By Martha O’Regan
How many times do you hear yourself say these words when conveying a story to friends and family members? What about when you are listening to a story and these phrases are used, are you able to follow the story line even when you don’t know the exact details? Chances are, you know precisely what the other person is talking about even without the actual words, because you can feel the essence of the story.  And, if you are really tuned in, you can also likely sense the outcome.  Why is this? Basically, because we all share the same story vibrationally, making it easy to skip over the details with a little “blah, blah, blah.”
Energetically, we all have the same story despite the variations of names, places and circumstances. We all know what anger, fear, worry, and sadness feel like because we have all “been there, done that.” The familiar feelings make it easy to skip some of the details with a passing “yada, yada” and keep moving to the outcome, ending with — “you know what I mean?” They nod and we are satisfied with the connection.
Because we have also felt love, joy, and compassion at some point in our lives, when we hear stories of those who have just lost a family member or recently been diagnosed with an illness, a song that inspires us, or of those doing fabulous things in our community or world, we are moved, sometimes to tears, not always understanding why. These emotions are what connect each one of us in times of crisis bringing comfort without even using words.
Through our lifetime, each time we experience any of the gazillion emotions, our brain stores them in their respective files to be easily retrieved for purposes of our growth and evolution. Some files are bigger than others, such as worry, fear, anger, and are retrieved with greater ease than happiness or joy. When we are listening to the news, a story or a song, the brain pulls up the correlating file from past memories, creating our reaction or response.
Too often, I hear from new clients that they just “don’t feel happy” or are stuck in anxiety.  This is easily created in our brain due to the fear and judgment based culture that we live in — it goes in, often without our permission or awareness. First thing, turn off the news — read headlines if need be.
Then begin dumping out the “worry” file and becoming aware of the many things in there that you can’t fix anyway so, why worry? Then find a new frequency to replace “worry,” like gratitude for those things that you can fix.  Pretty soon, a flicker of happiness or calm shows up. With consistency, that flicker expands and soon you find that you are happy more often than not.  It’s just how the brain works.
Since every experience with its attached emotion(s) is stored in our mental hard drive, or subconscious mind, new experiences will “activate” old emotions. In these moments, we tend to state that “so-and-so made me mad or sad when he/she did such-and-such.” The fact is, ole so-and-so was just being him/herself and whatever they did, “activated” old anger or sadness in you, bringing it to the surface to evaluate and clear.  When this happens, identify the feeling, thank it for showing you your next layer of energetic “gunk,” release it and replace it with something that feels better.  As we evolve, and continuously shed these old attachments that show up, we allow greater expansion as we find more ways to be in the energy of love and gratitude.
Next time you share a story, shake things up a bit by giving it more life with vibrant details and less familiar emotions — you’ll surprise both yourself and your listener, creating a deeper connection and having a lot more fun.
Live Well ... Have Fun, You Know?!