We are constantly making decisions in our everyday
life. Most of these decisions are so
minor and routine that we don’t even notice that we are making them. This is where habits are useful. We can run on automatic pilot, making
predetermined moves, without giving them any thought. That’s pretty efficient. It saves time, energy and headspace. We don’t really have to pay attention.
The downside of not paying attention, of being unaware, is
that AWARENESS EQUALS LIFE. When we are
not aware, we are not really present and not really alive. So, it’s a good idea to control the amount of
automatic behavior that we allow into our days.
We need attention breaks when we pull our heads out of the haze of habit
and become fully present. You probably
have favorite ways to come into the present. Most of us do. We just have to remember to use them.
The bigger decisions in life, the ones that directly bear
on our happiness and wellbeing, can be harder to make. The rational mind is not much help. It’s too easy to get into a “On the one hand”
and “On the other hand” debate in your mind and get stuck there.
Conventional wisdom tells us you should “follow your heart”. That’s good advice but what does it mean? I think it means that I should pay attention
to my emotions.
Emotions have gotten a bad rap. They are sometimes thought of as trivial,
petty, irrational and undependable. They
can be all of that if we don’t know how to use them.
Emotions are precise tools. They are the responses of my wiser self to
the exact thought that I am thinking at any moment. Good feeling emotions indicate that my
current thought is in agreement with my best interests. Bad feeling emotions indicate that my current
thought is in conflict with my best interests.
My emotions are an internal compass that allows me to steer my life
toward happiness and fulfillment.
I steer by choosing thoughts that feel good when I think
them.
To go even a bit further, our emotions are our soul's communication to our conscious mind, straight through our heart. If we can learn to listen and quiet our fear and indecision we will begin to live more fully in the flow.
ReplyDeleteYes! Thank you for expanding on my comments. You have said it beautifully well. The wiser self that I mentioned is the capital "S" Self that is the silent witness to my life who knows, on the deepest level, what is truly best for me.
ReplyDeleteEmotions are a holistic response to ones most deeply held beliefs. For example, if you believe that your existence ends when you die you will have a particular emotional response based on that belief. If you believe that your existence continues in some way after you die then you will have an emotion based on THAT belief. The emotion you have is predicated upon what belief you hold. If your belief is in accord with the facts of existence it is a accurate guide and very useful. If your beliefs have no connection with reality then they are worse then no guide at all and will lead you astray. The wise small voice arrives when the emotions are still. The silent witness that listens when the fear and doubt are quiet communicates straight through the heart and calms the emotions. The wiser self knows the fickle nature of emotions. The wiser self is NOT the emotions and communicates in other ways as well as emotional ways. Emotions are precise tools that are always true to their nature, but since their nature is connected to consciously created beliefs and subject to conscious changes one needs to be careful what one believes. Within and without again. Do emotions come from without? Does guidance come from within. Gently Gently not like a mammoth squid.
ReplyDeleteWe are all multilayered beings. We identify with the conscious self that we are most familiar with. But, this is merely the tip of a very large iceberg which is the subconscious, or more accurately, the superconscious self. This superconscious self is plugged in to the totality of existence, to the entire universe.
ReplyDeleteOn the conscious level, a belief is a thought that I keep on thinking. It becomes part of the framework, the architecture, of my days. The constant decisions that I make, and the behaviors that come from them, all fit under the umbrella of my core beliefs.
My Source, the wiser part of me that I refer to as my “big S” self, is not directly accessible to my conscious mind. It communicates with me through the “gut” feelings that I have. Specifically, it responds to the exact thought that I am thinking in any given moment of time in a very simple, binary kind of way, or through intuitions, daydreams or dreams.
Your thoughtful and well-reasoned comment introduces an important idea - that emotions arise from beliefs. There is some validity to this. The best sense that I can make of it is that those unreliable “emotions” that you refer to exist on the conscious level (they are thoughts) and evoke “gut” responses that are misunderstood and go unheeded.
Thank you for a very thought provoking comment that I am still processing.