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Spotting cycles is much easier if you keep notes
Afternoon all.
I like to share my thoughts and my own breakthroughs as I learn to live through the tao, I hope they're sometimes helpful to people coming up behind me on the way. Little signposts along the road, I like to think; little reassurances that others have been down this road before. I know in my own reading, particularly around this site, the signposts have others have been positively revitalising to my journey.
So, a while ago, Carl advised me to write a journal... Indeed, it is helpful to keep track of life, I was already writing one, I've always been in the habit of writing down my thoughts, not because I imagine I'll read it in the future, but because I feel driven to translate my emotions, to talk them over with myself.
However, I've gone back and read through a lot of it, and it's amazing how helpful it's been. Firstly, across the whole thing, I can see the same cycles going round and round, the same things happening and each time, I would react in the same way and the cycle would begin again. Perhaps more interestingly, I can pick out places where I've strongly felt emotions and convictions that later contradict other strong feelings. I can get a real sense of how something that feels vitally urgent in the moment ceases to exist as a worry at any different perspective: different time/mood/person/experience...
It becomes not only easy but unavoidable to distrust your emotions a little once you catch yourself in an emotional lie.
I like to share my thoughts and my own breakthroughs as I learn to live through the tao, I hope they're sometimes helpful to people coming up behind me on the way. Little signposts along the road, I like to think; little reassurances that others have been down this road before. I know in my own reading, particularly around this site, the signposts have others have been positively revitalising to my journey.
So, a while ago, Carl advised me to write a journal... Indeed, it is helpful to keep track of life, I was already writing one, I've always been in the habit of writing down my thoughts, not because I imagine I'll read it in the future, but because I feel driven to translate my emotions, to talk them over with myself.
However, I've gone back and read through a lot of it, and it's amazing how helpful it's been. Firstly, across the whole thing, I can see the same cycles going round and round, the same things happening and each time, I would react in the same way and the cycle would begin again. Perhaps more interestingly, I can pick out places where I've strongly felt emotions and convictions that later contradict other strong feelings. I can get a real sense of how something that feels vitally urgent in the moment ceases to exist as a worry at any different perspective: different time/mood/person/experience...
It becomes not only easy but unavoidable to distrust your emotions a little once you catch yourself in an emotional lie.
Comments
I may be nitpicking here, but I'd say this a little differently:
It is essential to trust your emotions because they are the constant in your life. As you realize they are always driving your life, you will be in a better position to distrust the thoughts those emotions ignite.
Our 'problem' is that emotion lies at the seat of awareness. Emotion is such an omnipresent part of life that we don't/can't 'see' it objectively enough (if at all). Not fully appreciating the fact that emotion drives all perception, we 'believe' what we think. To make matters worse, belief itself percolates up from emotion as well.
This is a tough nut to crack!