Part 3 of 3: Peeling the Emotional Onion
Dear Students:
The image of an emotional onion was used to describe how your body stores the emotions you don’t want to feel, in part 1 of this series of posts. The noisy
emotions live at the surface layers, the more painful ones rest deeper & the original causes of your anguish are buried at the core. On an internal emotional journey, there are many ways to cleverly avoid traveling towards the origins of your misery & sorrow. When you know what to expect & look for you can choose to continue moving toward the center if you want.
An example of an Emotional Onion from the outer surface to the center: Rage, Anger/Apathy ~ Fear, Terror ~ Anxiety ~ Frustration ~ Dread ~ Guilt/Shame ~ Martyrdom ~Worry~ Overwhelmed ~ Heartache ~ Jealousy ~ Regret ~ Competitiveness ~ Perfectionism ~ Loneliness ~ Remorse ~ Repentance ~ Sadness ~ Grief (For a comprehensive list a emotions click here.)
Tips to Keep you Moving Towards your Emotional Core:
[Remember when you choose to fully feel & release your emotions to do so responsibly in a private space, without acting upon it or directing it towards another.]
Anger/Apathy: Realize that apathy is the flip side of anger. When you are afraid to feel anger you become susceptible to becoming apathetic. This takes the form of giving up on life and leads to depression, indifference & paralyzation. It is important to experience your apathy in order to set yourself in a forward motion again. At that point, it is necessary to choose to desire to uncover what infuriates you. This is the beginning of letting it go. If you still can’t access your anger after this process, then you may have to first address the fear you have
for bringing forth your anger.
Guilt/Shame: Shame is a common way to be able to ignore or deny the wrong doings you are guilty of throughout life. Feeling your shame & all the ways you beat yourself up for “being a bad person” is a preparation step to taking ownership of your guilt. Then it is possible to experience remorse for any harms you caused another. Once completing this act of repentance it is highly likely you won’t want to repeat such behavior. This gift in itself is worth the efforts of releasing your pain along with gained empathy & humility.
Tears of Sadness/Tantrum: Another thing to notice is the difference between tears of sadness vs. temper tantrum tears. When you are crying because of grief & remorse know that you are on the track to getting closer to the causes of your 
internal wounds. When you cry because you don’t get an addiction met, it is necessary to become aware of this & discover what emotion you are avoiding at that time. This can be very hard & elusive to detect because it is easy to drown out the emotions you don’t want to feel by having a fit. This type of distraction can become an unloving habit. If you become aware that there is a negative intention behind your tears then you can distinguish them from tears of remorse. Next time you recognize yourself reaching for an addiction, stop and choose to feel what you are trying to distract yourself from or thoroughly engage in it with physical & mental awareness.
Addictions: When you don’t want to feel what’s going on for you internally, it is common to create many addictions throughout each day to help you suppress. Addiction comes in many shapes & sizes. Common addictions are: alcohol & drug abuse, excessive use of television, internet, cell phones & smart devices, eating
disorders or more elusive ones such as overworking, compulsive exercising, presenting a facade, codependent behaviors, or habitually doing things that appear to be healthy, etc. This is why it is necessary to honestly know what your intentions are behind your actions, thoughts & words.
Fear/Terror: An unkind snare to get caught into is acting out of fear to justify bad behavior. Remember that the opposite of love is fear. Whenever you act in fear you are behaving in an unloving manner. Reacting hastily when you sense fear in order to instantly relieve it, is damaging & hurtful to yourself & others. Treating fear as your authority is also a way to avoid feeling terror. Setting time aside to take a brave step to feel your habitual, ancestral terror is a freeing & empowering process. Each time you do this fear looses it’s grip over your reactions & your courage can grow exponentially.
I hope this was helpful and it keeps you progressing on your emotional explorations. For more details about how to go about this process visit the posts I wrote in 2022 called: Energy in Motion, Parts 1-9. Peace!
~Donna
Contact Donna Bervinchak at: