; which merely exposes the other side of the same coin.

Usually, we 'fall into' a life rather than crafting it to our choosing. Crafting a life means choosing - making deliberate choices. It starts small. It builds on itself.

You start choosing; you get a little courage. Once you get a little courage; you then make slightly more powerful choices. Then you get even a little more courage. Then you can make more choices. And on it goes. That's the first part of gaining courage.

The second part: seeking the highest truth. Again, it builds on itself. You start seeking; you get a little courage...

Facing the truth about yourself takes courage, and it gives courage.

The good news in all this: ANYONE can claim courage, and then greater courage. It has nothing to do with being fearless. It has a little to do with facing your fears. Mostly it involves right-living and seeking the highest truth.

Courage comes from walking a path. Not reaching some sort of destination. Courage comes from the living of life. Not the shrinking and the avoiding. And the form that courage takes expresses itself in relative ways. For one person, simply getting out of bed in the morning may take enormous courage. And no one else will ever know their act of courage.

You can start small. By asking yourself a few questions. Where am I lying to myself? Where will I not face the truth about myself? Because that's where I'm a coward.

Start small. What little thing can I change that will make me more SELF-DETERMINED? If I take a tiny leap of faith, that gives me a tiny bit more courage.

Here's two questions you can ask to gain more courage:

1. How can I be just a little more in charge of my life? Just a little?

2. What little lie am I currently telling myself, that I'm willing to let go of? Just a little lie...

In the seeking... in the searching... in the walking of the path... I am en-couraged. It may seem like I'm finding courage, but really I'm creating it. I'm generating courage. And the courage I generate helps me generate even more.

Courage builds on itself; becoming easier to generate.

Start small. Find the tiniest ways to seek truth and live self-determined. Start small.

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Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

FREE E-Book on Emotional Healing

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Feeling Powerlessness

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Power often stands as a mystery - a misunderstood phenomenon. We often think power means 'power over' - which really amounts to manipulation or intimidation or coercion or outright brute force.

True power has nothing to do with anything outside yourself. It comes from within. How it's expressed, well, that's a completely different issue.

If you want to become more powerful, it's a fairly simple and straightforward process. It involves doing something in the privacy of your own home. With your eyes closed.

Before I tell you one of the easiest and quickest way to become more powerful, I must warn you. No, not that you'll become TOO powerful! That's not possible.

No, the danger is you'll dismiss what I'm saying without giving it an honest try. Because it runs contrary to everything you've ever been taught and conditioned to believe. That's the danger: that you won't give it an honest try.

There's various ways you can become powerful. Power comes from thinking and feeling. The better you think; the better you feel; the more powerful you become. Absolutely. 100% of the time. Because of the raw, virgin energy that's constantly and continuously flowing into you every moment of every second of every minute of every day.

This raw energy becomes the thoughts you think and the feelings you feel. When everything works as it's designed - when everythings in sync - you live your power.

When you really understand that... you can have all the power you want. But those are just empty words right now. So let me tell you the secret to becoming more powerful - quickly and easily.

Promise not to laugh? Okay, here it is:

You must feel your own feelings of powerlessness. Feel them as cleanly, as strongly, as focused, as you can. That's it.

You promised not to laugh, remember?

If you feel your powerlessness, something magical happens The powerlessness goes away! See, it's not a matter of doing something to become more powerful. You have an endless stream of energy flowing into you all the time. You have access to ALL the power you could possibly ever stand. And then some.

So it's not a matter of BECOMING powerful. Rather, it's a matter of STOPPING becoming less powerful. Let go of the powerlessness and you will automatically become more powerful. You will.

The problem is, it can be difficult - seemingly impossible - to cleanly and honestly feel your own feelings of powerlessness. Try it. You'll see. It takes practice and effort and careful focus. Hey, if it were easy, we'd all be powerful already!

It takes spiritual muscle to feel your own powerlessness.

I don't know any other way to say it. Most people wouldn't do it to save their lives. So they'll die powerless.

If you don't feel your own powerlessness, you'll never let it go. Just like every other feeling in the world. You must bring the feelings closer. Stop dancing around them. Stop interpreting them. Feel them cleanly. In your body.

