Sundance Project Newsletter Edition 1.0 November 27, 2006

Message for November...

In our society we are all taught, at some level, what to do if someone gets hurt or sick. Isn’t it fascinating that very few of us have had any education at all about what to do to help ourselves or someone else as we experience emotional pain?

When we were babies we instinctively knew how to express and process our every emotion. If we felt frightened, we would wail at the top of our lungs! If we were angry, we expressed those feelings instantly, as well. Moving from joy to anger to fear to boredom was as natural as breathing in and out! We were born with innate knowledge of our true nature, which entails being loving, trusting and expressive. So what happens to us to alter our natural abilities to express ourselves and be complete in our emotions?

When we got to be a little older, the process of learning incorrect ideas began, as we start to be societized by our parents, and others in our lives. (God bless our parents, they just worked with the tools they learned from their parents, who learned from their parents, etc., etc. They and we have all done the best that we could with what we were taught.) We began to hear things like: ”Don’t feel bad”, “Big boys (and girls) don’t cry”, “Toughen up”, “Cry baby, cry baby!”, and “If you’re going to cry, go to your room!” These are all statements that taught us that feeling bad is not acceptable! In truth,sad and “negative”emotions are every bit as normal and natural as happy, joyful ones! Yet, for some screwed-up reason, we are raised to believe otherwise. We are therefore limited in our abilities to express what is in our hearts, and we feel uncomfortable and at a loss as to how to help or comfort others who are in pain.

Every emotion we experience produces energy. If this energy cannot be released in anappropriate manor, it becomes stored inside of us. Imagine water in a teapot that is simmering on a hot stove. Now imagine putting a cork inside of the spout of the teapot. As the flame gets hotter the teapot moves closer andcloser to an explosion! A lifetime accumulation of incomplete, unexpressedemotions builds up pressure inside of us in a similar way. (We hear about these human explosions every day on the evening news!)

Happily,there are solutions! Just like with any other habit we form throughout our lifetimes, we can change our learned behaviors. John James and Russell Friedman of The Grief Recovery Institute® have created wonderful programs to help us learn the correct actions to achieve completion and expression of a lifetime’s worth of stored communications! New habits take some effort and practice, but in this case, the rewards are priceless! I am living proof of how well it works! I have realized great healing of my heart by implementing this action program into my life!!

I would love to talk to you about these wonderful educational opportunities. I encourage you to call or e-mail and we can discuss further how you, too, can learn to live a happier, more fulfilled life by adding some new tools to your “life skills”bag!

May you be richly blessed!

-JoAnn Bruhn, R.T., (R)(CT)
President, Grief and Inspiration Facilitator