Experience the emotion and move on

Why do some of us watch pornography when it is not so hard to figure out that it isn’t so good for our soul? Why do some of us drink soda and eat sweets when it is not rocket science that our body needs better nutrition? Why do we drink alcohol when we know that we only do stupid things under the influence? Why do we play hooky when we know we need to get this project done and need to do a good job at it?

These are just a few problem areas that came to my mind, I am sure you could easily add many others. No, I don’t want to sell you a new self-empowerment program to do better in the future. I want to alert you that there is a pain body inside that needs heeling and that induces us to do stuff that our mind frowns upon. Many of us figure it out eventually. Sufficient healing and a few lessons learned  bring some balance between the head and the heart, eventually.

We need the occasional opportunity to let go otherwise we go coocoo in our head. When we read the serene and loving messages of our spiritual leaders we only get more grumpy and ask, ‘why can’t we have what they are having?’. We forget, however, that they have already paid their dues. They already walked the path that allowed them to drop the baggage of the past. We can certainly practice the shortcuts they recommend but mostly we simply have to walk the Way and accept that whirlwind of emotions as a by-product of being alive.

It’s the feelings, stupid! Everything we say, do or think is in response to the feelings that bubble in the depths of our being. The feelings have to pop up anyway so please don’t take the story your mind comes up with so seriously. Watch the movie as a bystander, touched and emotional as every good moviegoer, but without adding more broken China to the mix. When you stumble occasionally, when you get triggered by someone and respond in kind, so be it. Just clean up the mess afterwards, apologize, and move on with your life. The missed step is also part of the Way.

Use your smarts to figure your behavioral patterns out. Use life to learn from your mistakes, but otherwise just let it trigger all the emotions that need to come to the surface without getting too much involved. You see, it’s not about becoming a stoic. That’s the role your mind would love you to play but it is as effective as putting a lid on a volcano that is about to erupt. Let the emotions flow right through you without taking the story in your head so seriously. So what someone broke your heart! Had she not been around you may have lost a dear pet instead. So what someone undermined you professionally. You did the same thing to him in a prior movie. Just feel the emotion and move on!

Our pain and pleasures are written in the stars. We can’t control life no matter how well-meaning we are and no matter how many self-improvement and spiritual seminars we may have attended. Yet, assigning spiritual meaning to what happens to us is under our control. We can get spiritual meaning by seeing our dreams materialized and we can get meaning by suffering when things are not going our way. It’s those cat and mouse games, those merry-go-arounds in the game of life that are meaningless: retaliating because someone hurt us, drowning our sorrows in alcohol because someone has left us, and so forth.

Be one with the feelings you experience. Be mindful of the story your head is telling you and stay your course. It’s the feelings stupid, everything else is a waste of your time.