As humans,
We tend to be really averse to experiencing challenging emotions and often act in ways that are designed to keep them out of our lives.
Understandably,
It's very difficult to feel certain things like sadness and fear,
So we typically do whatever we can to avoid having to experience them.
We seem to always want to feel happy and fulfilled.
We run to things that feel good and away from those that feel bad.
And this makes perfect sense,
Of course.
I mean,
Who wants to feel bad,
Right?
But when we try to always feel good,
We're really focusing on only half of the spectrum of the emotions that as humans,
We're inherently meant to feel.
You see,
There's nothing wrong with feeling good,
But in order to become more whole and authentic people,
And to ever experience true happiness,
We have to start recognizing how we tend to avoid so many of our inherently natural emotions.
We need to begin slowly acknowledging them and letting them back into our lives.
But this isn't as easy as it sounds.
And it may require a major shift in perspective for many of us,
Because we've likely spent much of our lives avoiding so many of our emotions.
You see,
Even though we're not used to embracing all of them,
They're part of our experience.
Life is constantly providing us with experiences that are designed to help us accept and learn from all of our emotions.
But rather than embracing these opportunities,
We typically resent them or run from them.
We seem to think that some of our emotions are better than others,
Just because they feel better.
But in fact,
All of our emotions can add tremendous value to our lives.
If we look at how we judge the weather,
We might be able to see this with more clarity.
You know how when it's warm and sunny,
We say the weather's good,
But when it's cold and rainy,
We often refer to it as bad.
Well,
We kind of do the same thing with our emotions.
We judge some of them to be good and others bad.
Yet,
Just as all of our emotions are valid and equal in a sense,
So is the weather.
It's just our judgment that changes our opinion of it.
And just like in nature,
Where we need both the rain and the sunshine to grow healthy crops,
So too do we need all of our emotions to be truly healthy people.
We cannot expect to find inner peace or true happiness if we're only willing to acknowledge certain parts of us.
If we want it to always be sunny within us,
We're not going to be very accepting of those experiences that life gives us that creates inner storms within us.
We're going to start to resent life.
And when we do that,
We'll miss out on all of the learning opportunities life is trying to provide us,
Opportunities to become more whole and balanced people.
As we can begin to allow all of our emotions to be present within us,
However,
No matter how they might feel,
We'll be less buffeted by the storms of life.
And we'll begin allowing them to water the seeds of wisdom and insight that are contained in all of our emotions,
Especially those that we've left untended for so long.
You see,
There's much insight to be harvested from all of our emotions,
Yet if we're only willing to acknowledge part of them,
Then our field of wisdom will only be half as abundant as it might otherwise be.
Our level of awareness will always remain stunted and we'll go through life starving to a certain degree,
Always hungry for a deeper sense of meaning and connection with ourselves and with life.
But if we can begin embracing all of our emotions,
We'll begin to more brightly shine the light of our own awareness upon our inner world.
And when we do that,
We'll slowly become more happy,
Real,
And peaceful,
And more able to accept whatever we experience in life and within ourselves in every moment.
