Which Inside Out Emotion Do You Neglect Most?

Finding Your Values And Needs

An unexpected dip into Richard Barrett’s “Seven Levels of Consciousness” – a highly effective system to identify core values.

Have you ever felt the load of important existential questions piling up at the back of your mind, when all of a sudden you find yourself stood in pause watching the answers one after another crop up in front of your eyes? I felt that way today as I was staring at the wall with a bunch of posters at ICF Lithuania Conference in Vilnius.

This was a presentation about working on values by Colleen Slaughter, and the mentioned posters were depicting Richard Barrett’s Seven Levels of Consciousness Model.

It was an interactive moment and we were asked to intuitively find our way to a poster which represents where we are now. Oddly I found myself stuck. I was unable to get away from the first three no matter how hard I tried to reason why I should. The first three posters denote Survival, Relationship and Self-Esteem. They show up as the lower levels of development.

People have called me a wise person in the past and quoted my thoughts with inspiration. Some consider I’ve got a great purpose in life and I’m making a difference in the world by my selfless service. And there I was – staring at the basic levels of human development with a strong feeling that there was plenty to learn over there!

It is true that I’ve spent over a decade questioning this world as I was concentrating immensely on my own personal growth in lengthy silent retreats, and I was putting great effort to serving others and making a positive difference in the world. What I realized today though was that growth in life is not linear but rather a dynamic organism. Chunks of personal evolution may turn up as a stretch we feel we should’ve gone past long ago. It can be as basic as a need for self-esteem, for love and belonging or one of the survival needs. And this period of learning may be there to reinforce us in what we do.

The brilliance of this model lies in its versatility. As you can see it works wonders on the personal level, but it’s as effective on the professional level. It helps determine the growth of an organisation and stands as a holistic tool for individual and self-coaching.

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Inside out

Inside Out – With a Little Help From Your Emotions. Personal insights on how emotional intelligence makes all the difference, born after a night with the superb animation called “Inside Out”.

I watched a cartoon the other day which surprisingly got me thinking, and even more so, wanting to write about it. The film was called “Inside Out”. It was about our emotions.

I am learning to be aware of my own emotions during my work in emotional support and the non-violent communication practices. So I started noticing the frustration inside me when I saw one of the film characters named “Joy” being overly cheerful and trying to get rid of the other character called “Sadness”. They just couldn’t manage together.

To me, this resembles what keeps happening in reality when we do whatever it takes to push any traces of sadness away, by incessantly adding superficial layers of created happiness. We may find ourselves in the midst of a busy lifestyle surrounded by activities of high intensity, so that we don’t need to feel what’s uncomfortable.

Like any emotion sadness is important and cannot be ignored, or else we’re off downhill towards the gooey swamp of problems. It’s like a knot that gets tightened every time we put an effort to avoid an emotion. We end up at a stage where it hurts badly and the knots seem impossible to undo. All that just because we keep dodging that which is already happening – our emotions and feelings.

The concept of this cartoon seemed quite deep. It brought about a realisation that emotions are not there to be prioritized and are all equally important. By the end of the film Joy the character got finally convinced that she cannot steer the wheel all by herself. She realised that Sadness has an element of genuine depth which she completely lacks, and that they can actually learn how to work together as a team.

All types of emotions are important

As part of our holistic organism, joy, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust, are there to be felt with open heart and acceptance. Emotions are designed to support us, elate us, protect us or bring more depth into our lives.

And I asked myself: Which emotion do I neglect most?

The answer was – anger. I found myself completely incapable of feeling anger. As soon as a situation arises, my anger gets immediately hidden in depths of my mind and no one ever gets to know anything about it. I have made myself successful in hiding my anger and simultaneously made myself incapable of taking action when it is needed most. Believe it or not, this was a big realisation that’s still helping me discover new ways to communicate and function in life.

Which emotion do YOU neglect most?

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Over 10 years of direct experience in the field of personal development has helped Ignas bring powerful insights into his sessions. His creative approach to coaching and commitment to client goals have made Ignas a trusted ally to clients around the globe.