Are Emotions Bad?
by Brandon Bays
We so often have
the misconception that our emotions interfere with our experience of ultimate
peace: that they are the storm that distracts us from spacious calm. They seem
to limit our experience of freedom and obscure the boundless field of grace,
which by nature is vast, free, and emotionless.
There are so many
false notions about emotions. We usually learn
at an early age that there are "good" emotions and "bad" emotions. If we cry as
a child, our parents are quick to shut those "bad" emotions down, saying, "Come
on dear, dry your tears. It's time to go to school. Chin up..." Only "good"
emotions are allowed. If we feel fearful, shameful, hurt, or angry, we are
taught to cover it up, push through, and be strong. "Bad" feelings only make us
appear a wimp to the rest of the world, and a sissy to those more strong than
us.
Pretty soon, any
strong emotion can cause an instantaneous shutdown and cover-up, as we quickly
try to transmute it into something more comfortable to society. Even if we
secretly sequester ourselves away, hiding in our bedrooms to allow ourselves a
few private moments to experience an intense emotion, still we often try to
talk ourselves out of it or diminish its importance, and maybe even feel
ashamed of our "weakness."
The instant anything arises that we or society feel is too emotional, all our
strategies to annihilate, deny, or transmute it arise: we fight, resist, and
try to explain it away; we argue, project, blame others, and blame ourselves.
Ultimately, we start to develop more long-term strategies for suppression. We
take up smoking, drinking alcohol, overeating, senseless television watching,
endless reading of just about anything - all in an effort to numb and put to
sleep any and all so-called unacceptable emotions that might dare to raise
their heads and try to destroy our peace, or rob us of our self-acceptance or
the larger acceptance of society.
Emotions become the culprits to be destroyed
before they destroy us. It is almost as if some terrible devil called emotions
lurks within each of our beings, and our job is to quell them, oust them,
subdue them, get rid of them, push them back into the recesses of our
consciousness - back into oblivion, where they belong.
Some spiritual
traditions train you to repeat mantras or incantations anytime a "negative"
emotion arises - to avoid its ill effects and keep your attention on the supreme.
Other traditions ask aspirants to submit themselves to extreme austerities and
self-deprivations - braving the elements, chastising the body, undergoing fasts
- punishing their bodies as impure vessels that give rise to these "bad"
emotions.
Some yogis
meditate in caves for years, so they won't be required to engage in any
activity that might cause emotion to arise: that way they aren't plagued by
these "worldly demons." Even some Western religions demonize emotions: either
in confessional booths or testimonials to congregations, one confesses the sin
of experiencing unholy feelings or impure impulses. Then you provide further
penance by performing a series of tasks, the difficulty of which is dictated by
how bad your emotion or impulse was.
Nearly every
spiritual tradition stresses the need to get rid of or conquer the natural
expression of human feelings, and those rare beings who seem to have
successfully purified themselves of their unholy emotions are celebrated as
saints or holy ones.
Indeed, almost
everywhere we look, in every context, it seems that society is conspiring to
kill our emotions, to suppress our natural feelings. It seems nearly everyone
agrees with the culturally conditioned belief that most emotions are bad and
must be subdued at all costs.
It's no wonder we
can't experience peace for any length of time. We are always on the
battlefield, fighting wars against an internal enemy - one that won't give us
any rest, for as soon as we quell one regiment, the next surge of emotion comes
marching behind it, in an endless stream of never-ending waves. It's a battle
we all fight, even though we know it's one we will never win.
For as long as we
have breath in our bodies and have life in our being, emotions will come as a
natural part of being human. It is as if we are fighting our very selves.
What a fruitless,
endless battle it is. It's exhausting. It's as ineffective as standing on the
shore and holding up a shield against a tidal wave. In fact, it is our very
struggle against feeling that robs us of our peace and disturbs our well-being
- not the "negative" emotion itself, but the struggle against it; not the
feeling, but the ferocity of our will to kill it. When so much effort is wasted
trying to resist the natural flow of life, there is not much life force left to
experience the inherent joy of life.
Then, when the
battle becomes too much, we collapse into depression, into a place of numbness,
where the acute pain of the fight cannot reach us. We seek counselors to help
explain our way out of the war zone, or we ask doctors and psychiatrists to
prescribe drugs to block out our intense feelings. Or we engage in pointless
and mind-numbing activities to distract us from our feelings: We zone out
watching vacuous television shows. We wash the car or vacuum the carpets when
they're already clean. We gamble or take recreational drugs. We chatter and
gossip endlessly about other people's problems - all in a game of emotional
avoidance. Or we temporarily raise the white flag and plead for mercy: we turn
to God and pray, seeking respite, or we go to an enlightened master and learn
to meditate or to recite mantras. At best, these things provide only a short
window of peace before the next battle begins.
It never occurs
to us to drop the role of warrior and cease the battle altogether.
But, what if you
decided not to play the game of war? What if you finally said, "No, I don't
want to be a marine. I never signed up for the army in the first place." What
then? What if you gave up all resistance? What if you simply refused to fight?
What if, instead,
you said, "Come one, come all. All of my emotions are welcome into the ocean of
love that is always here"? What if, instead of a battlefield, you discovered
that life is actually an infinite field - a field of trust, openness, love?
