A Knot in Your Stomach

Transcript

I want to talk to you about having a knot in your stomach. I’d like to say that a large part of being happy is actually learning how to be unhappy.

There are a lot of states to classify as unhappiness and at least in the beginning of the journey you only have a very limited idea of what happiness is. Maybe that’s very confined so perhaps a lot of the time you will be unhappy at least in some sense.

I was thinking about this situation, something that happened to me where there was this woman who I really liked and when it got time for us to meet, she ended up telling me she was seeing someone else.

I was like “I kinda wish you had told me that earlier.” And this particular situation I was quite uncomfortable about it and I had that knot in my stomach which stayed with me for quite awhile. Maybe a few days.

The thing about it is, I didn’t really know what to do with it. I think a lot of people in this situation when they have a feeling like that it can come with this feeling of lack and when you have that feeling you can also interpret it and say “I’m not good enough.”

Actually the two things are distinct. You are not your emotions and you’re not interpretations of your emotions. Just because you feel a particular emotion and interpret it a particular way doesn’t mean its the truth.

It’s the emotional truth of the moment but not the ultimate truth of who you are as Echart Tolle once said.

You might remember that scene in Leon the Professional. It’s a really great movie where the young girl, the main character is talking to Leon and she says “For a long time all my life I had a knot in my stomach. I didn’t know who I was or where I was or what I was doing. When I met you, that went away. I love you, Leon.”

Now Leon says as a joke I suppose “I am glad you don’t have a stomach ache anymore but I don’t think that’s love” or something like that.

What happened was Madeline I think was her name for once in her life started to feel comfortable. Leon had accepted her for who she was and she had embraced that acceptance. She felt at peace with herself and mistook that for love.

It is a kind of love. Its more like self love than true romantic love.

Now back to my situation with my knot in my stomach, lying on the bed I started to feel happiness actually. So even though I had this strong knot in my stomach making me feel uncomfortable or being a feeling of discomfort surrounding it was the feeling of happiness and warmth flowing through my belly.

I think this is partially because I’ve spent so much time meditating. I can kind create those kinds of feelings at will.

This is also interesting. There’s a lot to break down here. One thing I think is really important, we have the word ambivalence and some people mistake that and say ambivalence means indifference.

Literally what ambivalence means is being of two extremes. So when you have two emotions on opposite ends of the spectrum perhaps even at once, that’s literally being ambivalent.

Ambi is both sides, valent because of the two extremes. So being of two extremes, ambivalent.

I’ve also had these emotions where actually I wouldn’t describe it as ambivalence because the happiness I felt gave a different context to this discomfort.

So I like to use the term harmonious multi-valence. So I can in fact be happy enough that the discomfort is surrounded by this context of happiness. That gives a different meaning to the whole thing.

This is also a mental thing. What I was talking about with the interpretations. If you’re mentally happy that is your mentally positive and you like to interpret things using correct thinking, then the discomfort won’t bother you that much.

Its not generally our emotions that bother us it’s our interpretation of our emotions. So there I was lying there on the bed. I was asking myself questions like “What does this emotion mean and what could I learn from this?”

A lot of people will run from their emotions and try to shut them out. Try to change their mood. Sometimes that’s a good thing but if you try to do it long term as a coping mechanism I’d say that’s a mistake because you never really integrate the messages of your emotions.

When you do feel unhappiness it always contains the potential for happiness. Your unhappiness is sending you a message saying “Hey, this is something that is not good for us.”

Whether that be a situation you put yourself in or more likely a thought pattern. So feeling embracing that emotion, discomfort in my belly. Not dwelling on it but exploring it. A kind of relaxed detatchment with my own emotion and I was able to feel peace and happiness.

So those are the lessons when you have an emotion you don’t necessarily need to interpret it in a particular way.

You an ask the question just as in “Man’s Search for Meaning” a fellow asked “What could this mean?”

You might never know the final answer but you might reach another shade of meaning and find a path to happiness.

Thank you so much for listening. Remember to share your emotions. Thank you for having relaxed detachment, if you can attain that. Thank you for seeking happiness.

Have a great day, I’ll talk to you soon.