The reason it's so difficult to feel our own powerlessness lies with our resistance to just 'letting go'. We have a natural tendency to fight back, rather than cleanly feel our powerlessness. We 'tense up'. Maybe not physically (although it could be that way too) but certainly mentally and even emotionally.

The urge to fight back, to defend ourselves, often overrides the efforts to let go into the feelings of powerlessness. Blame often stands in the way of feeling powerlessness. As well as righteousness. And of course pity and martyr and victimhood also distract us.

But perhaps the biggest reason: powerlessness creates rage. And who wants to feel their rage??

But if you cleanly feel your powerlessness one time - just one good time - then you'll start seeking it out from then on. Because you can INSTANTLY feel more powerful. Every time you do it.

Powerlessness may be the most difficult feeling of all to just experience. To let it absorb cleanly into the body. To stop denying it and embrace it instead. It seems we have more resistance to feeling it than any other feeling.

But while feeling ANY feeling cleanly - bringing it into your body instead of spinning it around in your head - will make you at least a little more powerful, when you truly let your powerlessness into your gut, the results seem to be in a class of their own.

You'll never know if you don't try.

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Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

FREE E-Book on Emotional Healing

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Hopelessness Is Better Than Feeling Nothing

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It can be a cold cruel world out there. You don't have to look far to see it. That's why so many people sleep through life. Asleep in their pity, their judgments, and all the other anesthetics currently on the market. Sleeping because it's too painful to wake up.

It can be hard to find the hope in a world like this... A world of too much struggle and too much darkness.

There's only one way to change the condition of the world. You - reading these words right now - YOU - must make a difference. It really comes down to you. The world waits for you to change. Here's one way you can start:

Find your level of hope.

Most people seem to have lost theirs. Many feel hopeless. Maybe you do too. If so, that's great news! If you feel hopeless, then you're half-way home. Why?

Because it's MUCH worse to feel nothing than to feel hopeless. If you're feeling hopeless, that means you're still feeling. Your 'system' still works.

If you're beyond hopelessness, that's a state of severe depression. If you're feeling hopeless, then there's still hope. Because you can't feel hopeless without also having the ability to feel hope.

All you have to do: embrace the hopelessness, feel it, and walk through it - and out the other side. To feelings that contain a little more hope; or at least, a little less hopelessness.

But if you're beyond hopeless - and you feel nothing - you'd be well-advised to spend all your time searching for feelings of despair and hopelessness. Even feeling empty or hollow is better than feeling nothing.

The important thing involves getting on the playing field. Get in the game. Feeling anything rates as better than feeling nothing. Because feeling nothing means you're flirting with serious depression. Much better to be angry, bitter, frustrated.

You have an emotional body. More real than your physical body. It can shrivel up like a raisin when you totally shut down your feelings.

The good news is, you had to CHOOSE to shut down your feelings. So you can also choose to start feeling again.

Feeling nothing puts you in a dangerous position. Choosing to reach for your feelings - ANY feelings - can save you. Just making the choice empowers you to a certain degree.

Feeling your feelings puts you in the flow of life. First; choose to feel as richly and as deeply as possible. Second; let the feelings keep flowing. Let go of those feelings once you feel them. That's where we so often screw up. We insist on hanging on to feelings we don't even like - because we have a secret agenda in mind.

Our secret agenda becomes more important than feeling good. Most often, the root cause lies in childhood: proving how bad we had it, for example.

If you're feeling hopelessness, despair, angst, etc. - you can always feel those feelings and release them. You inherently possess that ability. Every human does. You're not special enough to be the only person on earth who can't release the pain from unresolved feelings.

Instead, you most likely carry a secret agenda for NOT letting them go. (If you're like almost everyone else...)

But now comes the time for greater understanding.

CHOOSE to understand, and let the details take care of themselves. CHOOSE - before you go to sleep at night - as you're lying in bed - CHOOSE to have the understanding revealed to you during the course of your dreams. And be willing to receive the answers.

Choose to understand your feelings or lack of feelings. Choose to understand how it can be okay to feel hopeless. Choose to understand why you would not let the feelings flow freely.

