Man lives in his mind.
Most of his activity revolves around the mind. As a result, the body has been neglected and the unity of mind-body has been shaken. The result- stress, emotional angst, etc… we color every experience with emotions, thus deluding us from reality.
Have you ever eaten something very delicious and wanted to hold on to that taste? For that, if you stay hungry and do not brush your teeth the whole day..what do you think will happen? The next morning, you wake up hungry, stinking, and grumpy and the taste that one so wanted to hold on to is now only in the mind… this is exactly what we do with our emotions .. whether happy or sad, we tend to hold on to them till they raise a stink….
We find ourselves living in more than one mind at a time trying to think why another person behaved in a particular manner, what will people think if I did this, etc. ; living in one mind itself is tiring, imagine living in multiple minds- exhausting!
In addition, the addict is at an advantage because the problem is so in the fact that he has to do something about it. With the rest of the world, the proverbial carpet is ever-present.
But do things actually get brushed under the carpet? The incidents will, but the emotions are held on to in a conscious or unconscious form either suppressed or repressed… which then colors all our responses to incidents in our lives.
Thus, we can conclude that it is our emotions that are behind every so-called “ issue” in our lives. “Gurus,” tell us to go beyond emotions, detach ourselves from emotions, be in the present, renounce our relations, material things, etc but can we “renounce” our minds? And HOW do we go beyond all our emotions?
Our mind never allows us to see reality as it is, for, it takes us to the past and the future [ both non – existent ] thus enabling us never to be in the present. A story- two monks come across a woman waiting to cross a river. One of the monks volunteers to help and carries the woman across lets her down and goes his way. The younger monk begins arguing for 3 hours about how could the monk touch a woman, it is forbidden in their sect and is a sin… the older monk quietly tells him, I dropped off the woman 3 hours ago. I see my friend, that you are still carrying her… this is what we do with all our emotions.
The ability to go beyond emotions is inherently present within each of us, we only have to become aware of it and live it.
A few methods we incorporate:
Writing
The writing is in a prescribed manner. We write all the incidents in our lives as they happened, without embellishments or adornment of philosophy and retrospective analysis. It is describing the incident as it happened. Then, to make it more interesting write down the emotions you felt at the time separately. Also, add the emotions you feel now when writing the incident. If you sit with yourself for at least 45 mins every day and keep writing all the incidents in your life in this method; slowly you will realize that you develop a detachment from the emotions one has held on to over the years.
Meditation
Regular practice of meditation releases suppressed and repressed emotions stored in our cellular memory and change the structure of our brains, reducing the size of the areas that cause emotional fluctuations thereby changing the responses to stressors around us; the areas of our brains that regulate compassion and empathy increases in size. Meditation keeps us in the present moment.
Yoga
Yoga balances the interiority of an individual, keeping one in the present enabling an increase in awareness of our body and mind.
Being present
Extending this practice of being present to everything we do in life. While eating eats, while drinking water drink, while walking, walk…. cut out the multitasking.
Being present and doing all of the above to do so, eventually, helps us to deal with incidents in our lives without attaching emotions to them and seeing them in all their reality and we learn to truly “respond “ instead of “ reacting”.
We at Anatta Humanversity enable this ability to go beyond emotions to surface and provide the tools to maintain it….We are only a phone call away.