I took this picture on the way to Oxford a few years back.
This was no doubt a water regulating dam, to help the canal water levels, it offered a pressure valve when there was just too much water, and of course to prevent flooding.
When I saw this picture today; I was considering how all of us have a similar valve in ourselves. Some of us are better at using it than others. For some the flood gates are always open, so the emotions are on a continuous flow towards the outside, no filter. Some people keep the flood gates closed all the time, so they shut down and look callous and uncaring. Neither extreme is very helpful when interacting with other human beings.
So how do you find that happy medium when you let out some of the emotions through your own flood gate, but have the wisdom to know when to open it and when to close it?!
Well, this is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?
And the answer is not “one fits all”, the answer has to come within you. Some ways of dealing with the world might work fabulously for me, but backfire when it comes to you. But if we were honest with each other, then I would say accepting the emotions would be a good start. We are emotional beings and repressing things in the hopes of it going away will not work. We have a limbic system for a reason. Getting to a point of rage or even a point of extasy all the time is also unhelpful to the system. As they say everything in moderation is beneficial. But then again the emotions do not happen in isolation, they come linked in with the full human system, it is a biosphere and an energetic sphere, where all systems are interconnected. If something is off in one area then the whole system goes out of kilter.
You know when a baby starts crying and if you are a first time parent you have no idea why your baby is screaming? If you are a responsive parent; you check the little human for it’s feeding, sleeping, pooping, peeing or company need – and if all systems check out then it may have something to do with internal systems that perhaps you can not control. But let’s say you checked all the outside signs and once to did all the tasks then the baby settles. In a similar way as adults we also need to check all the vital systems externally and get our basic needs met before we try to get to the higher needs. But then the trick is also, that if our basic needs are not met, then our attention can not focus on anything else other than surviving, and a human in survival mode does not availability to deal with anything else. If we are in survival mode then our emotional flood gates will most certainly not function as intended. The system is out of balance.
So then, meeting basic needs is the 1st step.
If we are in survival mode, we most certainly do not feel very secure and safe in the world, so our emotional system is most certainly at high alert, and when you are on high alert you are way too busy surviving again, and round and round we go again.
So then the next step would be feeling safe inside and out.
And if we are in survival mode, with our safety threatened, then we are not very trusting of people, so we do not let many people close to us because you know they are a threat, so then we don’t get the hugs, the care , the love, the togetherness we need. So once again the system starts misfiring, the floodgates open and …the rest cycles back to the 2nd step, then the 1st step, and back to survival.
So then step 3 would be to trust within and trust on the outside.
And if we have our basic needs met, we feel safe in and out, we love ourselves and we feel loved outside then I guess the balance is achieved for us to be able to lift the flood gates when needed and perhaps shut them as well. We feel perhaps more empowered about the world. The more empowered and in control we are of our own being the more we will be able to empower others around us.
So then, how well do your flood gates function?
As always join in the conversation in a comment, or journal your thoughts. We are ready to evolve, join us on the journey of discovery.
