EMOTIONAL DISCIPLINE: Faith

Allow the surprise – and be ready for it!
What you feel is the value of your life. It’s worth a little work!

Exercises for Gathering Emotional Wisdom regarding
the second Cycle, Faith

TUNING IN TO THE CORE EMOTIONS:
Here is a brief description of each Core Emotion, accompanied by its synonyms.

HOPE: LET IT IN

Hope is the receptive anticipation of the Companion: pleasure in simply remembering the bond, and looking forward to being together again. I recall the ways our needs were met in the past, and believe that what has been will come to be again. Hope is how the past holds a promise for the future, and gives pleasing reassurance in the present. Hope provides patience while waiting. All in due time.

Synonyms for Hope: ready, receptive, expectant, waiting, patient, watchful, reassured, pregnant, amenable, interested, responsive, tolerant, beloved, content, secure.

SADNESS: GIVE IN TO IT

Sadness is the receptive disappointment of the Companion. When I allow myself to feel Sadness, I limit my Disappointment by letting it pass. When Sadness holds my attention, everything slows down. I become receptive to the comfort that is naturally available to me. I let go what has been lost, even as I feel the pang of missing it. I stay with my breath, allowing it to soften my body, rather than toughening up against the loss. As I receive the comfort with each inhale, I settle into the compassionate arms that are holding me.

Synonyms for Sadness: forlorn, sorrowful, mournful, disheartened, dismayed, homesick, empty, lovesick, lonely, dissatisfied, disappointed, gloomy, somber, sullen, dismal, dejected, grieving, isolated, separated, disgruntled, misunderstood, flat, taken for granted, dreary, neglected, doubtful, unhappy, blah, sullen, unwelcome, disconsolate, bored, listless, lethargic, unpopular, grief-stricken, nostalgic, alienated, left-out.

RAGE: LET IT OUT

Rage is the expressive disappointment of the Believer. Rage is the cry of need in the face of deprivation. When I'm feeling Rage, I limit my Disappointment by expressing energy, making my needs known. I am fiercely protective of my self-worth, and of the bond within which my value is securely nurtured. We are special to each other! I will not let it be denied.

Synonyms for Rage: fearful, terrified, wailing, screaming, disconsolate, exploding, mad, wild, restless, bothered, uncomfortable, appalled, disgusted, shocked, frantic, agitated, upset, fussed, hysterical, panicky, worked up, crying out, fierce, furious, intense, appalled, alarmed, threatened.

DESIRE: GO WITH IT

Desire is the expressive anticipation of the Believer. It is the felt experience of the needs that feed our bond. In it is the power to bring us together again. Desire lays claim to our faithfulness to each other. It calls upon us to be together again in a way that meets the needs important to each of us. Desire affirms how special we are to each other. It brings us to the next step in the story that is our evolving relationship.

Synonyms for Desire: need, want, favor, like, love, adore, drawn, eager, passion, beckoning, longing, hunger, thirst, yearn, covet, crave, wish, attraction, appetite, ask, include, flirt.

EMOTIONAL AVAILABILITY
This exercise invites you to explore your relative comfort with the Core Emotions in the Cycle of Faith.

Choose one Core Emotion at a time, peruse the definitions and synonyms provided above, and choose a specific word from the list, one that draws your curiosity at the moment. Reflect on specific experiences of this feeling, and, using the following chart, identify the degree of your Emotional Availability. Repeat for as many feelings and variations as draw your curiosity.

THE WINDOW OF EMOTIONAL AVAILABILITY

	THINK/TALK about past experience	EXPERIENCE Feel now within my body	EXPRESSION to another while feeling it now
DISALLOWED (don’t acknowledge: Invalidate the feeling)
ALLOWED (feel it, validate the feeling, though challenging to do so)
COMFORTABLE (feel it with natural, flowing ease)

Gather your Emotional Wisdom: summarize what you learn about yourself with regard to each particular Core Emotion.
How satisfied are you with the degree of your Emotional Availability? If you’d like to increase your emotional comfort zone, proceed to the next exercise.

