by Sowjanya M
Dealing with emotions, experiencing every emotion the way it comes, and let it go; is a tough practice, imagine a world where every emotion that you experience comes and goes like a wave on the ocean, like a visitor that stays for a while and gently leaves when the purpose is served. There are very few assurances in life, but one that I can say with absolute certainty is that whatever we are feeling right now is going to change soon. Emotions are short-lived and are dynamic that keeps changing based on the chain of event that occurs with and around us. Emotions have triggers, they rise to their peak, and then they gently vanish away before being replaced by a new emotion. This is part of what it means to be human. Unsurprisingly, we are gifted to remember or store what we recall or practice the most and the rest of the memory fades away or will be buried deep down the memory box.
This seems all well and good, but the problem arises when we begin to create unhealthy relationships with our emotions. There are some emotions that we like so much that we hold on to them with nail-biting —emotions like happiness, bliss, delight, calmness, and other really, really pleasant feelings. There are other emotions that we despise so much that we would prefer to never feel them again as long as we live—emotions like disgrace, sadness, misery, embarrassment, anger, and other really, really unpleasant feelings.
Which emotions do you want to always feel? Which would you prefer to never feel? It turns out that at the end of the day, all emotions are here to guide us and provide valuable information about the world around us. What if, instead of trying to cling to some emotions while pushing others away, you instead allowed all feelings to come and go, without needing to change them?
This thorough appreciation of all of life’s experiences is a cornerstone to contentment, considering that, right now, everything is OK as it is. Yes, that means we can be content with our unhappiness, content with our anger, content with our disgrace. We can be content with our delight, happiness, and calmness—and everything in between. Contentment is the essential acceptance of what it means to be human, unconditional love for all of life’s experiences, without the need for anything more than what is here right now. Once we learn how to bring this into our lives on a regular basis, we can finally begin to understand what the ancients meant by the knowledge of enough, the acceptance of the present moment, and true happiness. Things do break, clothes do wear out, there will be wrinkles on the skin but it should never kill the spirit and dim our inner light. We should always be mindful and look with different lenses and not always use other’s success, status, and other materialistic things as yardsticks to measure our happiness.
About the Author:
Sowjanya M is a software tester by profession and lives in Bengaluru. She is passionate about writing and her penchant for writing has helped voice her opinions by writing blogs on various topics and views on her blog site.