http://www.todoinstitute.org/morita.html
"The Naturalness of Feelings (Arugamama)
If we find out that we have just won the lottery, we may be excited and happy. But if we find out about the death of a loved one, we may feel sadness and grief. Such feelings are natural responses to our life circumstances and we need not try to “fix” or “change” them. Arugamama (acceptance of reality as it is) involves accepting our feelings and thoughts without trying to change them or “work through” them.
This means that if we feel depressed, we accept our feelings of depression. If we feel anxious, we accept our feelings of anxiety. Rather than direct our attention and energy to our feeling state, we instead direct our efforts toward living our life well. We set goals and take steps to accomplish what is important even as we co-exist with unpleasant feelings from time to time.
Feelings are Uncontrollable
There is an assumption behind many Western therapeutic methods that it is necessary to change or modify our feeling state before we can take action. We assume that we must “overcome” fear to dive into a pool, or develop confidence so we can make a public presentation. But in actuality, it is not necessary to change our feelings in order to take action. In fact, it is our efforts to change our feelings that often makes us feel even worse."
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Yoda is also a good take away from our class day Thursday. The old Star Wars wisdom.
ReplyDeleteI felt this for the first time in a long time during our class on Thursday. When I was on my walk, I had an incredible ability to not think about my normal analytical thoughts, or thoughts about the past of future. I was in state of feeling. And I could not think may way out of it. Though I felt stuck in some ways it was good to just be in my emotions rather than trying to think through them.
ReplyDeleteBefore performing on any stage, I always feel a sense of performance anxiety. I have come to realize that this is a natural feeling, a feeling that I recognize as normal but try not to focus all my attention on. Instead I focus on the task at hand and think of how much fun I'm about to have!
ReplyDeleteThis makes me want to cry for some reason. I definitely feel like I am "feeling" inappropriately all the time, that the ways I react are incorrect. It takes so much energy and is always futile to try and change them but we are taught by families, friends, television, etc that we should react always in the calmest and most "together" of ways. That is just not reality.
ReplyDelete