EMOTIONAL LIFELINE
This exercise gives you a way to explore the history of your experience with any given emotion. The more you appreciate the roots of a feeling, the more you can make yourself at home with it, the more it can become a source of wisdom for ever better choices.
1. CENTERING
  I use a meditation exercise to get my awareness centered (5 minutes). How am I feeling now, as I begin?
2. FOCUS
  I browse through the list of feelings, carefully sensing which feeling word holds energy for me. Which stirs my curiosity, draws me into further exploration?
3. LIFELINE
  1. MOST RECENT MEMORY**
    I search my memory for my recollection of my most recent experience of the emotion which I wish to explore. I let my memory and imagination recreate the event which generated the emotion. Factual recall is not necessary. I let myself imagine the event vividly, as if it were happening now. I allow myself to notice all the elements of my experience (Reason, Imagine, Feel, Sense). When the Experience is complete, I identify its important elements on a blank page, perhaps even writing a comprehensive narrative of the event.
  2. EARLIER MEMORIES
    I let my awareness regress through time to explore other past events which generated this emotion. I stop at two or three which stand out with some clarity. I allow myself, as in part a), above, to vividly process each event. Upon completion of each recollection, I note its elements in the same manner as used in part a).
  3. EARLIEST MEMORY
    I let go of all of the above awareness and imagine I am traveling further back in time. I let images of experience roll by until I am at my earliest recollection of the emotion of interest. I allow myself to vividly process the event where this emotion was first generated (as far as I know at this time). I attend to each element of the experience as though to a sacred revelation. Finally, I note significant elements of this experience as above.
4. SYMBOLIC EXPRESSION
  Now I review the fruits of my reflection. I allow myself to really 'get a feel' for this emotion. I imagine myself in a future event, experiencing the emotion. What is the storyline? What might be a core image or metaphor? How might I artistically represent this image? What physical positioning or movement seems to belong with this image? Finally, I put my body into the imagined position, allowing the energy to move and sound to be made until I am more fully appreciating the embodied wonder of this emotion.
5. GATHERING EMOTIONAL WISDOM
  What have I learned about myself with regard to this feeling? What patterns do I notice? How have some patterns changed across time? To what extent do I allow my inner awareness and/or outer expression of this feeling? What ways do I have in my body or mind of avoiding it? What new choices am I making now about relational challenges in my life? What few words hold the core of my learning? How might I use this mantra/belief/affirmation to deepen my access to this emotion?
6. SPIRITUALITY
  What might you add to, or notice in your experience of, each of the above steps, that would support your awareness of your relationship with the divine?
  
  **NOTE: If I am unable to find sufficient memories (clarity or number), I can simply allow my imagination to create events as if they once happened or are now happening. This will still inform me as to where I am with the emotion. I can also consider vicarious experience, where I witnessed someone else's experience in a way that affected me.

