Finding Balance in Emotional Turmoil

HOW WE HANDLE LIFE’S CHALLENGES greatly influences the quality of our lives. Often, during tough times, the greatest challenge is not what is happening externally, but the emotional turmoil we experience inside our being. We face external challenges, and now internal ones as well.

In my healing practice, I have seen that we possess all the resources within ourselves to handle life as it is. However, I have seen again and again that, to resolve any external turmoil, we must first address the internal struggle within ourselves. As Master Lin, the founder of Spring Forest Qigong, says, the inner and outer universe are one.

We are capable of managing everything as long as we can remain connected to the abode of peace within us and embrace the parts of ourselves that are tense, agitated, or chaotic. The clarity, strength, and inner calmness that emerge from this connection will guide you through life in both clear and subtle ways.

Therefore, I want to discuss a straightforward method to manage internal conflict, fostering peace and unity within, before addressing external challenges. I believe this approach is best, as your actions will be guided by the wise, powerful, untouched stillness inside you. The space where everything IS alright. Where you feel fully loved and supported by everything that is.

Before introducing a day-today technique to address emotional agitation, I’d like to stress the importance of regular spiritual practice. Your daily meditation, qigong practice, intention, and prayer are the essential foundations of strength and clarity that will support you. I urge you to find refuge in them.

After completing your practice, I invite you to spend a few moments enjoying the peace, stillness, centeredness, joy, and sense of love or contentment that emerged from within. These will provide you with clarity, strength, and inner peace, helping to dispel confusion, fear, and any perceived weakness (feeling at the mercy of someone or something else). Let’s look now at a way to address the afflictive parts of ourselves.

ENLIGHTENED MASTERS of all spiritual traditions teach the way of self-acceptance, self-kindness, self-respect, and love. Self-love is the foundation of a fulfilled life, of integral health, and enlightenment. Physical health, mental health, and emotional health are all based on the principles of knowing yourself, respecting yourself, and taking care of yourself. Only from this stance of full acceptance, of being responsible for and true to yourself, can you then share this same self-respect, dignity, and love with others.

The path of spiritual refinement is from light to light, not from light against darkness. It is not a fight; it is a loving encounter. Love is the unifying principle. Love is the most powerful healing force.

So many times I have heard friends on a spiritual, healing, or self-development path talk about how they are dealing with afflictive emotions like anger by using positive thoughts, smiling, or repeating a mantra—to name a few. These are all effective and powerful spiritual tools. But we can’t use them as a club to fix or fight those contracted emotional states. We cannot use light as an instrument of war against something. It’s opposite to its true nature.

For instance, when we use smiling to dispel anger, aren’t we merely suppressing it? Aren't we just sweeping it under the rug? And isn’t this rug already part of the inner mansion of your mind, emotions, and energy body? Where do you believe the emotion went? Do you think it vanished by smiling, thinking opposite thoughts, or repeating a mantra? After years of suppressing, repressing, and denying, how full do you think the space under that rug is in your inner environment? It might descend into an underground cellar, filled with accumulated stories, emotions, and memories from the past.

The truth is that the emotion didn’t go anywhere. It did not disappear. We merely ignored it, put it under the rug. Like the metaphor of an ostrich sticking its head in the sand, we just stopped looking at it. The anger in us, the frustration, the sadness, and worry are now dealing with our rejection, our invalidation, our abandonment of them. And, isn’t it this lack of self-love and acceptance that created them in the first place? Aren’t all the afflictive emotions ancient responses to a lack of love? Of division, separation, distance? Didn’t we first feel them as we felt unloved?

WE CANNOT COMBAT DARKNESS WITH LIGHT; we go from light to light, from love to love, from kindness to kindness. So, how do we address the aspects of ourselves that we perceive as part of the darkness? How do we implement the principle of wu wei, embracing unconditional acceptance, flow, and allowing yourself, others, and life to be as they are? How do we apply the understanding of the power of love, unity, and oneness to these aspects we believe shouldn’t exist?

You need to let go with love.

To love these parts of yourself, you must acknowledge them, accept them fully, and allow them to exist. Then, only then, can you do something about them.

