"Emotional Scale" - Some emotions are missing (?)

[Valley2Mountain]

I started to use the emotional scale and I have noticed that some emotions that I experience don't appear there. For example, feeling of emptiness / hollowness, apathy and feeling sad. What do you do in that case?

 

@PhilI'm curious if the Sedona Method inspired you to create the Emotional Scale? I'm reading the book and it seems that they share few similarities. 

[Mandy]

Sadness isn't actually suffering, but often those feelings are actually discouragement, grief, or pessimism. Apathy is a dramatic word for boredom. We add a layer of drama on stuff when we believe it's about the circumstance rather than the emotion itself, the emotional scale kinda rips through that. It's not at all meant to invalidate your feelings, but without the suffering identification, you can use and transmute that kind of "drama" for expression, poetry, etc, rather than just sitting in suffering. Noticing that it's the emotion and dropping the belief in the circumstances that seem to build it up into something so much more serious takes us back to what we directly are, and brings to light how suffering is created. Suffering is distinct from pain, yet also not.

 

The emotional scale is from Abraham Hicks. 

 

[Phil]

@Valley2Mountain

As @Mandy said, the emotional scale came from Esther Hicks. My two cents, the true feeling of emptiness (of the mind) is more so peacefulness / fullness, Self. Hollowness is similar, but it depends how you mean it, what you’re communicating there. It could be meant as Fullness, wholeness, holiness, Self, and it could also be meant more synonymous with apathy, sort of a lack of feeling or discernment yet of which emotion is experienced, what guidance is received. In that case I would slowly read each emotion on the scale and distinguish which you’re experiencing. Imo, there are similarities with the Sedona method, t seems to focus on feeling rather than aversion from, and would very likely be helpful & fruitful in conjunction with the scale. 

[Mandy]

If you look at the scale and can't tell what emotion you're in, it really helps to write out what you are thinking and then you can more easily see what the emotion is. 

[Valley2Mountain]

Thank you guys!

2 hours ago, Mandy said:

Apathy is a dramatic word for boredom

That's intriguing, never thought about it this way. Also, I experience apathy for example when I'm trying to sense the feeling I get from doing something or being in a certain situation (do I like it or not? is it boring? Wanna do it again?), and I feel nothing, neutral,  kinda numbness.

2 hours ago, Phil said:

and it could also be meant more synonymous with apathy, sort of a lack of feeling or discernment yet of which emotion is experienced, what guidance is received. In that case I would slowly read each emotion on the scale and distinguish which you’re experiencing.

 

Yes, it's more similar to this description. A feeling that something is missing inside and a lack of fulfillment. You're saying that below a lack of feeling, does lie some kind of feeling that I can unearth? 

[Phil]

@Valley2Mountain

This might be a skipping too far ahead, but also it might be ‘on time’, might resonate and or be clarifying. 

There isn’t per se the feeling that something is missing inside and a lack of fulfillment. There is that thought, and then the emotion felt is about how that thought feels. 

The paradoxical statement comes to mind - ‘nothing is missing’. Taken one way, it’s saying there is nothing missing, there’s just the thought that there is. Taken another way, nothing, no thing, not-a-thing, love, Self is what’s missing… but love isn’t actually missing… love’s thought to be missing… and this brings us back to the guidance. Not-a-thing is never missing, ‘it’s’ present. ‘It’ is what presence is. This is what’s meant by how thought can ‘obscure’ feeling.

 

Therefore… there isn’t really ‘below a lack of feeling’… there is no lack of feeling. Like, literally, ever. That isn’t actually possible. There can be an experience as if,  there can be a thought as if, but there can not actually be a lack of feeling. 

 

So the unearthing, is really of feeling ‘itself’ - yourself. 

 

[Mandy]

21 hours ago, Valley2Mountain said:

Thank you guys!

That's intriguing, never thought about it this way. Also, I experience apathy for example when I'm trying to sense the feeling I get from doing something or being in a certain situation (do I like it or not? is it boring? Wanna do it again?), and I feel nothing, neutral,  kinda numbness.

Is there a desire there that you don't know what you want or really feel passionate about, and you want to? Wanting to know what you really want is in a way in itself, knowing what you want. 

 

Try not to get too caught up in language. I get annoyed sometimes that the word annoyance isn't on the scale. Frustration/ irritation/impatience seems to cover it but I really like the word annoyed better. (I hope you see the humor in this.) 

[Valley2Mountain]

On 7/10/2022 at 6:21 PM, Phil said:

the guidance

Can you elaborate upon that? It's a recurring theme in your explanations which I haven't yet understood completely. Guidance towards what? The truth in every scenario in our lives?

 

On 7/11/2022 at 2:53 PM, Mandy said:

Is there a desire there that you don't know what you want or really feel passionate about, and you want to?

