Assimilating emotions with people/stories

[MsNobody]

Hi everyone, 

I had a big realization lately and I would like to share with you cause it was a big AHA moment for me

I'm aware that life will never be perfect and suffering is part of life/evolution, but lately I've noticed that much of this suffering is only sensations that are passing through the body, I used to call them sadness, guilty, anger, anguish, you name it, and I would not only label them but I would also assimilate the emotion to a person or a situation currently present in my life.

For example one day I wake up feeling sad with a heavy pain in my heart, so I would right away look for a reason for why I'm feeling that way, maybe it's because someone was mean to me that morning, maybe it's because I'm missing my family, it was just an automatic search for why I feel the way I feel but in the past months I started to just watch those emotions, open up the space for it to experience itself without judgments and repression, and it's just FASCINATING, what I found it to be more intriguing is that life did not become easier, but my approach changed in the way that I'm taking more responsibility for what I feel, I have more compassion with myself and most important I am accepting of the flow of life that is coming/passing through me, and this brought so much joy and peacefulness to my life, I'm just watching the chaos from far, this awareness is so beautiful.

I'm just thinking the way I suffered in romantic relationships, I would think they were making me suffer when I was just experiencing my lack of self love and my fear of being with myself, I wanted them to make the pain go away, and their rejection would just expose the work I was NOT doing for myself, while expecting them to love me when I was not loving myself, I know many factors are involved here but that's another realization I had, for example now if I feel bad I don't think my partner is responsible for or has the responsibility to help me, cause I am there, present with myself. 

Or when someone asks me how I'm feeling, if I say I'm not feeling good they ask me why, and instead of going on to tell the story of my life I just answer: I don't know why I'm feeling bad but I know it will pass, just opening up space for that emotion/feeling to experience itself.

Matt Kahn always says that sometimes emotions just come and go and our only job is to experience them without trying to find a reason or understanding, he also says we have an amount of time that we are supposed to feel those emotions, after that right amount of time we are free, but our suffering comes from repressing and judging the feeling as bad and with that they end up staying longer.

I'm guessing I'm just becoming more aware of how my ego (aka inner wild child) runs the show 99.9% of the time. 

I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences.

Wishing you all love, peace and light in this transformative moment 

 

[Beginner Mind]

I think unpleasant emotions often come from our misguided attitude towards life.  Namely, that everyone has free will and is responsible for their behavior.  If everyone had free will, then we could justifiably hate someone when they harm us, and feel guilt for our "mistakes" because we feel we could have made better choices.  This is suffering.