Everyone’s noticed how uncomfortable painful feelings can be.
Irritation, anger, rage, despair, sadness, embarrassment, worry, anxiety, terror.
The thing is, if you hate feeling any of these feelings, you may do anything….like I used to do….NOT to feel them.
Such as eat. When not hungry.
Or figure out whatever will alter your mood, change the channel, reboot.
We think of these compulsive activities as the quick, “easy” way. Using a behavior or substance to refocus the mind and get away from that other dreadful feeling.
But what if it’s actually the harder way, in the end?
Instead, I could sit with the feelings and not only express them, but find out what I was thinking that produced them in the first place, and look at it deeply, closely.
If this isn’t about destroying, crushing, suppressing, changing or fixing any feelings….
….but allowing them to be as they are….
….maybe we’d even feel appreciation for the full range of feelings in this life.
And not try to make any of them go away. The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the heart-breaking, the heart-mending.
Who would you be without your stressful thoughts about your feelings?
For me, I wouldn’t be eating.