Exactly right. But unfortunately. there is a significant difference between knowing I want to clarify for myself what I want in life, what I'm passionate about. And, actually finding that😅. I've reached many dead ends, to the point that sometimes I think I need to change my strategy and stop looking for that career I'll be passionate about. What if "finding your passion", is just the trend of the 21st century that were conditioned to believe we need to have.

 

On 7/11/2022 at 2:53 PM, Mandy said:

Try not to get too caught up in language. I get annoyed sometimes that the word annoyance isn't on the scale. Frustration/ irritation/impatience seems to cover it but I really like the word annoyed better. (I hope you see the humor in this.) 

😎

 

I also struggle to choose the matching feeling in the scale when feeling lost. It's kind of like worry, doubt and overwhelment but more powerful. Where you just don't know what to do next and you feel a bit defeated.

[Mandy]

3 hours ago, Valley2Mountain said:

Exactly right. But unfortunately. there is a significant difference between knowing I want to clarify for myself what I want in life, what I'm passionate about. And, actually finding that😅. I've reached many dead ends, to the point that sometimes I think I need to change my strategy and stop looking for that career I'll be passionate about. What if "finding your passion", is just the trend of the 21st century that were conditioned to believe we need to have.

You have to do the emotional alignment first. The thing you love the most will look like the thing you love least from lower emotions. You need to make peace with where you are before clarity will come and opportunities are realized. What if "finding your passion" is more about finding joy in the moment, and then you more clearly know what you are passionate about and what you are not. 

3 hours ago, Valley2Mountain said:

I also struggle to choose the matching feeling in the scale when feeling lost. It's kind of like worry, doubt and overwhelment but more powerful. Where you just don't know what to do next and you feel a bit defeated.

Break it down to the moment, the present emotion.  You might feel powerlessness at times and then worry and doubt at others. See how your thoughts directly correspond and create how you are feeling.

 

Appreciating that you want to know what you want, and that already IS knowing what you want is key to letting go of this strain and tension that is clouding it. Not in a means to an end way but for how it feels right now to be cool with not knowing. 

[Phil]

3 hours ago, Valley2Mountain said:

Can you elaborate upon that? It's a recurring theme in your explanations which I haven't yet understood completely. Guidance towards what? The truth in every scenario in our lives?

Have you written anything that comes to mind that you want on a dreamboard, and used the emotional scale yet?

[Valley2Mountain]

2 hours ago, Mandy said:

You have to do the emotional alignment first. The thing you love the most will look like the thing you love least from lower emotions.

I actually felt that lately! After gaining a bit more emotional awareness from the Sedona method and lately from the emotional scale, I noticed how strongly emotions have an influence on every aspect of my life. It feels strange, how sometimes I can feel aversion to things I like to do depending on the emotion I experience. That's an important insight, thank you. It's actually kind of scary to think about it, that you could be making important decisions while being "under the spell" of the lower emotions. The question is how do you stay / increase your time in the higher emotions rather than the lower ones.

 

2 hours ago, Phil said:

Have you written anything that comes to mind that you want on a dreamboard

No, I haven't transferred yet the list to an erase board.

 

2 hours ago, Phil said:

and used the emotional scale yet?

You mean, if I used it right after reading the things from the dreamboard? No. I've used it independently. 

[Phil]

@Valley2Mountain

I think if you write what you want to do, be, have and experience on the dreamboard, the helpfulness of expressing any lower emotions becomes clearer naturally in the releasing & non-averting sense… as compared to the mindset that the question is how to increase your time in the higher emotions. A list & an erase board are a different terminology and more importantly a different mindset than what you want & a dreamboard. 

 

Then it wouldn’t seem scary that you could make important decisions while being under the spell of lower emotions. Instead, the emotional scale would be used starting at fear, finishing to the top, and then coming back to the decisions at hand. The clarity desired with respect to decision making may very well be obscured by discordant thoughts & perspectives, and the ‘lower’ emotions are letting you know this. The lower emotions are not lower as in less than, but are equal to the higher in that it is guidance for you. 

[Mandy]

7 hours ago, Phil said:

The lower emotions are not lower as in less than, but are equal to the higher in that it is guidance for you. 

💥 Love this. 

10 hours ago, Valley2Mountain said:

 It's actually kind of scary to think about it, that you could be making important decisions while being "under the spell" of the lower emotions. 

But it can't really be scary, because fear is an emotion. You do start to allow yourself to chill out when you make decisions though. There's a lot less weight hanging over your head in trying to make the "right" choices. The worry that the result of a bad choice would be shame and worthlessness, is recognized to be completely unfounded because all shame and unworthiness are is more emotional guidance. We are simply trying to avoid our own emotional guidance. When we see this and are no longer so concerned with NOT making the WRONG choice, we open to receiving the inspiration for the decision we are actually drawn to.