Emotional activation reveals ancient wounding. So when you get activated, let’s say you’re at work, and let’s say you’re in a meeting, and let’s say someone cuts you off, or let’s say someone says something to you that just makes you feel like you’re nothing. That situation has caused you to touch an old wound. Maybe a metaphor that’ll help me express this clearly is if someone takes, let’s say, a feather and they put the feather on your arm, it’ll probably tickle you. But if you have this open cut, the feather will probably create a lot of pain for you. And so, all I’m saying is when you get activated emotionally within your heart set, that second interior empire, that is an old wound. In other words, every time you get angry or every time you feel sad about something, or every time someone makes you feel like nothing or every time you get irritated, please understand that irritation, for example, is a doorway into a previously existing cut, or what I call an ancient wound. Heal what originally hurt you so you don’t bleed on people who didn’t cut you. And if you’re not aware of this stuff, if you’re just numbed out and it’s all suppressed and all of this wounding is repressed, then you are probably going through your professional life and your personal life blaming people who didn’t even cut you. I hope this is making sense. Emotional activation reveals ancient wounding. When you get activated about something, just know that’s probably from your childhood. Just know that if you get irritated, it’s an old wound. It’s not about what you think. It’s not about that teammate who’s driving you crazy. It’s not about that significant other who presses all your buttons. It’s not about that friend who always happens to say something, or it’s not about the parent who just presses your wounds.I mean, if there wasn’t a preexisting wound, then whatever someone said or whatever someone did, wouldn’t be able to get you off of your A-game and off of your joy. So just remember that emotional activation reveals ancient wounding, which is really an opportunity because as you start to feel those lower level emotions, they start to dissolve. And that is a really key thing I want you to remember. To heal a wound, you need to feel a wound. So as soon as you start to become more aware that everything is an old wound and you start to get to know your emotional architecture, then what’s going to happen is when you get irritated or when you get sad, or when someone presses one of those buttons, you’re actually going to go, “Oh, that’s anger, or that’s sadness.” And you’re actually going to start locating it in your body. It’s going to be in your solar plexus, or it could be in your neck. A lot of people I have worked with, when someone presses a button, they get a really tight throat. Guess what that is? That’s words that you haven’t spoken, truth you haven’t expressed since you’ve been a little kid. So it’s a practice. The more you start doing this, the more you’re going to get away from a numb emotional life like most people have. They live in their heads. And the more you’re going to start developing intimacy and fluency with your emotional life. And as you start to develop intimacy and fluency with your emotional life, you’re going to be able to start feeling those toxic lower emotions that previously were unconscious. Pema Chödrön is a Buddhist monk, and here’s what she taught me. She said, “When you start to feel those messy emotions…” She said, “Just know they’re on their way out.” I mean, that’s a celebration. It’s nothing bad. When you start to feel anger or sadness or resentment or disappointment, society says, “Run away, medicate yourself. Get busy, drink a glass of wine. Get on your phone, escape.” And yet the great ones understand that when an emotion comes up, that’s a messy or a toxic emotion. If you have the awareness and then the courage to feel it, it will release. And a little bit of that field of hurt I mentioned will start to dissolve.