CORE EMOTIONS: further reflection
1. HOPE: Our past holds a promising future.
  - If I track my feelings for a week, how often and for how long do I find myself feeling Hope? How often and for how long do I allow myself to remember what has been in a way that offers pleasurable anticipation of what is yet to be?
  - What experiences of Hope can I locate where I held Faith in what was possibly coming to be, even while accepting the “weaning” that was happening as I let go of what was passing?
  - What are the beliefs (self-talk) that get in the way of my feeling hopeful? How do I talk myself out of the value of remembering what has fed me? What negative judgments do I have about anticipating the pleasure of being together again?
  - When I am having a moment of Hope, if I pay attention to my body, where do I notice tension that is not getting released? If I listen to this tension, what does it tell me about changes that I need to make?
  - How intentional am I about spending time remembering what has enriched my life? What “memory aids” do I have that work well for me? What other forms of holding and treasuring my lifegiving past experiences might I consider incorporating? What ways do others have of allowing the past to feed the present into the future?
2. SADNESS: I am letting go even as I feel the pain of the loss.
  - How willing am I to listen to my Sadness when I am feeling it? To allow it to teach me what I need to learn? To let go what is passing, what perhaps needs to die? Might I try just sitting, breathing with, and feeling the Sadness to see what it has to say to me? What loss do I need to accept?
  - What ways do I have of avoiding my Sadness? How convinced am I that I must make it go away or it will continue to get worse? What are the roots of my belief that Sadness is a bottomless pit from which there is no escape?
  - How stoically do I refuse to acknowledge Sadness? How convinced am I that it is just an annoyance, a distraction, something that has power over the weak? How much do I consider Sadness to be shameful, even humiliating if it is allowed to show? In what ways do I indulge the Sadness, wallowing, not allowing it to pass?
  - How much am I afraid of Sadness? And how much does this fear make my Sadness worse? If I pay attention to myself when I am experiencing Sadness, how much do I notice myself tensing up against it?
  - How often do I avoid experiences that I anticipate might confront me with a loss? What might such avoidance be costing me? What moments of potential growth have I shut down because I was avoiding the Sadness? How much of my life is going unlived, how much potential unfulfilled because I automatically avoid possible Sadness, and the letting go that it supports?
  - What experiences have I had of a compassionate other, someone willing and able to be with me when I was Sad, in a way that helped it to pass? Who do I have in my life at this time to whom I can turn when feeling Sad? Might I need to seek out this resource so that I can relearn how to let Sadness pass through me?
  - How have experiences of Sadness clarified for me what it is that I can never lose?
3. RAGE: I will not be devalued!
  - If I pay attention to my experiences for a week, how often am I in situations where I feel discounted? Physically? Emotionally? Spiritually? How often am I in experiences that confront me with being discounted in a way that feels threatening to me? What do I do with the feelings that stir? How do I avoid them?
  - If I look back over moments when my worth was feeling threatened, even imagine that I am in the experience again at this moment, what energy do I notice moving in my body? What impulses am I aware of? If I didn’t restrain the emotional energy, what do I imagine myself doing? If I think responsibly about this event, and my feelings, what might I choose to do if it happens again? What needs to change?
  - What experiences have I had that have led me to distrust my own self-protective energy? How convinced am I that anger means someone is about to get hurt? How afraid am I of this energy in myself? In others? How helpless do I become in the face of another’s Rage? And/or, how fiercely am I determined to be the one who does the devaluing, rather than the one who gets devalued?
4. DESIRE: I am drawn to connect with you.
  - If I pay attention to my experiences for a week or two, how frequent and how long lasting are the times when I am feeling the need to connect with a another? How responsive am I to the need that I feel?
  - How comfortable am I with taking the initiative to reach out to another? If I pay attention when the need arises, how much do I allow myself to go with it? How much do I find a way to dampen the energy, to mute it, ignore it, distract myself? How often do I disallow my own needs?
  - How willing am I to respond to another when they have reached out to me? What self-talk goes on inside me that tells me to distrust it, that finds a way to negatively judge it, to find something wrong with it? How do I deflect the opportunity to connect that others sometimes provide?
  - How much am I afraid of feeling Desire? How much do I expect that it will lead to disappointment? How much would my life change if I began to let myself feel and consciously choose to act on my Desire so as to get more of what I need?

DAILY EMOTIONAL REVIEW:
Now that you have given yourself some familiarity with the Core Emotions of Faith, you are in a better position to give daily attention to these feelings. In our complex and fast paced lives, so much happens so fast that some of the feelings go unattended. The way to grow in Faith is to make a commitment to regularly noticing, experiencing, and processing these feelings.
1. CENTERING
  Use a meditation exercise to get your awareness centered. Bodyscan, Following the Breath, or Mindfulness can be useful here. The point is to become conscious of your embodied presence in the moment.
2. REMEMBERING
  Then spend time breathing while remembering the events of the day. Allow your awareness to sift slowly through your experiences as seen through the lens of the bonds you have experienced. Recall as many of the details as help each event to become real once again. Watch for any forms of these feelings: Hope, Sadness, Rage, Desire. Pause to acknowledge and honor your feelings, one at a time.
  
  Let yourself be present to each feeling as if the event were happening now. This means breathing with awareness of the energy of the feeling in your body, as well as thinking through the value that is highlighted by this feeling. If there is a particular feeling that is challenging for you to allow yourself to fully experience, review and use the Breathing a Feeling method from exercises in the Introductory chapter.
3. LEARNING
  As you acknowledge the meaning of each feeling, listen with care to what this feeling has to tell you about yourself, your relationships, and the ebb and flow or your bonds with others. Gather your learning, if you wish, in a journal.
4. UNFINISHED BUSINESS
  Many days you may notice an incompleteness to some experiences.
  - What has come into your awareness that requires further attention? What intention can you identify? What will you do to realize this intention? Perhaps the following exercise, Processing a Feeling, would help you to fill this out.
  - Perhaps your feelings tell you that something in one of your relationships requires further attention. Following the next exercise is another called Relational Review. It will help you process specific interpersonal experiences, and clarify where you go from here.
5. SPIRITUALITY
  What might you add to, or notice in your experience of, each of the above steps, that would support your awareness of your relationship with the divine?