Then you can transform that scrawny little raisin into a plump luscious grape - bursting with flavor. The juicy grape that attracts and inspires others.

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all the best,

Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

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How To Stop Obsessive Thoughts

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(NOTE: click here for help with antidepressant withdrawal symptoms.)

If you want to learn how to stop obsessive thoughts, the first step involves understanding exactly what's happening to you right now. It's like you're spinning on a hamster wheel. Like a treadmill that just runs in circles without ever getting anywhere.

Why? Because you lack TRACTION. You spin because there's nothing to grab hold of. I know; it's obvious. But it's important to really let it in: you lack traction. That's why you can't stop the obsessive thoughts.

Fortunately, you can easily gain the traction you need to end those thoughts. You can end the obsession with unwanted thoughts by following a few simple steps.

Years ago, as I studied the finer points of riding a bicycle, I learned a simple but profound truth: the bicycle usually follows the eyes. The bicycle follows the path I choose to focus on, on the road ahead of me.

If there's a pothole up ahead, and I keep staring at it; I'm liable to end up riding right through it. Not good. (But since we tend to shift our gaze away from the pothole, we miss it.) The bike follows the path we gaze upon.

Same here. When you have obsessive thoughts, it's like you're staring at that pothole and you can't stop staring. It's like a deer frozen by the headlights of a car. You just can't stop.

Again, I know; it's obvious.

You're thinking about something because you HAVE to think about it. You have to think about it because you ARE thinking about it. A catch-22. Can't stop... can't stop... can't stop... those obsessive thoughts. Spinning away on a hamster wheel...

So where lies the traction? With your FEELINGS. Because what happens when you're thinking your obsessive thoughts? You are NOT in touch with your true feelings. Your TRUE feelings.

Oh, you might be feeling something. Most likely, though, what you feel lacks realness.

Take blame, for example. Blame lubricates the hamster wheel. You can blame all day long and not move ahead one inch. True feelings - REAL feelings - give you something to push off from. Blame gives you nothing. It only takes.

Or how about righteousness? If you have the 'right' to be angry (and when you think about it, WHO DOESN'T?!!) you will sit and spin for days, weeks, years. The price you pay for righteousness: you must keep thinking the same thoughts over and over and over. Obsessing. Because you really are 'right'.

Look, everybody thinks they're right. It's not a question of who's really right. No. Here's the true question: do you want to learn how to stop obsessive thoughts, or don't you?

Which holds greater value? Peace of mind; happiness; resolution; balance; realness?

Or spinning in righteousness; blame; pity; avoiding responsibility?

If you're truly ready to stop the obsessive thoughts, here's how to do it: First, write down those obsessive thoughts on paper. It probably won't take more than a sentence or two. Maybe a paragraph. Then, DIG DEEPLY into what those thoughts make you feel.

It always starts with righteousness or blame or pity or judgments or something similar. That's fine. Whichever lubricant comes up - write it down.

"It really is their fault!"

"I really am right!"

"I am such an idiot!"

Whatever. And then recognize: this is the lubricant that won't let me stop those obsessive thoughts.

Next, gut-check time. Which holds greater importance? Going deeper into the realness; the real feelings underneath? Or obsessing over this little statement I just wrote down?

It's not a question of who's right. It's not a function of who's to blame. It's not a matter of judging yourself or others harshly. The real question: what's more important to you?

You can always dig deeper and deeper into your TRUE feelings if you want to. You can feel without the slimy lubrication. Simply focus on your HEART instead of your HEAD. Stop looking at the pothole in your head. Change your focus.

Imagine a hamster wheel spinning in your head. See it spinning and spinning away. Think the agonizing, obsessive thoughts. Then imagine it slowly turns into a sphere of light. Let it slowly sink down to the middle of your body. Feel it sinking down through your head, into your neck, then into your chest and then maybe all the way to your stomach or where ever feels right to you.

Let it becomes a gyroscope, if you absolutely must have motion!

Focus on either the gyroscope or the sphere of light in the middle of your body instead of the hamster wheel in your head. Repeat this little exercise whenever you feel the obsessive thoughts coming back.

