Meditation not only heals, but it also keeps our energy strong, balanced and flowing easily and effortlessly. I think this is what true success is, making choices that allow ourselves to live at our highest states of being. Energy is in everything and choosing how we use it means that we are living intentionally and mindfully. Constrict the flow with fear, anger and sadness and life and flow get stuck. We concentrate on what is happening, which only gives us more of it, without doing anything to fix it. We stay where we are and feel like we are going nowhere.

So what do we do? Practice keeping balance everyday and you will strengthen the flow within you and your Emotional IQ, keeping life humming. A great starting point is to really get in touch with your feelings, but the camp is split in this. Some of us don't feel our emotions fully enough and usually get into judging our self. Some of us have no problem emoting all over the place and judging everyone else. Most of us were taught by institutions like schools, churches, friends and our family systems that it is not OK to respond with our true feelings, worse yet, look how we feel. This is especially true for the forbidden and very universal feelings of fear. When we don't know that we are afraid, how can we live lives of abundance and prosperity?

There are many ways to sidestep these feelings and the behaviors that surround them. We learn this dance early in life. Typically traditional men have been taught to cover fear-based emotions with anger. Men and boys are not given much permission even in these times to feel afraid, not even when we would expect them to be. They were taught to cover these feelings with anger--it is OK to be angry, that is pretty masculine, but not afraid. Actually anger is natural when frustrated by a blocked need. But many men, especially traditional men who come off angry are not reacting to a frustration in their life; they are covering their fear of something.

We women, on the other hand have been taught to cover our anger with sadness. Sadness usually occurs when someone is grieving a loss of something. But understand that not every woman who is sad is experiencing grief or loss. Those who are sad and are not grieving a loss of something may be covering their anger. How many woman have you heard say, I am crying because I am frustrated! Some women have taught themselves to use the more masculine trait of anger to cover fear-based emotions. This of course is still covering one emotion for another.

Fear is a natural phenomenon, following the fight or flight path that all animals, even the human variety employ. Although we humans share seven other primary emotions and they are universal to all human beings everywhere. They are disgust, fear, anger, sadness, surprise, Joy, and acceptance. There are more emotions, called blends, but we are sticking to the basics. The primary emotions can be broken down further into two definitive groups: Fear-Based Emotions and Love-Based Emotions. Fear-based emotions are usually areas that we get stuck.

Most of us feel it is OK to admit being afraid if a plane appears to be crashing, or someone has a gun to our head. We are afraid and it is OK to experience that fear. It is not typical to be angry in either of those cases.

Anger is usually generated out of being blocked by something. We have every right to our frustration when we are blocked from some great need; we are lost at sea and need water or food. In the great sorrows of our lives, no one would question sadness and grief with the loss of a loved one. We understand that completely. But there is understandable puzzlement in others when women cry when frustrated by being blocked from something rather than feeling annoyed or angry. Or men who show angry outbursts at things that seem inconsequential. What is it that they fear losing, self-esteem, ego identity or something else? The communication lines go haywire when either of these situations is created in our business or social settings. So what is the answer? What do we do to uncross these confusing communication lines?

Staying clear with ourselves and others on how we feel and allowing ourselves to look the part is a start. When we let things stay hidden from ourselves and others it does more than go undercover, the feelings sometimes turn physical. When feelings turn physical we might hear someone say that they feel "tied up in knots. Their neck, back, stomach hurts or they feel depressed or angry." Meditation can help with these stress related physical side effects. Start by breathing into the fear, anger, sadness, etc. and allow yourself to get in touch with the part of the body they are lodged in. For example, examine those "pains in the neck." Ask yourself, "Who in my life is being a pain in the neck these days? How can I fix that? What about a pain in the back? What in my life is weighing me down? Can I change something?"

When all is said and done feel your feelings fully, then let them go! Getting right to acceptance feels good and it is where we live at our highest level of energy. When we live at our highest states of energy, life flows easily and effortlessly and we see things clearly. Meditation can make these occurrences come more naturally and more frequently into our awareness. We have the power to live at this level. See more of the possibilities! Why not you? Why not now? If not now, when?