Episode 133

A Delicate Balance

In these unusual times, we might find ourselves feeling intense extremes of emotions. Perhaps we’ve found a way to feel really good most of the time, but when something goes against our expectations, we begin to feel really, really bad.

It might seem like a tightrope walk, trying to monitor and modulate our emotions so we can stay in that space of relaxed contentment or excitement.

But a tightrope walk isn’t the best analogy… that would mean that the stakes were very high – perhaps even life and death.

A better analogy comes from Swami Muktananda, describing the world as a “play of consciousness”. We are free to be at ease, to play and explore in the world, and with our emotions.

Transcript

Welcome beautiful thinkers, I’d like to talk about a certain delicate balance.

I’ve been having some interesting experiences lately.

As I mentioned previously I do have this concept or belief that something unusual is happening, some kind of cosmic shift.

I can’t necessarily prove that but I think I’m not the only one who’s having very intense emotions at the moment.

Having intense emotions can be a good thing. It can be extremely uncomfortable to try and manage it.

There’s something in a dream, when we begin lucid dreaming, I’m still quite a novice on this path but happens is…..one of the most important fundamental lessons is that we learn when we’re lucid dreaming is to modulate our emotions to maintain them within a good limit.

Within certain limits so if we’re too negative or too afraid and terror enters our hearts. Or if we think we are in a dream and we begin to fly and we get very excited and we wake up.

Keeping emotions within certain limits, knowing how to control our emotions. Not control them but ease them and guide them, pacify them when necessary.

It’s very important of course not just with lucid dreaming but in our lives. We’re not going to wake up if we make mistakes with our emotions in our lives but actually maybe the opposite.

Maybe we get stuck in some bad loop thoughts, we might be very anxious. They start to get confused and go into some kind of negative spiral of anxiety that leads us to dread or have a panic attack and think we are dying or something like that.

Alright, that can be pretty intense, right?

Also on the other side if we get too excited it can make it difficult to control ourselves. Like someone taking a powerful drug. Someone’s at a party and they take cocaine or men on steroids find it difficult to exercise self control.

Maybe it’s not as much as a risk of having a panic attack but maybe the excitement could cause us to have a panic attack if we aren’t modulating ourselves.

What I’ve found over the last few months or even the last year I’ve noticed what happens is I’ll be feeling really good, really relaxed. There’s this warm fuzzy energy in my body. Maybe it does have this little spark to it like excitement and then something I perceive as bad happens like someone I want to talk to doesn’t want to talk to me or something with a project that I’m working on doesn’t come out how I expect or want.

Suddenly my emotions go to quite a dark place and its quite intense and I’m wondering “why is it so swingy, why so variable?”

One moment I am feeling extremely good and the next I’m stuck in the maya trying to wade through the swamp and it feels like I’m going slow.

Like in a dream when you can’t move. You’re trying to run away but your legs are stuck.

What is the most important thing in these circumstances?

Number one is a very fundamental thing, is breathe. So as Flo Perlin said in the interview I did with her she said when she’d have an uncomfortable feeling she would breathe through it. Breathe into it like we do practicing yoga.

Breathe into our emotions. Breathe into our muscles, glands, hormones, whatever is going on inside of us.

Or the other way to look at it is….I say these things so many times in so many different ways, part of the reason is they’re worth repeating. They’re that good!

In the interview with my friend Georgia Catt she said when she was feeling anxious, she sat with it. Literally sat down and noticed the emotion and thought okay that is an emotion, that is valid and it will pass. And it always does.

Now if we can find ourselves, well sometimes I think what am I doing? Am I walking a tightrope here?

I can be extremely happy, extremely high up on the tightrope and then what happens?

I’m losing my balance and I fall and its tragic.

That’s a tricky metaphor, that implies the stakes are so high that it’s a little tricky.

It implies that we’re in constant risk of danger and maybe we should be afraid of our own emotions.

That’s why I think maybe that’s not a good metaphor.

What I think is the better metaphor is something to take the pressure off of us a bit.

Of course Baba Muktananda wrote this book “The Play of Consciousness” that I’m still reading.

Yes we can play in the world like what came up in my interview with Aryan when he felt more relaxed in the world, more at ease in the world. He could enjoy things more. Things weren’t such a big deal.

The play of consciousness. Everything happens is occurring in that space of consciousness

It’s like a play before us in a scene on a stage. Something for entertainment perhaps, our enjoyment. Maybe for our spiritual development because many plays have key moral lessons for us and they teach us something about life.

Also a play in the sense of it’s not exactly a game, because a game has a clear goal. This is more like a sandbox game. We can play, build things and move through the world playing and things aren’t so serious.

I hope that helps because I’m sure there are people out there having similar experiences and maybe you don’t know how to guide your way through it as well as I do.

I hope that helps, breathe into it. Sit with it and play with it.

Nothing is so serious, let’s have a good time.

Thanks for listening and have a blessed day.

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