Seek out the feelings that come from your BODY. Not the so-called feelings that come out of your head. Focus on your body. And stop focusing all your attention in your head.

All the while, taking the time to write things down. And FEEL what those statements feel like... not THINK what they feel like! That's the key to gaining traction. Get out of your head and into your body.

That's the key to truly learning how to stop obsessive thoughts: focus on the feelings that you feel in your body.

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all the best,

Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

FREE E-Book on Emotional Healing

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Stuck In Your Feelings?

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One of the biggest problems we all experience with our emotions involves getting 'stuck' in them. Meaning, we keep feeling the same exact feelings, over and over; day after day.

If you seem stuck in your feelings - it's almost guaranteed to be painful. Or at least unpleasant. Sadly, we end up blaming the feelings themselves, and all too often we conclude feelings are bad and wrong and we shouldn't even have them.

Ever been stuck in your car? Maybe in snow, or ice; or perhaps mud or sand? You stomp on the gas pedal - the wheels spin like crazy - but you don't GET anywhere. All you do is make things worse.

That's what it's like when you get 'stuck' in your feelings. Except for a few major differences...

Number one, you have an emotional body, and your emotional body holds much greater significance than your car. I know it doesn't seem that way.

Because I NEED my car. While my emotional body - if it really exists at all - just gets in the way... causing all sorts of problems.

Secondly, your emotional body is alive right now; just as your physical body lives right now. The bodies connect together. You can't really separate yourself from your emotional body. You can't leave it in the garage.

The key to healing lies with bringing your emotional body CLOSER to you - rather than trying to push it away or separate from it. (Which compares to disassociating from yourself.)

That's how you get stuck: by trying to push away your emotional body. We often think it's the other way around:

"I feel these terrible awful rotten feelings - and I don't want to feel that way - so I’m going to do everything I can to NOT feel them."

Which means you must push them away rather than bringing them closer so you can feel them and then let them go.

But you MUST bring them closer to get any traction. You must embrace them to create the friction so you can release them. Otherwise, you'll be spinning your wheels.

If you're looking for a shortcut to ending the pain - you just found it.

See, your emotional body knows how to heal itself. Just like your physical body knows how to heal itself. If you give it a chance.

The way to heal your emotional body involves consciously seeking out your feelings... searching for them... so you can embrace them cleanly. If you embrace them cleanly, they will AUTOMATICALLY release themselves. And you will be left feeling MORE POWERFUL - every single time!

Even feeling powerless - cleanly - will leave you feeling more powerful.

The problem comes when we live with clogged-up emotional pathways. So we end up not feeling cleanly.

What clogs them up?

Our little stories about how we've been wronged by the big bad world. Our blame... our shame... our pity... our judgments... all our painful ways of blocking the flow. All our little stories that eventually end up killing us.

Because we really have been wronged. Every single one of us. And holding onto that story becomes the most important thing for many people. Way more important than ending emotional pain:

"I'll never forget what they did!"

It becomes a motto for a failed life. Behind every case of stuck feelings lies a sad little story.

If you muster the courage - and it does take a good bit of courage - you can admit you have a little story. Just like every human on this planet has a little story. (Unless they've already worked to release it.)

If you can admit you have a story, you're half-way home to ending those stuck feelings.

Almost by definition, a coward never admits to holding a little story. Almost by definition, a warrior does admit to holding a little story. Cowards bristle at the very idea. Warriors become intrigued.

To unstick those feelings, you must find the emotional warrior that ALREADY EXISTS inside of you. It's the energy that's tugging at your heart right now.

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all the best,

Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

FREE E-Book on Emotional Healing

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healing-emotional-pain.com

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Motivation: Draw A Line In The Sand

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Sometimes you feel like you REALLY got to change something. Maybe it's an annoying habit. Maybe it's more serious. Maybe it's losing weight, or stopping smoking. Whatever it is, you just get fed up with the situation. You're motivated to change.

SOMETHINGS GOTTA GIVE!

Maybe it's occurred to you - either you think of it yourself, or you read it somewhere - Draw A Line In The Sand!

And step over it. And things just change.

