Above all,
Don't lie to yourself.
The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him or around him and so loses all respect for himself and for others.
And having no respect,
He ceases to love.
The therapy method that I specialize in,
Emotion focused therapy,
Make use of a distinction between what's called primary and secondary emotions.
I have found this distinction to be of great pragmatic benefit also in the practice of meditation.
Primary emotions are direct emotional reactions to a situation and they are called primary because they come first.
It is your very first reaction to a situation or event and they alert you to your needs.
A typical example is,
If you get angry as a result of someone being ruthless to you or someone you love and you feel a need to protect or set boundaries,
Then the feeling of anger is a primary emotion and it helps you to protect what is important to you by making it more likely you assert yourself.
However,
We don't always know or show what we feel.
You might experience unwanted feelings or feelings that you have learned is not okay to express.
That is when you usually encounter your secondary emotions.
A secondary emotion is an emotional response to a primary emotion,
Thus an emotion about what you feel.
For example,
If someone who is important to you says something hurtful to you,
You may become sad.
That would be a primary sadness.
If experiencing sadness for some reason might be difficult for you,
You may also notice that you get angry.
The anger then is a secondary reaction,
Since it is a reaction to your sadness.
There is a tendency in our society for men to show anger when they are experiencing more vulnerable feelings like sadness or shame and there is a tendency for women to show sadness or guilt when they are experiencing anger.
When you don't understand your own or someone else's emotional reaction to something or the reaction is completely out of proportion,
That's often a sign of a secondary emotion covering up another reaction.
Our primary emotions are usually basic emotions like sadness,
Fear,
Shame,
Anger and joy.
In theory,
All the basic feelings can also be secondary.
However,
Some secondary emotions are more typical than others,
Such as anxiety,
Irritation,
Global depressed mood,
Aggression,
Rage,
Emptiness or hopelessness.
The reason that secondary emotions usually aren't helpful is that they cover up what you really feel and send confusing signals to the outside world about what you need.
For example,
If you are sad and need support and closeness,
Signaling secondary anger will tell others that they should stay away and thus create distance.
If you have a strong emotional response and it doesn't go away,
It may sometimes be worth taking another look at what's going on inside yourself.
What am I truly feeling right now?
In my meditation,
I struggled with a lot of thinking and inner restlessness.
Sometimes my mind could be quite relentless in mulling over conversations I had had,
For example,
To my great frustration and bafflement.
I mean,
It was so obvious to my thinking mind that it was futile.
I didn't like that state,
So I developed a sort of contempt towards my thoughts and to my obsessive nature.
That contempt didn't help me much though,
It made me become quite harsh towards myself and towards my proclivities,
And if anything stoked the fire of restless thinking.
I was really stuck at this for many many years.
Viewing it from the perspective of primary and secondary emotions turned out to be really helpful.
The restlessness and contempt were definitely secondary emotions,
But what was primary?
In order to even get in touch with that,
I had to allow,
Rather than resist,
Those states that I disliked in order to explore them.
Listening to my body and to the underlying direction of my thoughts,
It gradually became clear that it stemmed from an anxiety about others not liking me or approving of me.
I had to open up to experiencing the insecure boy inside of me and coming to terms with the disowned aspects of me,
The aspects that I held in contempt.
When I did that,
However,
The emotional needs also became clear,
And they were definitely not to be yelled at or made feel that I wasn't trying hard enough.
All the boy needed was reassurance that I was okay the way I was,
And when I gave that to myself,
The thoughts would wind down,
They no longer had a function to fill.
Until you make the unconscious conscious,
It will direct your life and you will call it fame.
We all have a vulnerable child inside,
And wisdom has much to do with knowing that child and knowing what it needs.
There are many beautiful bits in Carlile Gibran's The Prophet,
One of them being,
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry,
The philosophy which does not laugh,
And the greatness which does not bow before children.
We all have vulnerabilities,
What are yours?
Imagine you are walking in the woods,
And you see a small dog sitting by a tree.
As you approach it,
It suddenly lunges at you,
Teeth bared.
You are frightened and angry,
But then you notice that one of its legs is caught in a trap.
Immediately your mood shifts from anger to concern.
You see that the dog's aggression is coming from a place of vulnerability and pain.
This applies to all of us.
When we behave in hurtful ways,
It is because we are caught in some kind of trap.
The more we look through the eyes of wisdom at ourselves and one another,
The more we cultivate a compassionate heart.
Your task is not to seek for love,
But merrily to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
COMMUNICATIONS.
