To Feel or Not To Feel

Feelings and Emotions

I haven’t felt like writing much these last few weeks. It seems that it is not so important or meaningful to me at the moment. It’s not that I no longer find purpose in it but my purpose in writing is not so much about proving anything to anyone but really questioning is what I’m sharing going to be beneficial to myself and others or is it going to be more of the same.

I’m reading a couple of books at the moment, having recently finished Chasing the Srceam. I think a lot about The Globalisation of Addiction and how we have become so addicted, and it seems to me that the main reason we harm ourselves is because we’re already hurting in ways that it’s not so much the substance or behaviour but the belief that this feels or is better than the alternative. Which is being with ourselves in the society we live in. I don’t think it’s the world but our particular cultural environment where we feel alienated and want to escape to another realm or way of being rather than living in the reality we’re in.

I’ve noticed that when we’re finding it hard to cope within ourselves we seek some means to distract ourselves, be it through labour or leisure or we become curious about the emotions and our coping mechanisms. Some of us have chosen to spend time meditating on them and really trying to get to the heart of ourselves and why we feel what we feel and what is the origin of these emotions. Moreover, can we be with them rather than trying to avoid the unpleasant ones or cling to the emotions that make us feel content or at least equanimous rather than comfortably numb.

Equanimity is a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause others to lose the balance of their mind. The virtue and value of equanimity is extolled and advocated by a number of major religions and ancient philosophies. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equanimity)

I’d like to say I am equanimous most of the time but that is not true. I am quite emotional most of the time but practice trying to be with my emotions and feelings, be they pleasant or unpleasant, rather than trying to avoid them. Sometimes it feels necessary for me to give myself some time and space to process them, especially the unpleasant. I need to feel I have some emotional balance before I deal with something or someone that I feel negatively about.

The reason being I am more likely to overreact or shut down if I feel overwhelmed, which is a flight, fight, freeze or faun response.

This morning I read a passage from Mindfulness and Compassion, embracing life with loving kindness by Suryacitta, explaining why he and I do this:

A common question that arises from meditation practice is how to deal with difficult emotions, such as fear. But the practice of mindfulness meditation asks that we don’t do anything at all. If we are experiencing fear, then leave it be, just as it is.

We often avoid rather than allow ourselves to feel emotions, particularly the more subtle forms of emotions so that when the extreme form comes we don’t always understand where our reactions are coming from. But they’ve been coming and coming, sometimes building and building until something triggers us once too often and all the repression of previous feelings and avoidance of our emotions come gushing forth in a torrent of seemingly uncontrollable reactions.

Now, as Suryacitta says ‘[m]ost of us can talk about our fear and anxiety very eloquently. To experience them is another matter; but when we turn toward emotions and sensations… we are no longer their prisoner. Only through experiencing our fears [of emotions] can we stop being a victim to them.

I am afraid of feeling too much, be it fear or love, so the tendency has been to not express these emotions until I have some sort of handle on them. ‘We know that our small sense of self is going to be obliterated [when we allow ourselves to truly feel and this] can feel like death, and in a way it is – a small death of the little self.’

The tendency is to try to regulate and control our feelings rather than just allow ourselves to live and experience of experience or the existence of ourselves experiencing our lives or life as it is, rather than interpreting it.

Now what I’ve noticed in the last couple of years, particularly in intimate relationships is how when I would feel surges of emotions rather than the more subtle or mundane forms I would withdraw rather than approach these feelings. The fear was not fear of other’s emotions most of the time but what I would have to let go off in order to allow myself to fully empathise with these feelings without the self-regulating emotion of self-compassion.

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/02/25/07/15/love-1221449_960_720.jpg

Self-compassion is extending compassion to one's self in instances of perceived inadequacy, failure, or general suffering. Kristin Neff has defined self-compassion as being composed of three main elements – self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-compassion)

I know I have not allowed myself to feel as strongly as I used to in relation to life. It’s not that I don’t still feel strong emotions but I’ve matured I’ve emotionally mellowed and don’t suffer the same extreme reactions and while I welcome the wisdom of age I don’t want to be too laissez-faire about our existence. I think I need to sit in solitude for a time with my emotions, so as not to be overwhelmed or overcome by them but instead to be able to reach a reasonable understanding having given myself permission to walk or even run away when this feels too much and then to return to this place this point in time, when it feels safe enough to recall those feelings without judgement but with a curiosity about what happened there from where I am now. And is there anything to be gained from the recognition, allowing for and investigation of those feelings to nurture a healthier relationship with myself and others as I move on with my life.

I don’t think the memory necessarily fades completely when it’s powerful emotion but with time and distance it changes and expresses itself in other ways in other forms that are sometimes harsh reminders, sometimes subtle vibrations on our inter-connected web of emotions, which seem to be forever spinning new yarns in relation to ourselves and others.

Take time to pause and feel rather than think about our physical existence; its miraculous and yet natural existence, the subtle felt sense of oneself as part of the web.