|
Today's
quotation:
No
one can do a thing about feelings; they exist and there's
no way to censor them. We can reproach ourselves for some
action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply
because we have no control at all over it.
Milan Kundera
|
|
Today's
Meditation:
I've
spent a lot of time trying to come to grips with
feelings. Some of them I've felt bad about, even
though I didn't cause them myself. Some of them I've
tried to deny, even though I've very clearly had them.
I've come to a point, though, at which I realize that my feelings are what they are, and the only
practical thing I can do about them is to accept them and
deal with them on their terms.
That
doesn't mean that I'm helpless to do anything about
them. Once I accept them, I can either reject them or
act based on what they tell me--I don't have to let them
control me. If I feel helpless in a certain situation,
I can accept that helpless feeling and then react to it,
hopefully rejecting it and moving on with my life.
These helpless feelings have their origin in my childhood
and my growing years, and they're usually pretty
inaccurate. If I try to deny them, though, then I
continue to act while feeling helpless, and that almost
never turns out well.
Not
all feelings should be rejected, though. If I say
something too harsh to someone else, my feelings will let me
know that I've done something wrong, and then it's time to
apologize so that I can rid myself of the bad feeling.
My feelings can be a wonderful guide for me as long as I pay
attention to them and try to understand the messages that
they're bringing to me.
As
David says below, though, it's also important to deal with
feelings on their terms. I can't rationalize them or
explain them or even understand them sometimes, but there
they are! And they do bring a richness to life that we
wouldn't have otherwise, so it's important to accept them
just as they are, without trying to explain them away.
Only when we accept them completely and allow them to affect
us will our feelings turn into the guide through life that
they were meant to be.
|
