Navigating the Rapids and the Waves of Life

Lesson 7: Don't flow back on yourself: Get out of obstructions as soon as possible your whole life still awaits you "As I walked out the door toward my freedom, I knew that if I did not leave all the anger, hatred and bitterness behind that I would still be in prison." - Nelson Mandela

As we carried on the river, at another point one safety boat got stuck. It had food, water and safety aid kits on it. All the other boats had to wait for him to get off. He struggled to the point that another safety had to paddle back up stream to rescue him and because he was going against the current the journey up was not easy as well. It was a lot harder to paddle back up-stream against the current or the natural flow. When he got there he started by letting lose the bags as they were anchoring the rope in the wrong direction and then throwing a rope to pull the other boat, our expert guide explained that he was stuck on an obstruction or an eddy. At this point water flows back on itself instead of flowing forward. He had to get unstuck as the whole river still awaited us. I looked up in Wikipedia what an obstruction is and this is what I got. ‘’Obstruction’; A boulder or ledge in the middle of a river or near the side can obstruct the flow of the river, and can also create a "pillow"; when water flows backwards upstream of the obstruction, or a "pour over" (over the boulder); and "hydraulics" or "holes" where the river flows back on itself—perhaps back under the drop—often with fearful results for those caught in its grasp. (Holes, or hydraulics, are so-called because their foamy, aerated water provides less buoyancy and can feel like an actual hole in the river surface.) If the flow passes next to the obstruction, an eddy may form behind the obstruction; although eddies are typically sheltered areas where boaters can stop to rest, scout or leave the main current, they may be swirling and whirlpool-like.’’ Flow is our default state of being and we flow when we experience positively charged emotions. However sometimes we face obstacles or obstructions on our journey that cause us to experience negatively charged emotions. Such is the nature of life. Certain changes or transitions as well can cause discomfort. While this is pretty normal, the only challenge comes when you hoard or harbor negatively charged emotions. While there is no stipulated time one must process the emotions we must just be aware that it can take as little time as six seconds to two minutes. The longer it takes for you chances are you are stuck, not moving forward. Our emotions are energy that drive our action or inaction. Negatively charged emotions cause what Gary Craig the founder of EFT called a disruption in our bodies’ energy flow system. This disruption causes us to either engage in the fight or flight for survival, as we no longer have healthy emotions, positive energy and clear thinking to take the appropriate action to resolve our challenge. When this disruption takes longer than two minutes, emotions are no longer coming and going, as they should, you are now holding on to them. Any negative emotions we do not release will find somewhere to settle in our body, have you ever experienced heavy shoulders or discovered lymph nodes after prolonged stress? When negative emotions settle in they disrupt the body’s energy system from its natural way of eliminating impurities from the body, in fact the negative emotions add to the impurities in the system. The result is feeling unwell emotionally and or physically in some instances giving rise to dis-ease either immediately or in the long run. Negative emotions make you operate from your stress response. You release stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline to prepare you for action. However even though you triggered for action and you do not anything, the stress hormones drains or sucks your body out of energy hence fatigue –or extreme tiredness and fatigue can cause stress. You may find yourself caught up in a vicious cycle of stress and fatigue. And when this happens you will find yourself taking longer to accomplish your goals, irritable, procrastinating or simple stuck in a pattern to get by and no creativity. If you have an unresolved emotional issue you start experiencing some of these symptoms headaches, heartaches, memory failure, stress, low energy, non-achiever, difficulty making decisions, depression, dependent on medicinal drugs, suicidal thoughts, conflict, social phobia, relationship challenges, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, constant fear of death, shy and embarrassed, emotional eating, skin problems and overweight among many others. I have called the state where one is holding on to negatively charged emotions that result in any undesirable state FLOWING BACK ON YOURSELF. These emotions are an obstruction, blocking you or keeping you stuck away from your desired results. Negative emotions and thoughts will anchor you in the wrong direction and keep you walled in one spot if not released can immobilize you permanently. EMOTIONS AND BEHAVIOURS OF OBSTRUCTION ‘’You can't change what's going on around you until you start changing what's going on within you.’’ Zig Ziglar What are your dominant emotions? You are what you are on the inside, meaning that your behavior on the outside is influenced by how you feel inside. If you experience a dominant feeling of fear you may express inaction, avoidance, postponement, indecision and you may even move to anger. Remember emotions come as a result of a situation that we interpret as negative or positive and the situation can be real or imagined. If you decide to focus on the negative for a prolonged time you start flowing back on yourself. The brain does not know whether situation is occurring, has occurred or will occur, the same electro-chemical signal is released as if it is happening now. The two fundamental emotions one is born with are love and fear and all the other emotions emanate from these two. We experience fear and love within us, we feel these emotions, and they are our divine nature. My thoughts are that since we are born with two fears, fear of falling and fear of a loud noise, then what is remaining is love, if we express it as a percentage 98% of who we are is love and 2% fear. Fear is there for survival in case of real threats, for example if you see a lion fear will trigger the release of hormones that energise you to fight or flight. Based on the analogy of fear being only 2% of our divine nature, hence it should have rare occurrences in our lives and transforming the fear should be easy given that 98% of our nature is love. Fear is what triggers the survival instinct or the stress response to prepare you for action. The challenge though is that real danger is not often but our habits of life now trigger the survival instincts even where there is no life and death threat hence continuous release of negative electro-chemical signals into your blood stream weakening the immune system, the body’s natural way of restoring itself. If the stress hormones released during the stressful situation remains in the blood stream it gives rise to self-poisoning and every cell in the body gets affected giving rise to disease. Think are about how many hours of your day do you spend dominated by thoughts and emotions of fear as opposed to emotions of love? Most people are out of balance, dominated by 98% fear and 2% love. Emotions emanating from fear that may trigger the survival instincts include anger, boredom, sadness, guilty, in-fact all the negative emotions show some aspect of fear, because if you knew and believed that what ever is going on or that might happen or has happened did not matter you would not experience the negatively charged emotions for an extended period.