Feeling

Sad, upset, miserable, as well as cheerful, pleased, happy - all these are "just" feelings. But I tend to label some of these feelings as “bad” and some as “good”, and there is a danger that when I have one of the bad ones, I’ll try to avoid it or hide from it. And equally, when I’m having a “good” feeling, I want it to continue and never stop. Both of these reactions are a manifestation of selfwill - of my desire to control the world.

Well, it seems that I’m not God, and so don’t get to control the world or very much in it. Feelings come and go - they are transitory and everything changes - even change changes! I don’t get to hold on to “happy” any more than I get never to feel “Sad”.

And there is a balance here - we have to accept our feelings because they are real and need to be acknowledged. But we also need to remember that they are just feelings, and ask ourselves -do we need to act on this one? Or just let it change?

Sometimes, I just need to admit the feelings to another person - just admit them and more on. Sometimes I need to act, because the feeling is there because there is something I need to change. This is where I need to try to listen to my inner voice - which I call the voice of God - to work out what the next right thing to do is.

Feelings are valuable; we have them for a reason. Like physical sensations, they are neither intrinsically good nor intrinsically bad - they just are. If I get a sensation of pain when I touch a hot stove, I don’t label the feeling as bad - it is a good warning that I need to move my hand, and quickly!

When I am feeling upset with someone, just like pain from the stove it is telling me something.

Maybe I had unreasonable expectations of that person, and need to realize that not everything always is about me.

Or maybe they genuinely did do something wrong, in which case I need to accept that they are who they are, and that this bad thing happened - me being upset will not change the fact.

In either case, there is action I need to take - just like moving my hand from the hot stove, I may need to move my thoughts from what someone else “should have done”, to what I can do now.

If I am really in touch with my feelings, I can use them as a valuable recourse to show me the way I need to change my life.