What if, in this
infinite field, all the natural flow of life's feelings were free to come and
go? What if you provided no resistance whatsoever to the natural flow of life?
I wonder what would happen.
That which you
resist persists.
Your resistance to
emotion perpetuates the very thing you wish was not there. It's in the moment
of true surrender, openness, and acceptance that your emotions feel so welcome
that they easily come and just as easily go. Resistance keeps your emotions in
play and creates only more of itself. Resistance begets resistance.
The invitation is
to finally lay down your arms, dear one, and welcome all of life with all your
heart. Your old enemy will turn out to be your closest friend, and the only
enemy still at large will be realized to be resistance itself.
The time has come
to befriend your emotions. They are the gateway to your self.
Let's examine our
emotions. Just what are they? Right now, allow a feeling to give rise to itself
- any emotion. If you are really welcoming, you will discover that it arises
quite easily.
But what is it? An
emotion is actually just a simple sensation in the body. Some of these
sensations are comfortable and pleasant, and some are uncomfortable, but they
are all ultimately just a bunch of physical responses to chemicals flooding
through the body. We can either resist the flood or welcome it and allow it to
flow through.
If we choose to
resist or suppress the feeling, it only gets driven deeper into our
subconscious and comes up more intensely later. When we resist an emotion, hold
it at bay, it merely waits in the wings for the chance to come back on stage to
be fully experienced.
However, if we
welcome it, the feeling is free to rise, be fully felt, and subside naturally.
As long as we don't engage in any story about it or stir up any drama about it
- as long as we just let it arise completely, purely, without examination or
analysis - then it will simply be felt and dissolve back into consciousness. In
this way it doesn't get driven anywhere or stored anywhere. The emotion feels
so welcome, so free, that it just dissolves in the bath of love provided and
doesn't bother to habitually revisit us. In freedom, the embrace of love provides
no resistance, and emotions naturally ebb and flow like the tide.
Have you ever sat
and watched an infant playing? It sits completely content, just resting in some
sweet innocence of being. Then, some strong emotion will come flooding into its
consciousness, and the child will experience it freely and openly - providing
no resistance to it. Out of nowhere, for seemingly no reason, joy will come
through, and the baby will laugh, gurgle, splutter, and giggle as the wave of
causeless happiness courses through consciousness. Then, in the next moment,
discomfort may arise: the infant will screw up its face, pout, clench its
fists, and pound against the rails of the playpen. When this too passes, once
again the infant will just rest in open-eyed awareness. It may notice a mobile
floating playfully above its head and get lost in complete wonder. Next, it may
reach for something beyond its grasp, and it will cry inconsolably in abject
frustration. Eventually, each emotion melts away, and once again the child is
left in open presence.
The whole palette
of human emotion dances through an infant's consciousness, but because it has
not yet learned that it is supposed to resist emotions, it just innocently lets
the natural feelings flood through. Ultimately, the child is untouched by any
of it. The emotion doesn't stick anywhere because there is no resistance to it.
Like a spring tide, it rises fully, is felt in its totality, then subsides and
recedes. The infant's essence, its being, isn't affected or changed in any way.
It remains wide open and free.
Of course, the
infant has parents, and before the infant can even understand language, the
parents embark on the huge project of "socialization": instructing the child in
the way of the emotional warrior and how to suppress, subdue, narcotize, and
deny the simple, natural feelings that come through consciousness.
I wonder what
would happen if we provided no resistance? Would our essence be touched in any
way by what came through it?
I often hear
adults say, "I feel so disconnected from myself. I just can't seem to access
the real me. I've read in books that there is a huge potential inside, but
somehow it eludes me. I sense it's there; I just don't know how to get past the
blocks inside. I don't know how to find it."
Of course they
don't! They've lost sight of the infinite self, of their essence - they're out
of touch with their own hearts because they've spent a lifetime on the
battlefield, denying the feelings that are the natural expression of their own
essence. When they deny that expression, they deny themselves. They lose touch
with themselves, and they feel separate, bereft, alone, distanced, numb, and
disconnected.
And yet, every
time an emotion arises, it's presenting an open invitation to experience your
self. It is offering a doorway to your own essence, a gateway to your soul.
Sometimes as
adults we end up on an endless search to experience the divine, to find the
truth of our own being, yet every time an emotion arises, we push it away. In
so doing, we push away the opportunity to open into the infinite. Our prayer is
being answered, but we ignore the response because it doesn't come in the
expected form.
This that you have come to fear and therefore subdue
is, in fact, a gateway to your soul.
This article was excerpted from:
 Freedom Is: Liberating Your Boundless Potential
by Brandon Bays.
Reprinted with permission from
the publisher, New World Library. www.newworldlibrary.com.
Copyright © 2006 by Manifest Abundance Unlimited.
For More Info or To Order This book.
About The Author
Brandon Bays is the author of the international bestseller The Journey. She travels all over the world bringing her teachings of healing and awakening to thousands of people
each year. She pioneered her transformative work through her own
experience of healing naturally from a large tumor without drugs or surgery. Her website is
www.thejourney.com.
More articles by this author.
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