E-motion - A Story About Putting Energy Into Feeling Better
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E motion - Putting EnergyInto Feeling Better
E motion - Putting Energy
Into Feeling Better
E motion - Putting Energy Into Feeling Better
A man woke up one morning feeling extremely angry. Hoping to change his mood, he decided to meditate and “fix” his negative feelings. He was sure meditation would work because it frequently did. This time it didn’t help.
Waking up feeling extremely angry
A man woke up one morning feeling extremely angry. Hoping to change his mood, he decided to meditate and “fix” his negative feelings. He was sure meditation would work because it frequently did. This time it didn’t help. Instead. he finished his twenty minutes of meditation, and he still felt angry. He also now felt irritated that his “fix” didn’t work.
Fortunately, he was aware that he felt so angry. He also knew that the anger he was experiencing would distort his perception of the world. Thus, his next fix was to detach himself from his mood as he read his morning emails. Ironically, “all” the emails he had received from clients sounded angry. Maybe he couldn’t detach from the anger as well as he had hoped. He put the emails away until after he felt better.
His irritation grew in intensity
In his next effort to end his suffering, he decided to do busywork that didn’t require any client interaction. That way, he could fix his mood and still feel productive. Unfortunately, though, that idea also failed. He couldn’t focus on his work. Instead, his brain kept flitting from task to task without completing anything. And the bad mood he felt didn’t change either. He still felt angry. He also felt more irritated that his attitude wouldn’t budge.
“Maybe I should eat,” he thought. “I’m probably just hangry.” So, he made his favorite lunch and sat down to eat. Sadly, forty minutes later, he still felt angry. He now also felt extremely irritated that he couldn’t fix his bad mood. As he was about to curse and yell out his frustration, he briefly noticed a space before the emotion took over his mind. It was only a microsecond of pause, but it allowed him to see how angry he felt.
In that glimmer of awareness, he remembered that emotion is really “E”motion; Energy in motion in his body. He also remembered that he would be wise to burn off some of that negative feeling “E”motion if he wanted to feel better. So he took off on a four-mile walk.
Halfway through the walk, he noticed that he was feeling better. An hour later, as he returned home, he still felt a little angry, but not so much as to blind him to his client’s needs or his responsibilities. He could even smile and enjoy the rest of the day.
This Story is Personal
This story is personal because I am the man in the story. That day the anger my body felt was distorting everything. There were even times I believed “I was angry,” …instead of “I felt angry.” My brain wanted to personalize the anger and make it more than just how I was feeling.
I have practiced awareness and meditation diligently for eleven years now. I have also walked four to six times a week, whether I feel like it or not. Those disciplines paid off that day because I could do them by habit even though I felt extremely irritated and angry. Once I recognized that I felt angry, that awareness gave me the power to do something about the anger instead of suffering under it. I accepted the anger as something I felt, and then it was simpler to fall back on my disciplines and burn it off.
One tool of self-compassionate living that I teach is that frequently we express self-compassion through our self-discipline. For me, this means that I treat myself how I want to be treated, even when I’m in a bad mood, and the angry feelings just want to be released. It’s not always straightforward, and it does take being aware of how I feel despite how pervasive the emotions are or how personal my parts of my brain wants to take them.
I meditate and walk when I feel good, so it’s easier to do when I feel bad.
As I only have limited years on this earth, I want to spend those years feeling positive as much as possible. When I take negative feelings and turn them into positive action, I improve my life. That is putting energy into feeling better.
Thank you for joining me in this video. Please subscribe to my channel and share this with anyone you know who it would benefit. I appreciate you, and I look forward to seeing you again in my next video. May you have a peaceful day.
Posted 12-21-2020
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