Have you ever made a mistake you regretted? Do you wish decision making was less frustrating? Do your choices reflect what you really need?
Accurate discernment is central to our experience & enjoyment of life.
But it’s not usually part of traditional schooling. Let’s put aside what we were taught and start making up for lost time…
In Part 1 of this ‘TOO EMOTIONAL?’ series we postulated that our society had made a big mistake! That we had excessively promoted a ‘scientific approach’ to decision making because it seemed more logical & rational. But this ‘scientific consensus has become a dogma, supported with religious zeal. We suggested an urgent rebalancing was required! This could be achieved by tapping into the ‘feeling part’ of our essential nature: That’s using our emotional intelligence or 6th sense.
In Part 2 we explained how our ‘emotional sense’ or ‘hidden 6th sense’ was optimally suited to guide us. This could improve personal discernment by compensating for the intellectual blind spots of our Ego-mind & social conditioning. We discussed how to initiate this and put our emotional guidance system into practice.
Now, in this Part 3, we explain how to further use our inbuilt emotional guidance or ‘6th sense’: How to use this for better discernment and even insight & wisdom? The key to achieving this is again awareness & practice! Just as we learnt to distinguish subtly different bird calls with our hearing, we can identify the meaning of very subtle emotions. We start by becoming more aware & mindful of this additional sense in our daily experience of life.
The biggest obstacle to this new discernment skill is to deny or diminish our “6th” sense. Too often we have a rigid or fixed mindset! Or we sabotage our efforts to practice this skill and hence confirm our own negative bias. This can be as subtle as being ‘too busy’ to try!
Sometimes we are just too invested in our old habitual ways.
Our 6th sense or ‘Emotional Guidance’ is simply an extension of our ‘Emotional Intelligence’. We increasingly value people who successfully manage their emotions and can accurately sense the feelings of others. ‘Emotional Guidance’ is the means by which we further enhance this ability.
We can go from ‘emotional intelligence’ to ‘emotional wisdom’ and beyond.
The first stage of this emotional discernment process is to acknowledge our feelings and allow ourselves to accurately experience them. To be true to our self by acknowledging what we truly feel. To just be honest with our self! It’s that simple!
Being honest to yourself is something we’ve become reluctant to do. You can determine your individual reason why this is so.
Resolve to be truly honest in how you feel. Monitor this by being mindful of your future responses.
The next step is to fully experience & process these emotions. To extract all the wisdom and empowerment from them! Not to suppress or repress them as we tend to do! If you are not already experienced in ‘emotional processing’ it’s of course advisable to start very gently by experiencing mild emotions & feelings. You may need some additional coaching or even expert counselling to help you do this.
When processing our emotions, the aim is to extract as much wisdom & insight as possible.
This insight gained often sparks the motivation to change our behaviour. Sometimes all that is required is a change to our perspective on a situation or event. That positive energy or empowerment is what we should extract. The rest we must release. It’s important to let all that unnecessary or raw energy go: To release it fully and clear it from the body! Just keep the pure wisdom and the wise realization!
The biggest hurdle to successfully doing all this is engaging with the mental storyline or the associated drama.
Dwelling on the associated drama, hinders the much-needed release of emotional energy.
So, focus on the ‘pure feeling’ of the experience, not the story that our Ego-mind makes up around it! That’s all we really must do! The rest happens automatically. Focus only on how the pure emotion feels, and not on our secondary thoughts. This allows the raw energy to release spontaneously. Being fearful of feeling an emotion, blocks its full release.
The final stage is to utilize the realization & wisdom we gain in this process. In processing emotions, we often realize an important lesson! This insight gained seems powered with its own energy. It somehow seems easier to put the necessary action into effect. We can more easily or effortlessly change our life-direction or perspective. We get the right answer for our personal situation and it seems so obvious & energized that we just do it!
We have outlined some ways our Emotional Guidance System can be used for discernment, insight, taking action & gaining wisdom. There are other uses & benefits as well! See if you can discover some of these! That provides an extra incentive to persevere and to enhance your Emotional Intelligence. Further information is available on the Ultimatetest.org website and in the Main Blog section.