I was listening to a podcast yesterday when the speaker said something poignant. He said you can heal, only if you feel. Now, having worked with and on myself for several years, I know for a fact that when we're faced with some of our biggest pain points... it can be incredibly tough to face it head on. To sit with the feelings of pain, loss, etc. To acknowledge them and give it space and time to accept. Usually, we choose to numb ourselves with distractions. Binging on food, alcohol, partying, recreational drugs, gossip, videogames, and the list goes on and on...
While I feel that, to a certain degree, one should allow oneself one's method's to unwind... Problem with us humans is, we rarely know when to strike a balance. If it's deciding to start exercising, then either being unable to find the motivation after the initial burst of enthusiasm, or going hard for 7 days a week, only to try and feel the pain in our muscles instead of addressing a soul cry. Eating disorders, negative self image issues, anxiety... all of these stem from us being compulsive about our lives. Because we're so disillusioned by life after a point, that we'll do everything to avoid it.
When we're in our teens and are given the illusion that surrounding yourself a bunch of friends is going to make you feel good. And so we do. We largely buy into that and think that being popular is going to bring us that happiness. Then as we make our way into adulthood, we're given to think getting that no, it's actually that well paying job at that amazing MNC which is going to do it for us. Life's going to be set, yeah! ... Only to realize the hollowness of that statement in a year or two. Then of course we have our amazing capitalistic economy that can be counted on to tell you that "Hey! Buy this and you're going to feel amazing!" "Wear this and you're going to look the best you have in years!" "Eat here, it's happiness in a box!" ... No. No, it isn't. Then we're pressured into doing things by this annoying, all comprehensive invisible bubble called Society. Ah, society. Wonderful society. That insists that there's an age for everything. Everything... Graduate at this age, get a job at this age, get a spouse at this age, pop kids at this age and then let the cycle perpetuates itself. I mean... I am so sick of the banner of happiness being waved around in children's' faces by their parents (who themselves were sold onto this rubbish by their parents, for whom none of this has brought happiness in the first place) and yet here we are.
Strange how we keep pursuing one thing after another and we're too far into the quicksand when we realize that neither did the previous desire being fulfilled give us the long term happiness we were seeking, but here we are. In this perennial chase. And then just like that, we die one day.
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I had a bit of an epiphany yesterday as I sat in my balcony. I have been wrestling with some feelings of inadequacy myself and was just sitting and trying to be in the moment of watching the gentle sun's rays while I could hear someone mowing their lawn in the distance, and birds doing their little 'cheep cheep' simultaneously... And it was as if something dawned on me that I hadn't known all my life. It was what Oprah would call an 'Ah ha" moment. I realized that true happiness, which I'll call Joy... Isn't of the mind at all.
Now I know maybe to some, this statement might not make sense, and to others, it might be a fact they've known all their lives... But to me, it was a 'Well slap me silly and call me Sally' kind of moment. Because... if happiness isn't of the mind, then what is it of? That's something to think about. But at least it sorts out the mad scramble of the next thing that will bring joy-- Going on that vacation will bring joy! The next trinket will bring joy! That monster milkshake will bring us joy... We only think it will because the mind keeps us in the illusion of 'Next! Next! Next!'...
So I'm going to leave you with that thought. That true joy, is not of the mind. Because true joy is not transient. True joy cannot be an absolute quantity. It just is.
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