Emotions.
They are temporal. And by that very definition, they are finite in nature.
Meaning they last for a defined period of time, and then… they’re over.
Like the ocean, they ebb and they flow. So if you were to organically allow yourself to have whatever emotion comes up within you, you would notice that at some point that emotion would ebb (leave, exit, vamoose) just as it had flowed (entered, arrived, come in).
But do we allow ourselves to have our emotions?
Mostly… nope.
And…
We are all guilty of this. We are taught at a very early age not to engage fully in emotion; to stave off from it. The majority of us are taught this from our parents, grandparents or caregivers. Thinking you’ve somehow artfully dodged that bullet via your very conscientious or emotionally astute parents is something you should be wary of telling yourself. Everyone suppresses some kind of emotion – even emotionally intelligent people.
So we’re stating it for the record… We’ve all been taught to ignore, suppress, avoid and dominate our emotions to varying degrees. And while we may have been raised to encourage our own emotional engagement, there are emotions that are just too painful to feel, or too messy to deal with. So we dismiss, disregard or disavow them. Emotional engagement is not anyone’s default position. So we must all learn a new default.
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the (m)usical scale of you
Now when we hear the words “learn” or “taught,” what immediately comes to most of our minds is school learning, or book learning. It’s how most of us connect to the concept of “education.” But in using these words, “learn” and “taught,” they don’t aptly capture what happens in your brain. When you witness others from a very young age handling their emotions or their thoughts, what you witness is “captured” in your brain – in other words, their behavior is imprinted in your nervous system and that’s how you come to be just like them (or depending on the emotions connected, how you desire to be what they are not).
This imprinting is a subconscious pattern in your nervous system1. It is a wholly unconscious process. It happens as naturally as a baby “learning” to walk. It is something inherent to being human and very much beyond your conscious thinking or your conscious ability to control. So, if you prefer, it’s more like your nervous system was “taught,” or “learned” the habit. And you don’t have a lot of control over what your nervous system “learns” or, even, “un-learns.”
Can you teach it a new trick? Can it transcend its imprint / pattern?
Hell, yeah. Absolutely. And sometimes, you’ll have to discover where the old pattern is first, if you’re going to replace the “old” with a “new.”
You know, like how you’ve heard that we all can learn a new habit in 21 days? Everybody seems to want to make some new formula about how to “hack” or “trick” your brain, but there is much more complexity to what and how you can build on what your nervous system has already built.
What we have covered so far…
- Emotions are temporal. They are finite, so they don’t just go on and on forever (no matter how it feels to us).
- We suppress, avoid, ignore and dominate our emotions no matter who we are or how “evolved” or emotionally intelligent we think we are.
- How our parents, grandparents or caregivers did their emotions is most likely how we’ll do ours because of mirror neurons, how our brains work and unconscious patterning in our nervous systems.
These are the keys to the kingdom, baby. You’ve got everything you need there to set about healing your emotional wounds. But you probably won’t, will you?
Not because you don’t want to, or because you’re a procrastinator; you’re committed to your self-growth. You’re here, aren’t you? The answer to the latter question is really because you don’t yet have everything linked up to begin the healing process. But that’s why the (r)evolution of bliss is here for you. We’ll offer you guidance. You’re gonna do the work, you’re gonna check in with yourself every step of the way, but we’ll provide stepping stones so you know where to go next.
We, as human beings, are individuals. We are all unique. And yet, we all hail from the same species called Homo sapiens2. So while we are all individuals, there is a design to being human. For our bodies, this design includes eyes, ears, noses, mouths, arms, legs, toes, fingers and so on. For our minds, this includes thoughts, opinions, and faculties such as judgment and comparative analysis. For our hearts, this includes emotions and the willingness or unwillingness to be vulnerable. We are different and yet… we are all very much the same.
Our emotions…?
They are very much the same as well. They are cycular in nature, meaning they have cycles but also meaning they have a beginning and an end. Just like the Alpha and the Omega described in that big book of all time3, the beginning is not really a beginning and the end is not really an end. Which is why emotions can feel like they go on forever.
They don’t.
And if you learn the secrets of your emotions, you can ease some of your anxiety in life; you can soften some of your hard edges and smooth some rough ones; you can lighten the fuck up in your angry places; you can alter the tensions you’ve held and bring bliss back into your life.
So just know that emotions are key to all healing contained in these pages. Emotions are key. Get to know yours and you are at the center of all your power as a human being. You can do this. You got everything you need already.
- Introduction to the Nervous System – NIH
- Homo sapiens defined by Britannica
- Bible (any version)
