Acceptance or Ignorance?

[Unconditioned]

I was in the middle of a conflict yesterday between myself and my fiance while at work and when driving home I decided to just feel the physical-emotional sensations that were taking place without labeling or judging them. Then the thought came into my mind: "Am I suppressing this? Am I running away from the situation to avoid conflict? How can I tell the difference?"

 

And that leads me here: I've been under the impression that this is the 'right' thing to do in the sense that it won't fuel more thoughts, which would fuel more emotional reaction.... and that was the case with my scenario yesterday, I moved on and things seemed ok.

 

But now I'm starting to wonder if I"m just suppressing emotions that way. I don't get angry often and am generally stoic but now and thing something will set me off... could that something be the result of not 'dealing' with emotions? My concern is that I'm treating the symptoms but maybe creating a bigger problem that exposes itself in future events.

 

Hmm... any ideas on this one?

[wudangspirit]

the key is not to judge yourself. Don't play a triangle game of being hero, victim or persecutor. Let yourself feel the emotion but don't wear it as a decoration. Let it go. This is nature giving time to change into the next part of the present. Don't analyze to much although this method sometime can be useful to see where the emotion came from.

 

Have trust in your spirit. It sounds like your spirit told you to do this so don't question it later then you're attaching to it. This will only bring up the post heaven emotion again because you will remember the feeling then conjure it up again. If you have moved on and things seemed okay then good. That is in the present no need to reflect on the past.

 

Tao Bless

 

I was in the middle of a conflict yesterday between myself and my fiance while at work and when driving home I decided to just feel the physical-emotional sensations that were taking place without labeling or judging them. Then the thought came into my mind: "Am I suppressing this? Am I running away from the situation to avoid conflict? How can I tell the difference?"

 

And that leads me here: I've been under the impression that this is the 'right' thing to do in the sense that it won't fuel more thoughts, which would fuel more emotional reaction.... and that was the case with my scenario yesterday, I moved on and things seemed ok.

 

But now I'm starting to wonder if I"m just suppressing emotions that way. I don't get angry often and am generally stoic but now and thing something will set me off... could that something be the result of not 'dealing' with emotions? My concern is that I'm treating the symptoms but maybe creating a bigger problem that exposes itself in future events.

 

Hmm... any ideas on this one?

[WhiteTiger]

I second and like what Wudangspirit exclaims.

 

the key is not to judge yourself. Don't play a triangle game of being hero, victim or persecutor. Let yourself feel the emotion but don't wear it as a decoration. Let it go. This is nature giving time to change into the next part of the present. Don't analyze to much although this method sometime can be useful to see where the emotion came from.

 

Have trust in your spirit. It sounds like your spirit told you to do this so don't question it later then you're attaching to it. This will only bring up the post heaven emotion again because you will remember the feeling then conjure it up again. If you have moved on and things seemed okay then good. That is in the present no need to reflect on the past.

 

Tao Bless

 

I was in the middle of a conflict yesterday between myself and my fiance while at work and when driving home I decided to just feel the physical-emotional sensations that were taking place without labeling or judging them. Then the thought came into my mind: "Am I suppressing this? Am I running away from the situation to avoid conflict? How can I tell the difference?"

 

And that leads me here: I've been under the impression that this is the 'right' thing to do in the sense that it won't fuel more thoughts, which would fuel more emotional reaction.... and that was the case with my scenario yesterday, I moved on and things seemed ok.

 

But now I'm starting to wonder if I"m just suppressing emotions that way. I don't get angry often and am generally stoic but now and thing something will set me off... could that something be the result of not 'dealing' with emotions? My concern is that I'm treating the symptoms but maybe creating a bigger problem that exposes itself in future events.

 

Hmm... any ideas on this one?

 

Sometimes its kind of hard to deal with the change of dealing with inner frustration. It is the process of building up ability to deal with it that makes us feel that we are hardening ourselves to that feel your not addressing.

[11:33]

In my opinion the base emotion is love/peace/joy/vibrance. You, Unconditioned, are experiencing some OTHER emotion and then noticing that it isn't the ideal, and thus wish to not feel that. So what to do?

 

There is no RIGHT thing to do. There is only the thing to do that is most effective. What is the most effective thing to do? My preference is to examine oneself, look within. If you know thyself you are a master of yourself.

 

Look within, and ask yourself "why am I feeling this?"

 

What you are doing is analyzing yourself to find the root of the emotional pain. This is not at all suppression. This is the opposite, untying the belief-knots inside yourself that are not effective. You wouldn't believe the liberation that comes from realizing there is no such thing as right/wrong, only what is effective.