It's tempting. Especially if you're really exasperated. While it can work, it often doesn't. Here's why:

Because the follow-through is either lacking or it's inadequate. So the motivation is faulty. It's easy to say the words:

"I decided! I’m going to change!"

But what really determines whether that decision 'sticks' or not?

Two things:

1. The state you're in when you make that decision.

If you're filled with your own power - in touch with yourself - standing on a firm foundation - that decision or choice is more likely to stick. If your foundation is filled with exasperation, worry, frustration, weariness, anger... then it probably won't stick. Because the motivation is not solid.

If it's filled with love and will, there's a much greater chance it sticks. The more of your own personal power you can muster as you're making the choice or decision, the more likely it will be to really change things.

As a child, you made many fundamental choices and decisions that are quite alive today. Generally speaking, you were filled with emotion - REAL emotion - and that gave them the punch to continue influencing you even today.

One powerful choice can change your life. Many childhood choices and decisions did. If you search your past, you can find those fundamental choices and decisions - to either accept them or change them.

2. How skilled you are at making choices and decisions.

Which basically comes down to practice. Out of necessity we make choices and decisions all day long. Whether we want to or not. Whether we realize it or not:

"I guess one more scoop of ice cream won't hurt anything."

But often we end up blaming those choices and decisions on circumstances, other people, or even our own subconscious or unconscious minds.

"Everybody else is doing it."

"You talked me into it."

"I didn't consciously choose that."

Blame is always a lie. But beyond that, we're not letting ourselves develop the POWER of choice - or the POWER of decision.

Thus, when it comes to drawing a line in the sand, within minutes or hours or days, we're back to 'normal'. Because there was no power behind the drawing of the line. Due to a faulty foundation, or a lack of skill, or both.

What's the solution? Stop drawing? Give up - retreat back into pity; or the judgments? Accept our miserable lives the way they are? Put on our coat of nobility?

"I guess it's just my lot in life to suffer. That's my fate. I can't change things..."

That's one option. Or, you can accept responsibility for your life. Realize WHY drawing a line in the sand doesn't work. And get about the business of changing it.

Besides the personal shortcomings you may or may not have, there's also one fundamental flaw with even drawing that line in the sand to begin with. That is, it presupposes that all you have to do is draw the line. Then it's over. Then you don't have to be responsible for what you chose or decided. Now you can go back to sleep. Now it should 'just happen'.

In other words, you're setting yourself up to fail.

But if you HAVE made a powerful choice or decision, then you WILL follow-through. By making all the secondary choices that MUST BE MADE - if you want your first choice to stick.

If your primary choice is to stop eating ice cream, then at the very least, you'll need to make a secondary choice to stay away from it! Stop buying it. Stop walking into the ice cream store.

You'll need to draw that line in the sand over and over and over. Not just once. Sooner or later, if you're persistent, then the pattern will be laid. And it will no longer be a 'contest of wills'. Instead, it'll be second nature. You won't have to think about whether or not you'll eat that ice cream.

But until that happens, you'll need to follow-through. Otherwise you're just spinning your wheels and you'll look foolish.

So what would stop you from the follow-through? Usually it's unresolved thoughts and feelings which comprise the
patterns of the past. Those patterns compare to cracks in your motivation. Heal those patterns and you heal your faulty motivation.

Then it becomes much easier to draw a line in the sand... that changes you.

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Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

FREE E-Book on Emotional Healing

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Magic Of Love: An Introduction

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There's a lot more to the magic of love than we could ever cover in one short article, but here's a good place to start.

See, we're so used to hoarding our love - locking it up; hiding it; keeping it safe - that we often end up hiding it even from ourselves. So often, we don't allow ourselves to even FEEL our own love. Not to mention the love that comes from outside sources.

Love is simply too valuable to lose. It's the motivation and the reason for living, when you get right down to it.

The first thing to consider: an unlimited supply of love exists and is always available to us. It's easy to say those words. It's easy to read them, too, and nod your head in agreement.

"Makes sense."

But it's much harder to let it in... to embrace it as really being true. Because when you REALLY let it - YOU have an unlimited supply of love available to YOU - it changes everything about you. Your motivation changes. Your mindset changes. Your priorities shift. Just to name a few things...

