All emotions are pure

"All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion impure which seizes only one side of your being and so distorts you. "
~ Ranier Maria Rilke


This text is from the book, The Flip. I want to write it down here so that I can come back to it at any time.
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We asked Faye (Dr. Faye Mandell) how feelings control our individual worlds.
"First, we have to understand that there is a difference between feelings and feelings of thought," she explains.
"What our culture has labeled feelings are not feelings, but rather feelings combined with thought- which are combined with an abstraction.
'As an example, if I'm feeling anxious about a report that's due at three o'clock and it is twelve and it's not done yet, I might experience anxiety. That's a present moment feeling that allows me to focus to get it done. But when I take that feeling and combine it with a thought which says, "Oh my God, I'm never going to get it done and they're going to fire me and I'm going to lose my house and my family." then all of the energy that would be used to focus and be creative to get the report done is instead used in the combining of the feeling and the thought.

That combination of the feeling and the thought takes one out of the present moment. Combined with anxiety, the feeling takes one into the future; combined with frustration, it takes you to other people and things. When that feeling/thought is combined with disappointment or sadness, it takes one to the past. That is how feelings get connected to abstract thought and poison the capacity of the thought to do what needs to be done."

How might people use that knowledge to flip away from conditioned responses and remain in the present? The flip is to move from believing in thought as the way to understand the world to direct experience as the way to experience the world. So we learn understanding by experience and then we choose to think when we need to. If we allow ourselves to experience our feelings, then we will stay in the present moment and we will be self-powered.
"Feelings are indicators that emotional states are out of balance and the feelings then translate simultaneously into an action, because this is an action-oriented model, to keep people clear, focused, and in control. And when you are focused, clear and in control, you know and can immediately experience the illusory nature of thought."

We press for a real world example."if I am feeling frustrated because I am in a traffic jam and i am late to an appointment, I could do two things. I could piggybank that onto the anger and I could go,"that %&*$#@* so and so...' and then I would be combining a feeling which is my frustration, with a thought, which would get me so tense and frustrated I might run into the car in front of me. But if I was feeling my frustration and I said, "Okay, frustration is an indicator that I'm not in control. I can't be in control of the traffic, but what can I be in control o? What can I do with this moment here that's going to keep me clear and in control and focused?"
Well, I can muse on something that I need to think about or I can listen to some music. What is self-evident is that I can't control the traffic, but I can control me."
So, how can people separate their feelings from their thoughts?
"That pairing of feeling to the thought happens in a nanosecond, so the only way you can seperate it is to know where you are in time and space.

You stop listening to the stupid content of the thought and start focusing on where it takes you in time and space.

The minute you're in the future you know it must be anxiety that you are piggybacking.
The minute you focus on other people and things, you know it's sadness or disappointment-get back and experience the feeling, immediately translate it into an action in your present again.

"Listen to the structure of your thoughts. Listen to the tense and the pronouns. You want to be present with the feeling of "I am." If you're thinking in terms of he, she, they ...whatever, then you're projecting onto someone or something else in the past, present or future.
"Am" is a verb. it is the could've, will, might, perhaps, did, didn't, was, wasn't-they're all not 'AM" and take you away from experienceing what you're actually feeling.It's so simple.

Always return to 'I AM"

That is the feeling you must address. "I am mad; i am hurt, and so on. ANd when you feel it, you state it aloud.
That gives you power over your emotions and your thoughts.

"I AM."