2016. Wow.
As the year dawns, I've been reflecting on what I could do to improve myself, to improve my life, resolutions to make. Since I am in a process of continual growth, I am sure some things will come to me. However, the one thing I keep coming back to - because I am reminded of it over and over - is the importance of feeling what I feel.
It sounds ludicrous when you say it like that, doesn't it? But I am serious!
I saw this poster someone put on a social media site recently. It talked about how worry hurts the stomach, fear hurts the kidneys, and so forth. Let me be clear on this: emotions are a gift - even the "bad" ones!!
The only time that emotions are bad for us is when we hold them back, or hold onto them for a long time. The act of keeping that grip on them is harmful, yes. But they are not the culprit. We are.
The brain has several parts, and people talk about their frontal lobes and occipital lobes and so forth, they talk about their IQ, and may even boast about it. But few people think about how at the very base of the brain, under all those cognitive processes (like memory, decision-making, logic, reasoning, and so on) are a whole network of what look like nodules - this is what neuroscientists call 'the limbic system' and it is responsible for the emotions that we feel.
Now, I figure if those things are there and protected by the skull, so deep down that even skull penetration with a foreign object is not likely to strike it, they must be pretty important.
The limbic system (connected chemically to the brain stem at the base of our skull) is where we get such important chemicals as adrenaline - which helps in fight-or-flight situations! Our emotions do have a purpose, and it is best to deal with our emotions the way the designer intended.
I look at it this way. Our feelings are the nervous system of the soul. We need nerves in our body to tell us what is hot, cold, pleasurable, painful, and tasty (or not). When we touch something hot, our nerves carry that message to the brain and in fractions of a second, the brain reacts and tells our body part to get out of there! Pain - and pleasure - show us what is safe and what is not. Just so with our feelings. Listening to them will tell us what is safe and what (or who) is not. Experiencing them can bring us great reward, and suppressing them for a long time not only cuts off the painful emotions, but prevents us from feeling the pleasurable ones too.
I would rather experience some pain than not have the capacity to feel it at all, and eventually end up hurting myself (and those who love me) by not being able to have compassion. And I would rather be sad or angry or afraid (even though those emotions are not pleasant!) than not be able to feel them when it would be right to do so. What kind of person would I be (for example) not to feel angry, even enraged, when someone (and that someone also might include me just as well as it could another person) is being treated unfairly?
A healthy person experiences the whole gamut of emotions (not usually all at once!), listens to them and expresses them in safe ways, and does whatever is necessary to deal with the causes of those feelings - whether it's looking after the self, or comforting another, or even fighting passionately for what's right.
Once feelings have served their purpose in making us aware of something, and once we have expressed them and acted on them in appropriate ways, it is okay to let them go ... they will come again when they are needed. It's how we are built. It's what we do. And it's how we can really live.
Huh. I guess that's it, isn't it! If I had to choose a theme for this year (for myself), I guess I would choose the line to a Bon Jovi song: "... I just wanna live while I'm alive." (It's My Life, 2000, emphasis mine).
As the year dawns, I've been reflecting on what I could do to improve myself, to improve my life, resolutions to make. Since I am in a process of continual growth, I am sure some things will come to me. However, the one thing I keep coming back to - because I am reminded of it over and over - is the importance of feeling what I feel.
It sounds ludicrous when you say it like that, doesn't it? But I am serious!
I saw this poster someone put on a social media site recently. It talked about how worry hurts the stomach, fear hurts the kidneys, and so forth. Let me be clear on this: emotions are a gift - even the "bad" ones!!
The only time that emotions are bad for us is when we hold them back, or hold onto them for a long time. The act of keeping that grip on them is harmful, yes. But they are not the culprit. We are.
The brain has several parts, and people talk about their frontal lobes and occipital lobes and so forth, they talk about their IQ, and may even boast about it. But few people think about how at the very base of the brain, under all those cognitive processes (like memory, decision-making, logic, reasoning, and so on) are a whole network of what look like nodules - this is what neuroscientists call 'the limbic system' and it is responsible for the emotions that we feel.
Now, I figure if those things are there and protected by the skull, so deep down that even skull penetration with a foreign object is not likely to strike it, they must be pretty important.
The limbic system (connected chemically to the brain stem at the base of our skull) is where we get such important chemicals as adrenaline - which helps in fight-or-flight situations! Our emotions do have a purpose, and it is best to deal with our emotions the way the designer intended.
I look at it this way. Our feelings are the nervous system of the soul. We need nerves in our body to tell us what is hot, cold, pleasurable, painful, and tasty (or not). When we touch something hot, our nerves carry that message to the brain and in fractions of a second, the brain reacts and tells our body part to get out of there! Pain - and pleasure - show us what is safe and what is not. Just so with our feelings. Listening to them will tell us what is safe and what (or who) is not. Experiencing them can bring us great reward, and suppressing them for a long time not only cuts off the painful emotions, but prevents us from feeling the pleasurable ones too.
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| Photo "Silhouette Of A Man On The Rocks At Sunset" courtesy of satit_srihin at www.freedigitalphotos.net |
I would rather experience some pain than not have the capacity to feel it at all, and eventually end up hurting myself (and those who love me) by not being able to have compassion. And I would rather be sad or angry or afraid (even though those emotions are not pleasant!) than not be able to feel them when it would be right to do so. What kind of person would I be (for example) not to feel angry, even enraged, when someone (and that someone also might include me just as well as it could another person) is being treated unfairly?
A healthy person experiences the whole gamut of emotions (not usually all at once!), listens to them and expresses them in safe ways, and does whatever is necessary to deal with the causes of those feelings - whether it's looking after the self, or comforting another, or even fighting passionately for what's right.
Once feelings have served their purpose in making us aware of something, and once we have expressed them and acted on them in appropriate ways, it is okay to let them go ... they will come again when they are needed. It's how we are built. It's what we do. And it's how we can really live.
Huh. I guess that's it, isn't it! If I had to choose a theme for this year (for myself), I guess I would choose the line to a Bon Jovi song: "... I just wanna live while I'm alive." (It's My Life, 2000, emphasis mine).
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