I'd like to show you how you can PROVE to yourself you have an unlimited supply of love. That's always available. Simultaneously, you'll also be getting a little taste of the magic of love.

Here's how:

Give your love away freely.

That's it. A simple statement that hides worlds of intricate meanings and applications and treasures and rewards and possibilities. Certainly it needs some explaining...

Because lets face it. You'd have to be CRAZY to give your love away freely! People will walk all over you. You'll be crushed - chewed up and spit out - by an uncaring world.

Because, um, nobody's as loving as you, right?

Even if the implied argument is true: you'll be used by others if you love freely - here's a way to side step the issue. Start by freely loving yourself. And don't tell anybody!

What does it mean to 'freely love' anyway? It means to love without an agenda of any kind. Loving without manipulation. Without hidden motivation. Without expectation of reciprocity. In other words, without the taint.

Without the intention of getting anything in return. WITH the intention of giving love - pure and simple.

"I'm going to create an alliance with love; so I can become more. So love can become more."

If you start by loving yourself - with the purest, cleanest, clearest intention you can muster, something interesting happens.

1. You feel a little more love.

2. More love ALWAYS comes in.

3. You quickly come up against any resistance you have to love. Your blockages to feeling more love quickly come to the surface:

"I can't be loved. This won't work. Blah, blah, blah..."

You can start to experience the magic of love in two ways:

First, you experience for yourself that the more love you freely give - even if it's to yourself - the more love that comes in to take it's place. Second, you get in touch with the blockages to feeling love.

Blockages to love are basically lies you've told yourself with enough repetition and enough emotional energy that they've become hard as stone. Or iron. Or so they seem.

When a blockage comes up - you could visualize it - objectify it - as a stone wall, or a hunk of iron, or whatever makes sense for you. Then, simply start loving that object unconditionally.

By loving it you can begin to erode it. By loving it with clear intention, you will see IT more clearly. By loving it with pure intention, you see it more purely. So it becomes easier to let it go.

It takes practice to give love freely. Whether it's to yourself or another. Not because love is difficult, but because we've been so strongly programmed to NOT give love freely.

But now you have a secret way to start. And it will help you start feeling the magic of love.

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all the best,

Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

FREE E-Book on Emotional Healing

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Crying Spells

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I had a good crying spell yesterday.

Actually, I felt pretty okay about it. Because it showed me where my boundaries of pain were, and it showed me I was going into those boundaries. As a way to expand myself.

In other words, the crying spell was a signal, or a manifestation, of the process of ME becoming more of myself.

The crying resembled growing pains.

While the exact causes vary, crying spells usually concern matters of the heart. Maybe you're removing another splinter from your heart as you're crying. That's one possibility.


Then I started thinking back to when I was about six years old. Back then, I would cry myself to sleep almost every single night. I told myself I was crying out for love. In a way, it was certainly true. I did want more love from my mother. I wanted a LOT more.

I didn't think I was getting any love at all, but of course that's not possible.

Back then, those crying spells would go on and on and on. I could cry for hours. But nothing ever changed. I was spinning on a hamster wheel. Because those crying spells were much different than yesterday's crying spell.

Yesterday, I cried - intensely - as I was FEELING intensely. And I remembered when that pain was generated; when I was about ten years old. I remembered freezing that pain in judgments. So I wouldn't feel the pain.

Like an insect trapped in tree sap and preserved for centuries - I preserved the ten-year-olds pain in judgments. I judged myself as bad and wrong, basically. Yesterday I released that 40 year old pain. I FELT the pain. It made me cry. And when it was over - after about 15 minutes or so - I felt MUCH better.

I was invigorated.

I felt empowered.

I was happy - because I remembered the pain, and I was able to release it.

By releasing the pain, I was able to RETRIEVE some of my power, that had been locked up for 40 years! It was a wonderful experience that helped me heal. I benefited from it.

The fact I was crying - well... at least it was short and sweet! Here's a little something I wrote about it:

Like an angel's kiss...
Come tears of bliss...
To wash away the pain.

Behold the new...
And all too few...
Find everything to gain.

And I've had MOUNTAINS of pain to deal with.


