Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Mood swing

I thought I was in a bad mood about not being able to finish what I wanted to. It felt like a bad mood. Yet, it wasn't. I realized that I was feeling sad about something that broke my heart days earlier. I had dismissed it as a "such-is-life" episode, but dismissing the sadness, not consciously thinking about it and not acknowledging it, did not make it go away.

In a world in which efficiency and productivity are expected of us, stopping to feel is not encouraged. There's no time for it. Yet it is dealing with our feelings that will clear the way for us to be efficient and productive. Feelings need to be felt through, honored is some way, for that is how we know about ourselves, grow, develop empathy, loosen up and open up psychic, mental emotional and spiritual space. In the rush to get it together, we never really heal. Trace emotions from feelings we ignore affect our frame of mind, our temperament and our subsequent feelings.

This is not about holding on to what has already passed, but about acknowledging our feelings and validating what makes us vulnerable and human. If we do not listen and attend to what hurts, excites, moves, angers and saddens us, to what makes us jealous, happy, joyful, regretful, compassionate and enthusiastic, then we are not able to let go and be fully present, to receive and enjoy goodness, to offer the best version of ourselves. Today is a good day to swing our mood in the other direction. Let's stop for a moment and name our feeling, learn from it and then let it go.


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