The Shelf Life of Emotions

"In a fully functional organism, an emotion has a very short life span."

-- Eckhart Tolle


Lots of people seem to think that there are only two options when it comes to emotions -- either wallow in them or repress them. We're all familiar with the emotionally indulgent individual who continues to generate and express an emotion, usually negative, long after the event that inspired it is kaput. We also have run into our share of emotionally constipated folks who walk around as stiff and brittle as the Tin Man because their emotions are dammed up inside them like a ten pound wheel of cheese.

But there's a third option -- experience the emotion fully, but quickly, and then let it pass. Emotions are a part of life; they just don't have to be the dominant part. Experiencing an emotion is very different from exploiting one. Experiencing is to a large part a bodily phenomena. You feell the emotion as it passes through your body like a bad burrito. You don't attempt to sustain it, analyze it, or justify it, you just feel it.

When emotions are felt, they move quickly, like clouds in a summer sky. They pass through the blue background of your consciousness and are gone. You natural spaciousness returns. It's a very short process, and it guarantees that you will neither be burdened with, nor act dysfunctionally from, that emotion. Your actions may then proceed from deeper levels of awareness, producing far superior results.

Emotions are the spices of life -- they are not the main course. Some people prefer a little spice, others like alot, but no one would sit down to a plate full of tumeric, garlic and cinnamon.

Let your emotions come, let them flow, let them go. You may be surprised by what you'll find.

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