After several months of intensive inner work, i.e. therapies, guided conversations, deep breathing and meditation practices, I am acutely more aware of my emotions and their impact on my body and my life. The other day I was talking to a friend and the expression "letting our emotions take over" came up and we talked a bit about the benefits and drawbacks of managing our lives in this way. There was a somewhat romantic notion that letting your em
otions take over allows you a greater degree of freedom and to live things more intensely, in a less measured way. It occurs to me that to some extent it could even be perceived as a more natural way of living life, less forced.
Innately given to romanticism, it seems to me that for much of my adult life I have been a proponent of this romantic notion, to follow my emotions and be free as the wind.... I find it funny to write and read those words because now I see so clearly that all along I was combining/confusing emotion with intuition. From my current perspective it is crystal clear that emotions are not our best guide, especially not fear. There is an instinctive fear, the one that arises in situations of extreme danger to one's life, that is natural and healthy. But the fear that subtly hides itself and keeps us away from love - that fear is not our ally.
If we take all the emotions: fear, anguish, sadness, joy, envy, jealousy, pride, happiness, anger, love, tranquility... I have understood that they can be simplified to two basic ones, which are love and fear. We vibrate between these two basic emotions all the time, and depending on which one we give more energy to, we can see the effect on our decisions, a
nd reactions at every level of our life and our bodies.
I have been going through weeks of dealing with deep-seated fears. It seems that as a result of all the inner work I have done, everything is manifesting in my life so that I can resolve it on a daily basis. Whatever the case may be as to the origin of things, the point is that I have been facing challenges: in terms of my relationship with my children, touching my basic fear as a mother of somehow losing my offspring; dealing with unexpected financial challenge
s that shake the ground I am fragilely standing on; and recently a few days ago discovering things in my body that made me think that perhaps the cancer had returned. In each of these cases I found myself physically in shock, sometimes so intense that it has taken several days for my body to fully relax.
And suddenly, I can't help but smile. Because the last time I felt this shock of intense fear, so much love sustained me, that I was able to move through that space of deep discomfort fluidly and come out dancing. And I realize that love does move mountains, and that although looking inward and seeing the good, the bad and the ugly within oneself is no easy task; the rewards are endless.
I am thankful for my teachers. We are all one.