Understanding yourself & your emotions
How is your heart?
In many Muslim cultures, when you want to ask them how they’re doing, you say something like Haal-e shomaa chetoreh? How is your haal?
Haal in persian is the transient state of one’s heart. In reality, we ask, “How is your heart doing at this very moment, at this breath?” When I ask, “How are you?” that is really what I want to know.
I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad. Examine your own heart, explore your soul, and then tell me something about your heart and your soul.
Tell me you remember you are still a human being, not just a human doing. Tell me you’re more than just a machine, checking off items from your to-do list. Have that conversation, that glance, that touch. Be a healing conversation, one filled with grace and presence.
Put your hand on my arm, look me in the eye, and connect with me for one second. Tell me something about your heart, and awaken my heart. Help me remember that I too am a full and complete human being.
Emotions = Energy in Motion
The word emotion comes from the latin ‘emotere’, which is sometimes translated as 'energy in motion'. So if feelings are energy in motion, then attempting to suppress ones we don’t want is kinda futile. They have a purpose. Fear warns us, anger protects, tears cleanse. That energy bubbling up doesn’t just disappear. One of the main problems with sadness and anxiety and all those scary and uncomfortable emotions is that we want to get rid of them. We've got to learn to recognize and even befriend our emotions. We need to sit with them, rather than squash them, and recognize the underlying (and even beneficial) purpose of these things that give our lives depth.
Like Rumi said so eloquently: “This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor... Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
Anger is a valid, justified, human emotion and just needs a healthy release.
Feeling sad is very different from feeling sorry for yourself and you are allowed to feel every bit of it when life has dealt you a massive blow or disappointment.
Frustration is a sign that you need to change the way you are communicating with someone or dealing with a problem that is not going away.
Emotional pain is a required sign that lets you know you are in deep need of emotional growth in an area of your life.
Grief can only be processed when it is fully felt and you allow yourself to fall into the abyss, knowing you will crawl out of it.
Repressed emotions will come out somehow - we’re all like pressure cookers.
When you are abandoned by someone, you learn a thousand things about yourself in the ensuing heartbreak.
Betrayal teaches you how resilient your heart is.
Rejection humbles you and reminds you that “no” is something you will hear in this world.
Desperation is a sign that you need to start relying on yourself more and stop relying on other people and things so much.
Guilt is the sign of someone who wishes to make amends.
The inability to let go of something means you have simply not grieved it or given it enough time to settle in your heart and head.
Rage is a sign you need to work on how you address a situation which hurts, frustrates or annoys you.
I know the dark calls to you sometimes. That you turn your face from the light.
I know you walk down roads you know shouldn’t. Walk into places your heart is gently urging you not to.
I know you see your habits and long to change them.
I know you are tired of your worn out ways of being. Tired of re-living patterns and choosing painful choices. I know you feel hollow at times. Like life is escaping you. Dancing in front of you but out of your reach somehow. I know it hurts to live in the disconnect between what you are currently experiencing and what you know exists outside of you. Beautifully, without effort. I know how much it hurts to live there, in the divide between what you feel you are, and what you wish you could be. I know you have tasted the sun on your skin, and inhaled with complete trust, and that you too at times find it hard to move without knowing what’s next. That at times life feels paralyzing.
I know you work so hard to control the outcome of your life. That you forget to breathe sometimes.
That you live in the shallow end, that you forget to go deep, breathe deep. That you forget to meet yourself in the quiet and breathe yourself full again. That you forget there is a well of abundance and trust within you. That you forget to go there, for fear of losing control.
I know there are places within yourself that you do not love. The parts you try to wrestle away.
I know they are there within you and that they steal away your joy.
I know you visit them from time to time, hoping they have somehow disappeared.
I know you travel between internal peace and trust, and terror and fear.
I know you long to live more in bliss, where you know you are intended to live.
I know you can feel it vibrating in yourself when you arrive there in the grace of bliss, that this is where you belong. When you arrive, you are so alive it’s as if everything around you is telling you yes, you are home.
But I know too that shadows come and pull at your feet. They come sometimes while you are asleep and drag you down into the familiar landscape of fear and doubt.
I know you journey there too from time to time, wondering if the light will ever return.
And you fear you will never outgrow this dance between the two worlds.
I know you can see how much you have grown. That you are learning to taste heaven. That you swear sometimes you could grow wings. That you believe life is in your favor. That you are rising above your dark shadows, that you are becoming free.
I know you live there in the tear between two worlds, between the dark and the light. Between trust and distrust. Between love and hatred. Between acceptance and resistance. Between control and faith. Between sun soaked mornings and dark forests.
And you are human, my dear one, my dearest love, you are human. You are allowed to be in both ways. You are allowed. You are not wrong. You are not damaged. You are not failing because you get lost sometimes in dark rivers. You are human.
Be gentle when doubt comes, when fear chokes, when control debilitates, when loneliness binds you.
Spend special care to love yourself, in these dark corridors of your being.
Spend special care to bring love to your own self. Take gentle care of yourself and your vulnerability.
When you arrive in the dark, know you are being offered the chance to grow your own internal garden of love. That the dark gives you the chance to love all the places you never did.
All of the places that challenge you. All of the places you curse.
And the dark offers a restoration of love to your entire being, no matter what land you stand in.
When you are down, you deserve more love, not less.
Where we deprive ourselves of love, is where we need it most.
When the dark comes, tell it what it longs so deeply to hear. That you are loved. That you are loved in all of your shadow, and loved in all of your light. That you are loved in all of your various stages.
Moments of fear or sadness cannot be cured or defeated, they can only be transformed by learning to love. And support yourself when they arrive. It will come again and again, giving you the opportunity to cultivate your own inner garden of love.
And with time and practice, it will release, it will visit less. It will come not for days but instead only moments. It will remind you from time to time to love yourself more. The dark, it serves you. You are learning to restore the love you lost. The love you forgot you were comprised of.
The light comes, as it always does, even if only found for a moment on the crest of a wave, on a southern breeze, on a bead of dew. Know that it is sending you its own unique message of love. Confirming that you, without any effort on your part, are being blessed. That you are being showered. That the universe is a kind and loving one. That even in the great darkness that visits you, you are being taught how to love.
Close your eyes now, and feel the rise and fall of your chest. Feel the darkness behind your lids. See here in this place, lives also great light. They are part of one another. They hold the same message. They have the same intention. Place your hand on your heart, and whisper I love you.
Give yourself permission to be in all the places you are. Without judgement or criticism or frustration.
Let the process of life unfold as it is. Change nothing about it. Except for the amount of love you shower yourself with. Except for the amount of love you give to yourself. In both times of great joy, and great unrest.
~ Sarah Blondin, Live Awake: Practicing Gentle Kindness toward Ourself