 

Just keep asking yourself "why am I feeling this?" over and over and over until you realize what a idiot you are. People are full of contradictions, like "I need her to do A and I'll be happy" and "She should NOT do A, it make me angry when she does A while eating meat" lol... Yes, if you ask yourself "why?" enough times you will find these parts of yourself. I call them idiot-loops. You could think of them as little loops of logic where they always add up to pain.

 

Here's one of my Rules To Live By (#5) from my twitter:

You must spelunk your own mind. Find the belief-knots and unravel them, or else you are destined to live them out for the rest of your days.

 

Add me on twitter:

http://twitter.com/AlexBaranosky

 

If you are sorta doing what I am suggesting already, then no I don't think you are suppressing anything. NOT resolving the pain would be suppression! The pain wants to be unraveled. It is like a pointer saying, "look over thre, you are thinking/believing ineffective stuff over there!"

Edited June 17, 2009 by 11:33

[Unconditioned]

If you are sorta doing what I am suggesting already, then no I don't think you are suppressing anything. NOT resolving the pain would be suppression! The pain wants to be unraveled. It is like a pointer saying, "look over thre, you are thinking/believing ineffective stuff over there!"

 

Excellent points, thank you for the sanity check! I've added you on twitter too (musicluvah1981). Good stuff, thanks again.

[freeform]

Look within, and ask yourself "why am I feeling this?"

 

What you are doing is analyzing yourself to find the root of the emotional pain.

 

This interests me - not because I agree, but because what I do is almost the polar opposite of that...

 

I actually think that analysing emotion is a subtle form of suppression... (of course there are many things that could be meant by 'analyse')

 

The important thing to consider is where does 'analysis' originate and where does 'emotion' originate?..

 

If you watch someone have an emotion and then watch them analyse it, with enough awareness you could see which is deeper, more influential, more fundamental...

 

for me it's obvious that the part of me that analyses is a very shallow, ego-based part, completely disconnected with the body and having very little power outside its sphere of influence (and it pretends to influence FAR more than it really does)

 

So this is what I might do if there is some drama stirring up emotion...

 

pretend there is someone in front of me willing to listen to the whole story behind the drama - all my deepest feelings and thoughts about it... the catch is that I have to tell the whole story using only one word - "blah" I'm actually serious... I go ahead and start "blah blah blaaaah... BLAH blah blahhh" - with real feeling and passion... allowing the feelings to come up and just feel...

 

There is a little lesson buried within the feelings... the way you get to it is that you stay with the feeling and allow it to emerge when it does... can be minutes, can be weeks... you may then be presented with a deeper layer of feelings that supported the layer above... and so it goes...

[Unconditioned]

This interests me - not because I agree, but because what I do is almost the polar opposite of that...

 

I actually think that analysing emotion is a subtle form of suppression... (of course there are many things that could be meant by 'analyse')

 

The important thing to consider is where does 'analysis' originate and where does 'emotion' originate?..

 

If you watch someone have an emotion and then watch them analyse it, with enough awareness you could see which is deeper, more influential, more fundamental...

 

for me it's obvious that the part of me that analyses is a very shallow, ego-based part, completely disconnected with the body and having very little power outside its sphere of influence (and it pretends to influence FAR more than it really does)

 

So this is what I might do if there is some drama stirring up emotion...

 

pretend there is someone in front of me willing to listen to the whole story behind the drama - all my deepest feelings and thoughts about it... the catch is that I have to tell the whole story using only one word - "blah" I'm actually serious... I go ahead and start "blah blah blaaaah... BLAH blah blahhh" - with real feeling and passion... allowing the feelings to come up and just feel...

 

There is a little lesson buried within the feelings... the way you get to it is that you stay with the feeling and allow it to emerge when it does... can be minutes, can be weeks... you may then be presented with a deeper layer of feelings that supported the layer above... and so it goes...

 

Yes, I think there are different degrees of causation for negative emotional reactions/states and different approaches. I've used analysis to get to a question that doesn't have an answer per se but it leads to an insight. It has helped me to be aware of conditioning deep within myself that otherwise I would not have seen. So without the analysis I may have never had realized something about my condition, or in general the human condition.

 

That said, the deeper level is to feel the emotion, to be aware of the feeling itself and not to judge or label it. I like the "blah" thing, that can help to keep the thoughts at bay while letting the energy of the emotion exist. This creates space to allow for wisdom/intelligence to remove the clouded emotional thoughts and see what is really happening during the dramatic interaction.

 

So on one level we have a pragmatic approach to understand the conditioning and on the other level we have a way to allow what is to be and create 'space' to see more clearly. Both of these combined I think can be powerful tools towards understanding.

