Navigating the Foreign Lands of Your Self

Often, people wish to rid themselves of what they deem to be negative, bad or destructive emotions (i.e.loneliness, anger, sadness, loss). People wish that they could just deposit these states of mind somewhere far away and never deal with them again. It's not possible to do this. Even if you're drugged, drunk or just numb, those emotional states are underneath it all.

Being a member of human society, these more intense emotions are not something we have much knowledge or experience with resolving. We're taught at a very young age that to feel and to be affected is a sign of weakness. We treat these emotional states as if they're the enemy and must be locked away for safe keeping. When we do that, we're locking ourselves away.

When I look at what's happening wherever I go, I don't think that this social strategy is working out too well for many if any people. The divide between us has never been so wide. Some people don't even see other people as human beings anymore. Look at the faces of strangers and consider what they could be feeling right now. It's a worthwhile exercise. Behind every one of those faces is a human being, just like you.

With this awareness, we must conjure up patience with ourselves. Patience is critical as we begin to work with these volatile energies. We must remember that what we're attempting to do is something that we've not been doing for a long time, and potentially have never done throughout our entire life.

There's no step-by-step instructions either. The key is to be curious about the emotional process and to keep at it. We're learning how to navigate the foreign lands of our mind and ourselves. Astounding how the more foreign our own mind and our own self has been for us, the more foreign everyone around us has seemed. Once we begin to get in touch with our whole existence, it's a natural progression to how this will improve everyone we interact with everyday.

When we delve into these darker emotions, if we continue to consider these emotions as so terrible and so awful, we're not going to make much progress. There's a reason why we feel the way we feel. Sometimes, there's real reason to be concerned. Your mind is telling you something for a reason and it's using these emotions to tell you. Maybe, we should pay attention and begin to take care of the entire me.

Through the exploration of our feelings, we will discover our greater role in what's happening to us. Mostly, it will be our fingerprints all over whatever it is making us miserable. Then, there's some relief you can experience. If we're the one behind our own misery, then we can make changes and see if we can create a different outcome. Imagine the enjoyment in trying to figure out this life instead of wrestling with it.