Yesterday I wrote a piece No Pearl, No Grit and I wanted to continue on from this, in our embrace of that which can feel uncomfortable. We have good reason to do this as we must recognise that if we lower the volume on that which doesn’t feel brilliant in a moment, but has purpose (as does everything), we lower the volume on it all.
With sensations of emotional grit; discomfort, sadness, shame or anger, is that we are not an emotional electrical board. We can’t ‘turn on’ all the nice feeling emotions and ‘turn off’ all the negative ones. If there’s a lot of voltage, we’ll experience all of them at high volume. Deadening ourselves to the perception that being uncomfortable can be part of our evolution, deadens our ability to feel and really experience in a heightened state the incredible emotions we desire; joy, love, connectedness.
Observing these emotions and understanding they are transient emotions only, and not believing they are who we are, is part of this process. Because to feel it all, we must feel it all.