Imagine time slowing down for a second, at any given situation. Perhaps when you overhear gossip, or when you’re having a heated conversation, being confronted directly; any time before the consequent thoughts, actions and words: Let’s pause.
We pause, and pretend we’re at one of those quiz shows. Let’s start with just a two-answer quiz. The choices are: act impulsively on emotions, or, breathe and respond with grace.
We’ve all been at that breaking point, when we snap, right?
You stop caring, go into Hulk mode and start cussing and rolling your eyes, justified by your own self-righteousness.
Maybe it was only once in college when you caught your girlfriend cheating on you, or maybe it’s every day, so normalized that it’s even under your breath, subconsciously, every time you beep a horn. The outcomes of this quiz, funnily enough, mirror the answers themselves. And it’s a vicious cycle that we get stuck in, forgetting the consequences of the game.
It’s from this pause that we can navigate life based on our authentic Self. Embedded with symbolic meaning and enigmatic nature, our emotions essentially become clues to who we are, what we desire, why we’re hurting and where we need healing. Figuring out what the clues are and where they lead to, requires work to be done; the toughest work there is.
I’m so angry at this. Why is that? What’s the reason behind this automatic, enraged feeling every time my father seemingly undermines me? It’s bitterness. Why? It’s resentment. For what? These lead you down a trail that can ultimately lead you to level up in your emotional intelligence — maybe it’s forgiving someone, digesting a past event, accepting a loss. Some trails are harder to walk than others.
The trick is not to run away from your emotions, to stop them from happening or trying to drown them. They will never go away; they’re the purpose of our existence.
The ego is sometimes diminished only to the saboteur that lives inside us, when in fact it is much more — it is everything that love is not.
The aim then is to observe the “ego,” to be inquisitive, to be understanding, for it provides clues to the gargantuan, resplendent puzzle that is this very life.
Find stillness, balancing on a tight rope in the middle of a blazing inferno. The raging flames have no authority over our actions.
Let’s flip the coin. How incredible is it that we can actually feel those? How mind-blowing that you and I can experience heartache, so debilitating as to freeze one’s entire being. One such experience crumpled my reality and my Spirit in such a way that I almost lost control. I let myself be taken by the indulgent, self-destructive ego who saw status in sabotaging invigorating moments for shallow rewards.
The danger of being vulnerable, being honest and being strong gripped me in such a heavy hold, with fear as its beholder.
Many times, I did this. I chose the ego. The consequences are no more than a dissipating perfumed mist of a just-gone lover. We chose to come to a life, once upon a time, to experience ourselves. We chose to come and experience the carnal pleasures of the physical world, to have fervent sex and orgasmic food, to feel the wind blowing against our skin and the softness of grass — to feel the touch of a woman whom you love, and who loves you. To become one, again and again, with different parts of yourself.
In the midst of all these tantalizing distractions, it’s easy to forget that all of the answers we seek and all of the love we crave are already within us.
Whence there is no day and no night, when time is no longer and space is no more, when we no longer live in a binary world, we will all become one, again.
Until then, buckle up and enjoy the ride.
