I consider myself a “catch and release” person. I should say that’s how I generally deal with even slightly creepy insects or critters that appear unannounced. In a recent comical moment, only comical from the rear-view mirror, I was painting my kitchen furniture when my very large kitten jumped onto the fresh paint. Naturally, he sprinted across the floor with painted paws and continued into my office. I will not repeat the words that were going through my head.
In a “whaaaat” moment that happened immediately as my painted cat sprinted away, a small blue lizard showed up under the clear tarp I was using. At that exact moment! Usually, whenever a cat has caught or brought a lizard into my house, generally causing my dog to hide under my desk, I try to catch and release it. I’ve learned that once any injury has occurred to the lizard, sadly, it is better to let nature take its course. Yet, if the lizard seems to be all okay and the cat is just toying with it, I do my best to catch it and release it outdoors. I know; I can’t believe I handle lizards, either.
I admit it’s tough to accept defeat and let nature take its course. It’s also hard when something is trapped in a way that I cannot save it. In this recent lizard (skink) situation, I was already so annoyed at the cat paint prints across the floor I almost said “just go ahead. I’m done. I’m sorry, but I just can’t get involved this time.” Yet . . .
In this case, the lizard that my cat now had in my living room escaped and ran all the way to the kitchen where I was standing with the toe of my shoe slightly raised, just enough for it to hide under my foot! It was pretty clear to me that the lizard wanted to be saved and somehow knew where to go. I was able to grab it and let it go outdoors. Funnily, my cat seemed unphased. I think he was pondering his next victim. I’m proud to admit also that, despite being not so fond of snakes generally, I took hours to release a snake that had gotten caught on a glue trap in my mother’s basement. I would not let that snake go down that way, dragging the glue trap around the basement for days. My family soon changed my Netflix avatar to Snake Charmer with a lovely cobra image. I will always be a catch-and-release person.
How does this relate to feelings? We know about the emotional scale and that to have a good vibration, we want to hang out as much as possible on the upper end of that. An angry, sad, frustrated, depressed emotional state doesn’t match the things we want to create in our lives. For the many years I’ve known that our thoughts and accompanying feelings create our reality, I have evolved in the way I handle the emotions that come up on any given day. I initially was more of a quick “catch-and-release” person when it came to feelings as well. I wasn’t a “cancel, cancel” person, but I would quickly try to drop the unhelpful feeling and move on.
That’s not to say I don’t continue to use what I know to shift my perspective and move on from unhelpful feelings to a better-feeling place. But I do give them a moment or even more so that I can learn more about them. I want to know why I’m feeling the way I am about something. I now know that there is always an opportunity to be found.
If the endgame is to be able to choose our vibration, which determines what we create, I now know that fully feeling our emotions and understanding them is the path to creating our lives more deliberately.
When we feel an uncomfortable emotion, we don’t want to run from it. We want to take advantage of it. And we don’t want to bury it. It will be stored within us only if we deny it, suppress it, or use any of the other means available to avoid addressing it. This is not to say that we don’t want to be on our way to choosing a better way to feel as soon as it makes sense to do that. Once we’ve looked at the feeling and considered why we have chosen to feel that way, it will become easier to reach for better-feeling thoughts.
Each time we ask ourselves some important questions about why we are choosing to feel angry, unappreciated, frustrated, or like a victim, we are paving the way to fewer and fewer negative reactions in our future. It becomes easier to find the perspective that feels better when we have taken time to understand the cause of our negative emotions.
We can ask “What would I have to believe to be looking at this situation this way, to be this angry, sad, or feeling like a victim?” This generally leads to finding a belief we are having about ourselves in the moment. We may be judging ourselves for creating or being in the situation that elicited the negative emotion. We may be doubting how powerful we really are and whether we really can create our own reality. We may be feeling hurt, disrespected or unappreciated because we aren’t appreciating ourselves. It becomes easier to then realize that whatever someone else is doing has nothing to do with us and everything to do with them. That feels like reclaiming our power. The beliefs we unearth by asking what we would have to believe to have created the scenario and our emotional response generally are false, no longer apply to us, or can be changed to something that reflects who we are now.
It’s also very helpful to remind ourselves that when we are feeling a negative emotion, our Source doesn’t agree with us, or it wouldn’t feel bad. That can immediately take much of the energy away from the bad feeling. We can choose to take a look at the feeling with a view toward understanding it and finding a better way of viewing ourselves and the situation at hand. A shift in perspective is generally very close when we engage with our feelings in that way.
Dare I say that I have come to a place where I am often able to be grateful for some of the experiences I have that are less than perfect, that could be called “challenging”? I realize now that I’ve created those experiences and that there is something there I need to learn, that there is always something valuable there. I cannot say that I can conclude that “I’m glad that happened,” in the case of every “negative” situation. But, I now try to view every situation as neutral from the outset and expect that there will be something helpful there. I can admit that it feels very very good to arrive at that place where I can actually appreciate a challenging situation.
I will continue to be a “catch and release” person. When it comes to feelings, I will pat myself on the back for the “catch,” that is, for noticing how I am feeling. I will also plan to release negative feelings at the right moment. I will allow myself time to take a look at the emotions and understand them before I release them. And I will mine them for the benefits I must have known they would bring when I created the experience and the feelings. I am committed to having a relationship with my very important emotions, where I gain more mastery over them and the experiences I create in my life. Things feel easier and better.
The idea of using all of our creations, even those that initially feel challenging, is a topic I explore fully and for which I provide tons of helpful guidance in my book, Next-Level Manifesting—-When Miracles Become the New Normal! Soon to be released!
