Since I am not a visual artist,
I will try to paint with words how I relate to feelings.
Imagine yourself as a bottle of sparkling water.
All the various feelings that are possible for you to experience are the bubbles inside.
Some feelings stay at the bottom for a very long time before they rise.
Others are close to the surface,
And a few quickly float to the top and disappear.
The bubbles certainly make life interesting,
And without them,
Our lives would be flat and dull.
Fascinating as they may be,
It's best not to get attached to any of the bubbles,
Nor to hope that some of the bubbles will last a long time,
Or to pray that others will never surface.
Feelings show up and disappear without much warning.
Reacting to every bubble can be exhausting,
But keeping them bottled up is also dangerous,
Because if we get agitated,
We explode.
So,
What do we do with all these feelings?
I've been taught to observe feelings as they come up without identifying with them.
In other words,
Witness the feelings without claiming them as your own.
You know how there is often a voice inside your head telling you one thing while another voice says something else?
Well,
You are neither one of those two voices.
You are the one hearing them argue.
The same is true with feelings.
You are not the bubbles,
You are the one observing them come and go.
In Buddhist Boot Camp,
I wrote about the difference between feelings and emotions.
If we get attached to a temporary feeling,
It becomes an emotion that can last a lifetime,
Which is how some people stay angry for decades.
Emotions,
In other words,
Are the long-lasting narratives we create around temporary feelings.
All feelings are either painful,
Pleasurable,
Or neutral.
Imagine a triangle where one point is pain,
The other is pleasure,
And the third is neutrality,
Which we can also call ignorance.
When I feel neutral about something,
It's usually because I don't know enough about it,
The ignorant point of the triangle.
The more I learn about it,
The less neutral I feel about it,
And the more prone I am to either enjoy it,
The pleasure point of the triangle,
Or dislike it,
The painful point.
When I feel neutral about someone,
It's usually because I don't know enough about them,
The ignorant point of the triangle.
The more I learn about them,
The less neutral I feel about them,
And the more prone I am to either like them,
Pleasure,
Or dislike them,
Painful.
The middle of the triangle is a safe space called serenity,
Where we are not neutral,
Nor do we harbor any strong feelings for or against anything.
Serenity is synonymous with peace,
Clarity,
And tranquility,
And the opposite of serenity is turmoil and unrest.
We don't spend much time in serenity,
The middle of the triangle,
Because we are too busy seeking pleasure or avoiding pain.
Serenity may not sound appealing to you if you actually enjoy drama and chaos.
It's possible you even thrive when oscillating between being extremely passionate about things or fiercely against them.
Many people live their entire lives that way,
Never resting in serenity.
All forms of media intentionally dramatize the information we process,
Offering us written,
Audio,
And video stimulation around the clock to spark reaction.
But just because the emotional rollercoaster runs 24 hours a day,
It doesn't mean we have to ride it,
Especially when riding it distracts us from slowing down to enjoy serenity.
We can only see things clearly when we are serene.
The rest of the time,
Our perception is colored by feelings that distort reality.
In the center of the triangle,
We know that feelings are not facts.
It's a place where we can peacefully observe the bubbles appear and disappear.
Life can be peaceful if we choose to spend more time in the middle of the triangle,
And less time bouncing between extremes.
The choice is ours to make depending on the kind of life we want to lead.
What do you choose,
And why?
