A few days ago I was with my niece,
Sissy,
Who on that day for some reason was sulking.
Arms crossed,
Lips puffed out,
She was sitting on a chair looking miserable.
I tried everything to cheer her up,
Football tricks,
Jokes,
Silly faces,
And even though she would smile for a moment,
Eventually she would go back to sulking even more.
So finally I gave up.
Nothing was working.
What was I doing wrong?
I went to a balcony and sat quietly,
And that question took me back to my own teenage years.
As a teenager I was often gripped by strong emotions and moods,
And felt emotions more intensely than other kids seemed to.
My best friend even joked that I had more mood swings than anyone he knew,
And while that stung,
There was also some truth in it.
Recently,
My parents were looking through old family photos,
And then my dad said with surprise,
He said,
You know,
In most of these vacation pictures you just seem so unhappy.
And he was right,
I often was.
I felt like I was missing some owner's manual,
If a bad mood comes,
Push button A to make it go away,
Something like that.
And when I was sulking and my parents tried to cheer me up,
It only made my mood worse,
Exactly like it was with Sissy.
So as a teenager I looked for solutions to manage my feelings,
To not feel.
Some of them were healthy,
Like exercise,
Meditation,
Or positive thinking,
And others were less so,
Like alcohol,
Which I came to rely on to numb myself from whatever teenage anguish I was feeling.
But while it worked in the moment,
It always had its payback,
And it never worked permanently.
But here's what I didn't realize.
Even the healthiest strategies I tried were still based on the same belief that these feelings were problems that I needed to solve.
I was trying different tools,
But I was still resisting to simply feel them,
Afraid that if I did,
Feelings would engulf me.
I was still trying to make pleasant feelings stay,
And unpleasant feelings disappear.
And it never worked.
The good ones never stayed,
And the bad ones always came back.
So the turning point came unexpectedly about 10 years ago,
While watching the Pixar movie Inside Out.
In the movie different emotions like joy,
Sadness,
Fear,
And anger battle for control inside a little girl's head.
Throughout the movie I beat joy,
Trying to cheer up sadness,
Just like I did with Sissy,
And with the same lack of results.
And then near the end,
Joy has a realization.
She looks at sadness and then says,
Pensively,
Maybe you also need to exist.
That line stopped me.
What if all emotions,
Even the ones that we label as negative,
Somehow had their place?
What if sadness,
Boredom,
And even intense emotions like grief weren't things we needed to get rid of,
But things we needed to learn to be with?
Another piece fell into place when I discovered an understanding called the three principles.
Before that,
My entire life strategy was a kind of a project of self-improvement,
Getting rid of undesirable qualities while maximizing desirable ones,
And so emotions for me were divided into two categories.
The good ones that I tried to hold on to,
And the bad ones that I tried to push away.
But what I learned in principles was this.
Much of what we want,
We already have.
We just need to stop covering it up.
So our emotional system naturally moves towards balance,
The same way muddy water clears up when we stop stirring it,
The same way peace emerges when our thinking simply slows down.
We don't need to create emotional balance,
We just need to stop interfering with the self-correcting mechanism that is always working to bring balance about.
So the reason we do this is because when we are gripped by an uncomfortable feeling,
It can feel like it will never change unless we do something about it.
That's why it feels so urgent to do something,
Scroll our phones,
Eat something,
Exercise,
Have a drink,
Anything to make it go away.
But the fundamental fact of existence is that everything is constantly changing,
Including how we feel.
Think about weather,
For example.
Even if it's been overcast for days,
We know that it will eventually shift.
How do we know?
Because it always does.
I've had this experience many times.
I would check the forecast that said that it would be sunny in the afternoon.
I walk outside,
Look at the gray sky and think,
How could this possibly clear up?
But then a few hours later,
It does clear up,
And the blue sky appears.
So even the most permanent looking weather eventually changes,
Just as even the most intense emotions eventually change too.
Reflect on your own experience.
Even the strongest,
Most unpleasant emotions you've ever felt,
The ones that in the moment maybe seemed like they would never pass,
Eventually did.
And now you're feeling something else.
Has a feeling ever stayed for long?
Unless we kept feeding it with more resistance and stories?
So let's try a little exercise right now.
If you can,
Close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths to connect with your body.
Ready?
And now notice how you're feeling in this moment.
Is there an emotion present?
Don't name it yet.
Just notice the sensation in your body.
Be like an anthropologist discovering this emotion for the first time.
Where in your body do you feel it?
Is it tightness in your chest?
A heaviness in your belly?
A pulsing sensation behind your closed eyes?
Now if you were to give it a label,
What would it be?
Notice that as soon as you label it good or bad,
Pleasant or unpleasant,
Something imperceptibly shifts.
Subtle resistance appears.
Now we have an agenda with this feeling.
If we labeled it as pleasant,
We want it to stay.
If we labeled it as unpleasant,
We want it to go away,
Even so subtly.
So notice what happens if you mentally push against this feeling that you labeled unpleasant.
Do you feel this tightening,
This slight contraction?
That is resistance.
Resistance that only perpetuates feelings and prevents them from running their course.
Now can you go back to just noticing without the label?
Just relax that resistance and let the feeling just be as it is and simply observe it.
Do you feel the difference?
When we feel whatever is present,
We don't create interference and eventually feelings change.
You can do this little exercise whenever you find yourself wanting to make an emotion go away.
Just observe it,
Don't label and be curious about it and then watch what happens.
Negative or uncomfortable feelings are only uncomfortable because we got used to labeling them.
So trying to stay away from them as much as possible.
Afraid that if we surrender,
They will engulf us and we will not be able to get back.
But is boredom really intolerable?
Is sadness or melancholy bad?
Don't we sometimes enjoy being sad?
For example,
Looking out the window on a rainy day,
Feeling sadness that is not gloomy or despondent but serene.
Like a quiet summer rain or a misty morning in a pine forest.
So what happened with my niece after I stopped trying to make her feel better?
Sure,
She sucked for a little longer,
But then at some point the emotion ran its course and let her go.
And then she was playing again,
Cheerful and unconcerned.
She didn't need to do anything to make it happen.
She just needed to be with that feeling,
Unafraid of it until it changed.
Because they always do.
What took me 20 years to understand,
A 4-year-old knew instinctively.
Feelings will run their course in their own time if we just let them be.
And if I could give one piece of advice to my 14-year-old self,
I would tell him this.
There is nothing wrong with what you're feeling.
All emotions are normal and acceptable.
You don't need to be upbeat all the time.
Then I would tell him what joy finally told sadness.
That you also need to exist.
Thank you for listening.
