© 2022 Assumpció Salat Bertran
© 2022 Urantia Association of Spain
| Luz y Vida — April 2022 — Editorial | Luz y Vida — April 2022 — Index | Urantia Questionnaire: Esteban Cotán |
In the same way that we are all learning and evolving in our lives, we can also do it in the experience of our emotional world.
To be able to describe it in a simple way, we will say that there are 4 levels in the management of our emotions, through which we go through and advance, each one at its own pace, slower or faster. Hopefully we can get to the fourth level soon.
¶ First level
We define emotions as an instinctive, primary response to external facts or events that touch or cross the thresholds of instinct, those in which the person feels safe and comfortable. To give an example, let’s think about when rage or fear is awakened by an external threat that my senses capture and that make my instinct not feel safe in what I consider my territory or my possessions.
At this level, the natural thing is that the emotion is expressed; now, as we are beings with a culture that marks us, and also instinctive, perhaps the mind conditioned by education and social customs tells us that it is not right to express what we feel, that we have to be brave, and then what we do it is to DENY, hide, bury what we feel.
This is the first level, that is, an evolutionary point of our life path, where we can find emotions that we are often not aware of; they are hidden in a part of our unconscious mind, although this does not mean that they do not affect. In fact, they tend to condition our behaviors, our relationships and even our health.
¶ Second level
We learn to express and make conscious these emotions that we have buried in the first stage.
At this level the person begins to clean his traumas and wounds, puts them under the light of consciousness, accepts them, does not deny or hide them as he did in the previous stage. Depending on the events or events in our life, such as a marital separation, an illness, etc., they can help us to begin to enter this level. It is a point in the evolutionary process where we are not always right when it comes to expressing all our emotions.
¶ Third level
Here we learn to really manage our emotions. We do not hide them, we accept and express them, but at the right time, in the right way, in front of the right person and with the right intensity. An advance that undoubtedly helps us to obtain better results and make better decisions in our lives. We are a bit wiser at this evolutionary point.
¶ Fourth level
Here we come to the transcendence of emotions: our level of wisdom and understanding of life is already high enough to not need emotions, but to be able to lead them at will.
At this level, the fact that someone threatens my territory, which by the way is no longer seen as a possession, does not arouse in me any kind of fear or anger. I don’t think about possessions (my house, my car, my children): I think about being a good administrator, a good manager, and I take responsibility for giving my best in everything I do or have.
The vision of facts and events changes radically thanks to the light of wisdom that guides the thoughts and interpretations we make of external reality.
Here I decide at will the type of emotions I want to feel, I have such an understanding of life and of myself that I can now be free of my instinctive-emotional reactions. Or rather: these are no longer manifested in me, but I can decide how and in what way they are to be expressed.
It is common sense to think that, if I can choose, I will always choose those emotions that fill me with energy and life, not those that take it away, such as anger, sadness, fear, etc.
In this way I arrive at true peace, a peace that no longer depends on how external events present themselves, but rather that is born from within, from my leadership, from my understanding of life and its order, an internal peace before the which there is no longer any type of external fact that can alter it.
Reaching this level is reaching authentic emotional and spiritual freedom and independence.
¶ References
- Article of the Magazine Light and Life Online: https://aue.urantia-association.org/2022/03/30/navegando-por-la-vida-los-niveles-evolutivos-de-las-emociones/
| Luz y Vida — April 2022 — Editorial | Luz y Vida — April 2022 — Index | Urantia Questionnaire: Esteban Cotán |