One tool I use in the Emotional Blocks Clearing Sessions is the “Name, Accept, Let Go®” technique. Here is a brief summary:

NAME – As you become aware of the afflictive emotion, you name it. You honor it as a guest. What am I feeling? Anger, frustration, hatred, blame, anxiety, anguish, fear, sadness? Where am I feeling it? In my throat? In my chest? In my lungs? In my solar plexus? Anywhere else? Having named it and localized it, being in touch with the emotion, you say to yourself in your mind: “I am feeling (name of the emotion).”

You are dropping all stories, memories, or thoughts that may have triggered the emotion. You are assuming emotional sovereignty and being with your emotion as is.

Note: Please say to yourself, “I am feeling anger,” and not “I am feeling angry.” You are naming the emotion, you are seeing it, you are not identifying with the emotion.   

ACCEPT – then, after naming the emotion, you accept it. You suspend judgment, you welcome it. You accompany it as a good friend who is suffering. You don’t correct it, you don’t judge it, you don’t tell it not to feel that way. You say in your mind: “It’s ok to feel you, anger. It’s ok that you are here with me.” You are with it, not against it. You let yourself feel the anger, feel the fear, feel the anxiety, feel the sadness. You accompany them as a caring friend. These parts of you have existed to protect you, to take care of you; now you are reciprocating.

Also, when accepting them, don’t put yourself down, don’t think you are bad because of them. This is why you dislike them, you think they make you unlovable. Don’t do that to yourself. Uplift yourself, know that you are essentially, undoubtedly, good. And it is from this space of goodness that you accept them all.

LET GO – This is a subtle approach. Rather than criticizing the emotion or wishing for it to vanish as something negative or unwelcome, you allow it to exist. You let it be. This is wu wei, action in inaction. How do we achieve this? Having identified the emotion and located it within your body, having set aside your judgments and accepted its presence, you have now distanced yourself from the emotion without attachment or aversion.

You can genuinely perceive it as an object within your awareness, observing it as if it were in front of you. In this natural, all-embracing detachment, you can say: “Now it’s time to let you be, now it’s time to let you flow, now it’s time to let you go.” Just stay there and witness the emotion—like a flower, like a sunrise, like a butterfly gently gliding in the sky.

YOU ARE WITNESSING the wave of emotion as the silent observer in your awareness. This feeling of presence, this pure observing stillness, is pure divine Consciousness within you. As you become aware that you are the one observing, you become that serenity. That quietude doesn’t think, doesn’t judge; it is untouched by the emotion it’s observing. It is already in peace. This is why it is sometimes called “the emptiness.” Not because it is lacking anything; in reality, it is total fullness, but it is empty of thought, of attachment and aversion, and it is empty of all emotion. It is already free, and it is your true Self.

You see, the apparently “dark” parts of you have been waiting for true love to appear and embrace them. Your love, only your love, the divine love within you can heal them. Love that can never be taken away from them, love that will never go away. Love without conditions. These parts of you have longed for you to shine the light of your love upon them—so fear can mature into gratitude and courage, anxiety and worry into peaceful trust, sadness into pure contentment, anger into the encounter with true happiness, hatred into the emotional sovereignty of unity and ever-new joy.

Having practiced self-love and found peace within yourself, after going from light to light, embracing your entirety, and releasing attachment and aversion to that part of yourself with love, now you can entertain positive thoughts, smile, or repeat your mantra.

And your thoughts will not be forced, and your smile will flow with gladness, and your mantra will vibrate from the core of your being. And your words will resonate with strength and truth, and your smile will be filled with self-begotten joy, and your mantra will shine ever brightly with the recognition of who you truly are. They will arise from fulness, they will embolden you to be true to you.

Afterward, you can determine how to handle the external situation that concerns you. You might take responsible action, opt to collaborate with other friends to address it, or decide not to act. Whatever you choose, it will come from the right place.

Sincerely,

Héctor Vimarsha Campero

• Lic. Clinical Psychologist

• Psychotherapist

• Siddha Yoga Meditation Teacher

• Spring Forest Qigong Healer specialized in emotional blockages