However... Getting back to that six year old....

I didn't learn anything from those early years of crying myself to sleep. It wasn't making me more powerful. It didn't resolve anything. Frankly, it involved more pity and shame than anything else.

I used to think I was depressed and suicidal. Maybe I was a little. But the vast majority of it came from self-pity. And shame...

That's a bitter pill to swallow. Because I wanted to nobilize it:

"Did I tell you about my childhood? You see, I was suicidal. I almost killed myself at an early age. I'm lucky to be alive."

Now in fact I WAS carrying around a lot of pain. As a result of childhood shame. Shame. Something every human being knows the feeling of. Some - or most - people just get over it. Others don't.

I covered mine up with a lot of self-pity and a lot of judgments. I hid behind the self-pity so no one would see the shame. Not that it worked... But it was the best thing I could think of. It still hurt, though.

When you start with a TON of shame and you have NO EARTHLY IDEA what it is, where it came from, what to do about it...

And - you're only a small child so you can only figure out so much anyway...

Then about the only thing you CAN do is cover it up. You just don't have that many options. You could go primarily into the judgments - about yourself, about the offender, about the world, about God - freeze all that painful shame in place. And perhaps never cry about it.

Never cry about anything, for that matter. Judgments can do that. Until you lift off the lid. Judgments compare to the lid of a container of rotten peach preserves. As long as you don't open it up, you can't smell anything. But unscrew the top, and whew! What a smell! THEN the crying starts!

Judgments delay the inevitable day of reckoning.

But I went mainly for the pity as a way to handle my shame. And pity plus shame equals crying spells. Which can last a lifetime.

Even if you somehow manage to go beyond the pity, you can still have crying spells based solely on the shame. But it can seem like pity; in that nothing gets resolved and it goes on and on.

Mine would come and go. They were a fairly regular occurrence up until about ten years ago. I'm talking about the crying spells where you DON'T feel better when you stop. Where they just go on and on until you wear yourself out, rather than resolving something.

But through it all, they seem UNAVOIDABLE and UNSTOPPABLE. Plus, as you're crying, you're usually telling yourself a story about something. You're explaining, rationalizing, justifying, blaming, or describing it in some way. Rather than simply feeling the INTENSITY of your emotions.

With pity, it's easier to catch yourself and your thoughts of 'poor me'. With shame, it's harder. Sometimes all you notice is the hurt. What's common to both: nothing gets resolved. Because you can't get any traction.

But with both shame and pity - you DO have the ability to 'step back' from the
crying. Step back and step up - step higher - so you can look down on yourself, so to speak.

So the next time you have a crying spell - if you ever have them - notice carefully what's going on in your head. Step back from your crying and evaluate yourself:

Are you simply FEELING - intensely - the feelings that come up? Yesterday it felt like a spike of intense white-hot energy (or was it ice-cold...?) going through my heart and in the middle of my body. An intensity that came and then left. And I was invigorated and inspired in spite of my tears.

Here's the key: there was movement and change going on inside.

Or - does the crying seem to go on forever? With nothing changing? As you tell yourself messages inside your head about how unfair life is? Unfairness is not a feeling! It's a thought. Anytime you find yourself with the concept of unfairness while you're in the midst of crying, you can be sure there's some pity mixed in there somewhere.

If you can let go of the pity, you can get to the real pain that's behind it. Oftentimes, the next layer consists of the hurt caused by unresolved shame. Unfortunately, it's easy to 'run' the shame like you can run the pity. To get a handle on the shame, you have to step back from it and get in touch with the unique feelings that fuel it.

In other words, find the realness of emotion behind the shame.

If it's a true emotional release - as you're in the midst of becoming more of yourself - then it's like you've pulled one more splinter of pain out of your heart. That type of crying usually doesn't last more than a few minutes at a time. Although in some instances, it can continue on and off all day.

My biggest emotional release lasted three days. But at the end of those three days, I was a powerhouse of energy and enthusiasm. It changed my life significantly. Once I recovered, that is!

The key to understanding crying spells involves carefully observing and evaluating what's going on while you're in the midst of one.

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all the best,

Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

FREE E-Book on Emotional Healing

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