Emotions

Yesterday after the yoga class that I take most Friday afternoons I talked to my friend Kristina who has been coming to class for the last year or two. We talked about people having emotional problems and I said that I think we are not able to handle our emotions. She disagreed and was convinced that human beings are able to figure out a way to deal with that kind of difficulties. I have been thinking about what we talked about since yesterday and have to adjust my position on it. I would say that Kristina and I are both right and at the same time wrong with our take on this.

Why do we have emotional difficulties? That goes back to what I have been talking about for the last couple of weeks. As children our parents and our environment program us. Based on the programming we have an artificial idea about ourselves and perceive that idea as who we are. Then we live our life’s based on a false idea a lie about ourselves. The real you, the part that has no beginning and no end, the part that has brought something special to the world that wants to be expressed is still in us and wants to come out. But we are programmed, we feel we want to do one thing but our mind follows it’s programming and does what it is trained to do. We cannot escape; our ideas and beliefs are too deeply routed. That creates a lot of conflict. We want to follow our heart, we want to do what makes us happy but we are not able to do so. And not doing it hurts us. If we do what our mind tells us and do not follow our heart it is equally painful. We consistently hurt ourselves.

What do we do? Kristina is right that we found a way to deal with emotional problems but I am equally right because it is not really a solution. We are in constant pain torn between what on one side our mind and on the other side our heart tells us. This is why life is suffering. But our ego/mind has found a solution to deal with it. Two things happen. To a certain degree we get immune to the pain because we have experienced it for so long that we get used to it and the second thing is that we do not allow ourselves to feel any more. We shut down emotionally, get more and more numb to what happens around us. But how does that affect our life’s?

We are able to do what we are not supposed to do; we are able to not do what we must do. We can keep on working that job we hate, be in a relationship that does not work, mistreat ourselves and others, live an artificial life based on an artificial idea of who we are. We will survive. We do not have to change and can do whatever it is we are programmed to do. That is how we deal with emotional difficulties. Emotional difficulties are nothing else then a sign that we are on the wrong path that we have to look at what we are doing. But our minds and egos are so arrogant. They know what is right because somebody told them what it is and they believe it and never question it. These stupid emotions are in the way and what do they know anyway? They are the enemy, they are the cause of suffering and how do we deal with that, how do our egos/minds get what they want? By shutting down our emotions, by killing feeling since they are a mere disturbance anyway.

But what happens to us when we are doing that. Our hearts shut down more and more. We feel less and less and become more and more numb to the life around us. Granted we have much less pain but shutting down emotionally also means to shut down to joy and love. If we cannot feel pain we cannot feel joy either. We cannot pick and choose. Shutting down emotionally means shutting down to all the emotions we feel. This is a gradual process. In our teens we are still very emotional. Then in our twenties things get easier because we feel less but life is also less exciting. If we do not stop suppressing our feelings before we hit 30 it will get very difficult to reverse the process. When we hit 40 we are emotionally dead. We are Zombies we are the walking dead. We get up in the morning and do the job we hate and we are married to somebody we do not even care about. But we are doing well because we do not feel anything. No pain, no joy, no love. The real “I” has died a long time ago.

With that the ability to see beauty in the world has also died because it has to be felt. We cannot see the beauty of a sunset, how much beauty we have in our life’s and the beauty of people that we meet. Everything we see is analyzed and labeled by our minds but not felt any more. Life ends up being only a thought process.

That is why I said to Kristina that I do not think that we are able to deal with emotional difficulties. What do I think is the right approach? To open our hearts, to feel everything as intensely as possible. To feel more pain, more joy and more love. What will happen when we do that? We will not be able to do anything we do not feel like doing. There is no way for us to have a job we do not like, it would be way to painful we would not be able to handle it. What would happen if we would all do that? We would quit that job and find one that we love to do. We would follow our heart, the universal intelligence that is connected to it and would live a life full of joy and happiness the life we are were meant to live. 

"Death of the real "I"". Smashed bird. Williamsburg/ Brooklyn 02-09-08 at 04:31 PM.

 

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