I’ve already written a lot on this blog about the power of our thinking and the fact that it is our thoughts that fuel our emotional responses and not the people and external circumstances of our lives. One of the most common questions I hear in response to this is “If that’s really true, then why aren’t we all just changing our thinking to be happy all the time?”
Would you really want that? Take a moment. Really think about it.
How would you even know what it means to be happy if you never felt sadness? Would it still feel amazing to experience joy if you’d never felt sorrow? Would you hold on to unconditional love with as much fervor if you didn’t know what it felt like to grieve its loss?
It took me a long time to embrace my humanity. I believed that the goal of my life was perfection. I numbed my emotions with distractions. I was afraid to feel. I feared the authenticity of my own human experience. I saw it as weakness. I fought countless battles in order to avoid emotions like embarrassment, shame, guilt, and grief. What I didn’t know then, however, was that each one of those battles only led to an immense amount of unnecessary suffering in my life.
Have you ever guarded yourself against feeling pure joy out of the fear of the let-down when it’s gone? I hear people all the time steeling themselves against feeling pure unbridled happiness because they’re “waiting for the other shoe to drop.” The irony of this approach to life is that the only thing you’ve done by trying to protect yourself from the pain of a negative emotion is prevent yourself from experiencing the incredible abundance of pure joy.
It takes just as much courage to embrace the robust energy of unfiltered positive emotion as it does the negative.
I have made the decision to stop thinking of my emotions as positive or negative. Certainly there are some emotions that I prefer to experience, but the truth is that they are all part of my human life. They all serve their purpose. If I live a life constantly trying to avoid embarrassment or shame, I’ll never put myself out there. If I try to avoid grief, I will never open myself up to love. Time will pass without the incredible richness of the ebbs and flows of life and instead the days will blend endlessly one into the next.
When you have committed 100% to living your authentic life, to feeling every possible feeling even when it’s unpleasant, there is nothing you can’t do. There will be no risk of looking back and wondering where your life went because you have lived it exactly as you wanted.
The worst thing that can happen in your life is a feeling. Think about that and, if you’d like to learn more about the power of your emotions, I’d love to work with you.
