The Hermetics of Emotion: How Feeling the Low Opens You to the High
Introduction
In the tradition of The Kybalion we are taught: “Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree.” (Internet Sacred Text Archive) What if your emotions (fear, anger, sadness, joy, love) are simply varying degrees on one continuum rather than completely separate states? What if your capacity to feel the “high-vibe” emotions depends directly on your willingness to touch the “low-vibe” ones? This is not just spiritual metaphysics; it’s grounded in how your nervous system and body process emotional data. And this is the edge where your transformation lies.
The Evolution and Purpose of Emotions
Emotions evolved as embodied signals: quick-acting, somatic data that inform us about safety, threat, alignment, and opportunity. From an evolutionary biology standpoint, your limbic system, vagus nerve, and interoceptive awareness monitor shifts in your internal state and respond accordingly. When you feel “tightness” in your chest, your nervous system may be signalling that something is misaligned, unsafe, or in need of attention.
The body doesn’t discriminate between “positive” and “negative” emotions as good or bad; it simply registers degrees of activation, contraction or expansion, openness or constriction. Emotions are information. They tell you what is safe, what is aligned, and what is not. If you imagine touching a hot stove, your hand recoils. Your nervous system doesn’t say “this is bad”; it says “this is unsafe” and pulls back. In emotional life, when we numb or dissociate from the “hot-stove” feelings, we short-circuit that feedback loop.
From Hermetic Polarity to Emotional Spectrum
The Principle of Polarity teaches that apparent opposites are in fact two ends of the same line. Hot and cold are variations of temperature, light and darkness are degrees of the same field. (Internet Sacred Text Archive)
When you apply this to emotion, you realise: Joy and despair, love and hate, empowerment and powerlessness, they may not be separate categories but poles on one continuum. Recognising this invites you to move beyond the cheap dialectic of “bad emotion vs good emotion” and instead see the full spectrum.
Your ability to access higher-vibe emotions is deeply tied to your willingness to inhabit and integrate lower-vibe states. When you reject fear, you shut down your capacity for courage. When you dissociate anger, you cut off gratitude’s depth. The body holds the record of what you allow yourself to feel and what you resist.
The Body as the Bridge Between Energy and Experience
In therapy, neuroscience, and somatic work, we understand that feeling happens in the body. Your nervous system doesn’t just process what happens externally; it processes what you don’t allow yourself to feel. Holding emotional energy in the body creates tension, numbness, or constriction. If you always avoid the discomfort, you may also avoid the potency of growth.
Imagine a “Spectrum of Emotion”: the downward spiral of low-vibe emotions and the upward spiral of high-vibe emotions. The middle zone of neutrality or curiosity becomes the turning point. If you are willing to meet the lower frequencies, you activate the upward spiral. If you numb the lower frequencies, you wall off the higher ones.
Feeling constriction, heaviness, anxiety, or shame is like touching a hot stove. You are receiving a signal. You notice the bodily constriction, the breath, the tingling, the temperature change. You allow your nervous system to map the sensation. You ask: “What is my body telling me about safety, alignment, authenticity?” By hearing that message, you open the circuit. You clear the blockage. You invite the upward spiral of positivity, love, joy, and freedom.
Practical Pathway: Somatic Presence to Raise Frequency
Here are some practical steps you can share with clients or integrate into your own journey:
Scan the body when you sense a “low-vibe” emotion. Notice where it resides. What does it feel like? Heavy? Tight? Numb?
Stay with the information rather than reacting. Let the sensation inform you.
Breathe into the region of sensation. Deep, slow exhalation followed by a gentle inhalation invites the parasympathetic nervous system in.
Name the emotion and acknowledge it as information. “I feel anger in my solar plexus” rather than judging “I should not feel angry.”
Ask the body what would shift the state. Perhaps movement, sound, releasing a cry, shaking, or gentle touch.
Allow the shift upward—notice when constriction becomes openness, heaviness becomes lightness, tension becomes tingling. This is the physics of the upward spiral.
Integrate the high-vibe state by grounding, gratitude, connection, and embodiment. Let the nervous system register the new pole.
Why Numbing Cuts You Off from Feeling Good
When you turn away from discomfort, you often bypass the full spectrum of emotion. Numbing or dissociating avoids the signal, yes, but it also avoids the ascent. Without the descent, you cannot climb. Without allowing yourself to feel the depths, you cannot access the heights. The body holds a charge. It holds energy patterns. If you skip over the “low,” you leave unresolved energy that leaks into your life as disconnectedness, stuckness, or chronic low-grade anxiety.
Instead, embrace the full continuum. Let the body map the terrain. Let the nervous system recalibrate. Let yourself be the alchemist of your emotional energy.
Invitation to Work Together
If you are ready to harness your body’s wisdom and access higher emotional frequencies, I invite you to work with me. Through personalized somatic coaching, we will:
• Explore what your body is holding and how it is signalling you.
• Transmute the stuck or low-vibe emotional energy into alignment, empowerment, and joy.
• Cultivate sustainable nervous system regulation so that higher-vibe states become your baseline, not your exception.
• Bridge the science of nervous system biology, the psychology of emotions, and the spiritual alchemy of polarity to integrate your full spectrum.
When you are ready to learn how your willingness to feel the full range of emotions becomes your portal to the highest versions of yourself, reach out for a consultation. I’m here to guide you. Your body is not the obstacle; it is the gateway.
