The cure for the pain is the pain. Rumi
Last year I came across a book called 90 Seconds to a Life you Love by Dr. Joan Rosenberg. While I hated the title of the book, I was challenged and intrigued by the idea that most of our difficulties with change and moving forward is our inability to feel unpleasant emotions and our impulse to distract and avoid them. 90 seconds refers to the amount of time it takes for the temporary biochemical reactions of an emotion to last in our bodies. However, emotions CAN seem to last so much longer. Essentially an emotion will tend to linger for three reasons:
- We ruminate on the emotion in an attempt to resolve or make sense of it.
- We try to not think about the emotion.
- We engage in harsh self-criticism about having had the emotion in the first place.
She argues that when we don’t engage with and have compassion for our unpleasant emotions, we cut ourselves off from information that might be useful in our quest for growth and change.
Emotional awareness can help develop calm mind
The Dalai Lama recognizes the importance of paying attention to emotions in order to gain perspective and develop what he calls a calm mind. He commissioned researchers to create the Atlas of Emotions, which is an interactive guide to five broad categories of human emotion. He knows that our power lies not in resisting or avoiding our emotions but in experiencing them, and then responding to situations in our lives from the space of a calm mind, not a reactive one. Without a calm mind, we cannot access our inner intelligence. Without our inner intelligence guiding us, our maps will take on the shape of someone else’s agenda for our lives, and not our own.
Recognizing emotions can help develop your power
In Brene Brown’s new book and HBO special, Atlas of the Heart, she states,
“When we name an emotion or experience it doesn’t give that emotion or experience more power, it gives US more power.”
Feeling and understanding our emotions is a crucial part of taking thoughtful, authentic action in our lives, which is why developing emotional awareness is such a big part of the Soul Geography experience. We want our calm mind running the show, which is simple, but not easy. I can show you how to work with these slippery little suckers and use them to your advantage, not your detriment. Are you willing to find out what yours have to teach you?
Soul Geography 