 

Thank you both again.

[11:33]

Freeform,

 

I don't see your method as being opposite to what I said. I just see it as mostly the same thing, but from a different angle. You are still using your mind to trick yourself into unwinding the beliefs behind the emotions.

 

Emotions come from belief. Find out what you believe and the emotions always line up with it.

 

At the core BEHIND the web of beliefs and emotions is your natural state of joy.

 

Your method seems to me to be a way of shocking yourself into seeing the absurdity of the particular idiot-loop.

 

I never said to not let your emotion play itself out. But emotions don't have to play themselves out for weeks/months. The habit of suppressing emotions is yet another thing I would ask myself "WHY?" about. And see the root is something ignorant.

 

From my experience emotion comes from belief. This is why someone who has total faith in God will be at peace and not be ruffled by literally anything, because that belief in God wipes out all mere human-level of beliefs.

[freeform]

Emotions come from belief. Find out what you believe and the emotions always line up with it.

 

I like this - it's a productive topic. Thanks.

 

Regarding emotions and beliefs... personally I see it like this:

 

emotion just IS... it doesn't come from beliefs, it's just there... imagine emotion as water... it's there and it flows... that's about it...

 

beliefs are like a network of tributaries, dams, lakes, waterfalls... beliefs are the structure to support the water to flow in a certain way...

 

...

 

so if you let an emotion play out, and pay attention to how it flows (rather than the drama and the words that are the result) - you can notice the structure through which the emotion flows... so you learn the 'belief' behind it - but not a belief in the ordinary sense - that can be expressed through words... it's more of an internal energetic movement pattern... you could probably verbalise it, but it would be a disservice to do that...

 

emotion itself, I find, has no flavour of its own - it's perfectly balanced... as it flows through the different terrains of the body and mind it picks up the flavours of the places it flows through... and what comes into awareness is this flavoured water... we normally have a tiny taste and then commentate and commentate and commentate... (it's a good strategy to avoid feeling the emotion)

 

the land of emotion is far wiser and more powerful than the simple conscious mind... emotion is the mediator between the infinite part of us and the very finite part of us... if we can tune in carefully we notice that before dramatic emotional storms there is usually a little energetic pull or push - it's a message from the land of emotion... and it's usually not even noticed... or is ignored... so the delivery of the message has to get louder... we can't stand the power of this and so we go into our mind and talk to ourselves about it, which disconnects us further from the body... this all happens in milliseconds - so very easy to miss it...

 

so what I try to do is move in the opposite direction - move deeper and deeper into the emotion rather than out of it into 'thought'. It's actually a natural path to follow... it's like falling down into a well, when normally we try to climb up and out of it.. of course it's much more scary to fall down than climb up... but it is easier

[11:33]

Freeform,

 

I'm sure this works for you. My ideas work well for me, and I don't really relate to what you're saying. I suspect though that since my stuff works for me, we're probably not as far apart in approach as it sounds.

 

It's probably semantics getting in the way or something.

 

Peace.

[wudangspirit]

When you realize that everything stems from the same source there is no need for attachment then you are free. The Tao teaches us that all things come from Wuji or nothingness. In perfect stillness we can go back to nothingness. Analyzing can be helpful if you don't put a name to it and just be. If you do it over and over again I agree you are suppressing. We need to give up the need to know and shed the layers.

 

 

 

 

This interests me - not because I agree, but because what I do is almost the polar opposite of that...

 

I actually think that analysing emotion is a subtle form of suppression... (of course there are many things that could be meant by 'analyse')

 

The important thing to consider is where does 'analysis' originate and where does 'emotion' originate?..

 

If you watch someone have an emotion and then watch them analyse it, with enough awareness you could see which is deeper, more influential, more fundamental...

 

for me it's obvious that the part of me that analyses is a very shallow, ego-based part, completely disconnected with the body and having very little power outside its sphere of influence (and it pretends to influence FAR more than it really does)

 

So this is what I might do if there is some drama stirring up emotion...

 

pretend there is someone in front of me willing to listen to the whole story behind the drama - all my deepest feelings and thoughts about it... the catch is that I have to tell the whole story using only one word - "blah" I'm actually serious... I go ahead and start "blah blah blaaaah... BLAH blah blahhh" - with real feeling and passion... allowing the feelings to come up and just feel...

 

There is a little lesson buried within the feelings... the way you get to it is that you stay with the feeling and allow it to emerge when it does... can be minutes, can be weeks... you may then be presented with a deeper layer of feelings that supported the layer above... and so it goes...

[11:33]

I believe pretty firmly that my and freeform's approaches are two sides of the same coin.