From "Slowing Down to the Speed of Love"In the world of relationships, our emotions and feelings are as important to navigating our ups and downs as the instrument panel is to a pilot flying in low visibility. Feelings and emotions are navigational signals that can guide us to live from our natural Self and stay in the moment. When we understand these signals, we know when to ignore the perceptions that we have created from the ego-self. We see how to avoid the pitfalls of living in the past or future, and we know how to avoid being influenced by an old memory. These perceptions of reality are actually illusions that keep us trapped in the circular thinking of the ego.
Decoding Emotions and Feelings By trying to figure out what our true feeling is, we cover up our inner intelligence with thoughts from our personal belief system. We label, define, and interpret our feeling sensations as “anger,” “fear,” “love,” or “dislike,” thus missing the grain of truth or pure thought contained in the sensation. At other times, we simply experience an emotion that is the direct result of an association or a triggering of emotion from our conditioned, habitual self. For example, we may have an emotional reaction to hearing a song, watching a movie, or even being with someone else who is experiencing an intense emotion. In the latter case, we have a sympathetic response to that person’s emotion.
Regardless of whether we are experiencing a true feeling or an emotion, we must see each as part of the instrument panel of our guidance system. For example, a feeling of discomfort, which we label as irritation, may be telling us that we are simply tired or hungry and need to rest or eat. Or the irritation is letting us know that something is out of balance in our relationship and we need to reflect on it and/or talk to the other person about it. Additionally, the same feeling that we have labeled “irritation” can be telling us that our mood is off and to just be quiet and listen to what we need. (We will talk more of moods in chapter 9.) In the latter case, the irritation alerts us to the fact that we have moved out of balance with our natural Self. The true feeling, without the label of “irritation,” is raw data that simply alerts us to listen and reflect. It needs only our respect and awareness to provide the guidance it was intended to give us.
Unfortunately, we often act on an emotional interpretation of our feelings without a moment’s reflection, only to find out later that we have projected our own state of mind on to another person or situation.
The diagram below indicates how our emotions and feelings can let us know in which direction we are moving: towards the balance of our natural Self, or towards the imbalance of our ego-self.