PROCESSING A FEELING:
A step by step method for clarifying the meaning of a feeling so as to make a well informed choice what to do with its energy.

Awareness + Choice = Personal Power

EXPERIENCE ------------- UNDERSTAND -------------------- CHOOSE
What’s happening? What does it mean to me? What do I do?

Choose any feeling from the synonyms provided earlier, and reflect upon a specific experience of this feeling.
1. Body: What am I aware of inside my body? How is the energy moving?
2. Impulse: What do I feel like doing? If no thought held me back, what do I imagine myself doing?
3. Meaning: What does my feeling tell me about what’s at stake for me? How is my relationship to what I care about affected?
4. Options: What are the ways I might choose to express this feeling? What words and/or actions would identify the meaning of this feeling for me?
5. Intention: What do I want to have happen as a result of my choice of expression of this feeling?
6. Choice: I decide how to express (or keep private) the feeling.
7. Learning: What happens as a result of my choice? How is my relationship to whatever I care about affected? What do I learn? What would I do differently next time?
8. Spirituality: What might you add to, or notice in your experience of, each of the above steps, that would support your awareness of your relationship with the divine?

FAITH IN RELATIONSHIP
This exercise helps you explore specific relationships in terms of the interactive experience of the Faith therein. There is much of value to be learned by following these steps with regard to significant relationships during formative years (mother, father, teachers, religious leaders), as well as with regard to important friendships, past and present.

Choose one specific relationship and reflect on your experience of it using the following questions. Repeat with regard to any relationship that has been important to you.
1. RELATIONSHIP LIFELINE**
  This exercise gives you a way to explore the history of your experience with any given relationship. The questions which follow (6.b) through 6.f) are a follow up to this initial exploration.
  1. CENTERING
    I use a meditation exercise to get my awareness centered (5 minutes). How am I feeling now, as I begin?
  2. LIFELINE
    - Most recent memory
      I search my memory for my recollection of a specific high and low of the relationship which I wish to explore. I let my memory and imagination recreate the events which contained each high and low. Factual recall is not necessary. I let myself imagine the event vividly, as if it were happening now. I allow myself to notice all the elements of my experience (Thoughts, Feelings, Images, Sensations). When the Experience is complete, I identify its important elements on a blank page, perhaps even writing a comprehensive narrative of the event.
    - Earlier memories
      I let my awareness regress through time to explore other past highs and lows which come to mind regarding this relationship. I stop at ones which stand out with some clarity. I allow myself, as in part a), above, to vividly process each event. Upon completion of each recollection, I note its elements in the same manner as used in part a).
    - Earliest memory
      I let go of all of the above awareness and imagine I am traveling further back in time. I let images of experience roll by until I am at my earliest recollection of a high and low in the relationship. I allow myself to vividly process the event where this emotion was first generated (as far as I know at this time). I attend to each element of the experience as though to a sacred revelation. Finally, I note significant elements of this experience as above.
  3. SYMBOLIC EXPRESSION
    Now I review the fruits of my reflection. I allow myself to really 'get a feel' for this relationship as a whole. What is the storyline? What might be a core image or metaphor? How might I artistically represent this image? What physical positioning or movement seems to belong with this image? Finally, I put my body into the imagined position, allowing the energy to move and sound to be made until I am more fully appreciating the wonder of this precious relationship.
    
    **NOTE: If I am unable to find sufficient memories (clarity or number), I can simply allow my imagination to create events as if they once happened or are now happening. This will still inform me as to where I am with the emotion. I can also consider vicarious experience, where I witnessed someone else's experience in a way that affected me.
2. Need:
  In what way were specific needs, of yourself and the other(s) well met at specific times during the course of the relationship? How much did you allow yourself to notice and value the bond that was forming?
3. Balance of Anticipation and Disappointment:
  Identify specific events where your experience of the relationship supported the Anticipation of your connection with a significant other. Do the same with regard to Disappointment.
  - What do you learn about the impact of your experiences of Anticipation and Disappointment upon the way that needs are met in the relationship?
  - What patterns do you notice in the relationship over time? Did Anticipation or Disappointment predominate at certain times, or even throughout most of the relationship?
  - What relational experiences, in your personal history, have led to the patterns you are noticing in this relationship?
  - What do you learn about yourself in terms of how attentive you are to Anticipation, and what you might do to cultivate more of it?
  - What do you learn about yourself in terms of how attentive and responsive you are to Disappointment? How might you more productively engage with it so that it becomes even more helpful in allowing needs to be met in an ongoing way?
4. Balance of Miss and Seek:
  Identify specific events where your experience of the relationship led to you Missing this other. Do the same with regard to ways that you were able to Seek to connect with this other in a way that led to needs being met.
  - How did your Missing of the other allow for needs to be met? When you Miss the other, what happens inside you, and how does this experience support your bond with the other?
  - How were you able to actively Seek out the other? In what ways did this support your connection? How did it lead to needs being met?
  - How did your clarity about Missing and Seeking help to keep the boundary clear as to what was you and what was the other? How is a clear boundary important to recognizing the faithfulness of your bond over time?
  - What do you learn about how comfortable you are in allowing yourself to slow down enough to sit quietly with the experience of Missing the other?
  - What do you learn about how comfortable you are in allowing your energy to quicken in order to take the risk of reaching out to connect with the other?
5. Unfinished Business:
  Now take time to reflect on what there is in this relationship that requires further attention.
  - What is the overall impact of the relationship upon your Faith, your ability to believe in a bond in a way that supports having needs met in a faithful way over time?
  - What patterns do you notice that you would like to change? Are these changes specific to this relationship, or related to how you are in many relationships? How will you go about making the changes?
  - Would it help to talk this through within this specific relationship? Is there someone else with whom you might consult?
  - What else occurs to you that, if you followed through on it, would deepen your ability to have Faith in your bond with this other?
6. Spirituality:
  What might you add to, or notice in your experience of, each of the above questions, that would support your awareness of your relationship with the divine?

RELATIONAL REVIEW:
A way to stay current with what is happening for me in any significant relationship, to learn about myself, and to take what I’ve learned back into the relationship.

CENTERING / REMEMBER
I use a meditation exercise to get my awareness centered. Then I spend time remembering what happened in recent memory. I choose one specific experience that involves my Faith in relationship with another person, an experience where further reflection might help me to learn about myself.

(PARTS a, b, AND c BELOW ARE BEST WRITTEN IN A JOURNAL)
1. NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION
  I write a description of the relational event I have chosen, identifying what actually happened, in terms of what I observed outside myself (Sensing), as well as what happened inside me (Thinking and Feeling). I write this as a story, including all the information that has value in understanding what happened.
2. REFLECT
  - How am I feeling right now, as I begin to write this review? How do I understand this feeling?
  - How does the interpersonal event described above represent a pattern in my way of relating?
  - What are the roots of this pattern? Where does it come from in my history?
  - What else have I learned about myself?
  - How do I understand myself in relationship to the significant other in the current interpersonal event?
  - What impressions have I formed about the other? What have I come to notice in terms of their personality, personal characteristics, behavior patterns?
  - How am I feeling toward this other as a result of this event?
3. DECIDE
  - How do I take what I've learned here back into the relationship? What is my intention? What will I actually do?
  - How am I feeling now as I end this review? How do I understand this feeling?

EXPERIENCING DIVINITY

Look back through your experiences with the above practices. Open your heart, soul, and mind to what you may discover in terms of the following:
- In what ways have you directly experienced the presence of divinity within your own body?
- How have you connected with the divine presence in one (or more) other person(s)?
- Where and how have you experienced your connection with the divine Spirit in your surroundings?
- If you let Spirit speak to you through these experiences, what do you learn about the meaning of your life, and how do you feel about it?
- What challenges call you to make changes in your life so as to be more fully alive in Spirit?
- How do your experiences connect with stories, quotations, wisdom from the faith tradition(s) with which you currently identify?

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EMOTIONAL DISCIPLINE: Faith

Allow the surprise – and be ready for it! What you feel is the value of your life. It’s worth a little work!

Exercises for Gathering Emotional Wisdom regarding the second Cycle, Faith

Allow the surprise – and be ready for it!
What you feel is the value of your life. It’s worth a little work!

Exercises for Gathering Emotional Wisdom regarding
the second Cycle, Faith