Posting my previous blog on facebook, I commented "Is sadness a habit?", and I kept wondering about it. A old school friend and writer Manal El Kady, who is also a physician mentioned that it is related to the serotonin levels secreted by the brain. She mentioned sports and words to combat it. There was also some discussion about the pain body, this ugly thing.
I mentioned gratitude and acknowledgment as two ways to combat this sadness. One more mistake that I did, and that encouraged sadness or pain to stay, was the incorrect labeling of whatever happens as "sadness" or "pain" or "disappointment". "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder" and so is pain, and ugliness and sorrow. Yesterday for example, I found myself saying "I feel awful" then I stopped. In truth, I was not feeling awful. I was tired, very tired, which is not the same as feeling awful. Feeling awful to me includes the overall physical and emotional down state, which was not remotely the case. Days before, I kept saying that I felt "sad" and "disappointed". These were the re-current words. From my learnings and my teachings I know that your thoughts are not you. I know that you can switch your own thoughts. And I said, I will give it a try again. "They are just fleeting thoughts" I said to myself, as I was driving. "I am neither sad, nor disappointed". I questioned the labels that I have so freely, out of habit, out of culture, or out of the commonness of the words, chosen.
"They are just passing by" I said to myself. "You do not have to OWN them". Like the plane, you see....when you are in a flight, sometimes the planes go through turbulences, if the planes owns it, it falls, and crashed and becomes a huge catastrophe... but if the plane itself is fine, the pilot does not panic. And instead of letting the passengers wonder, he announces calmly that this is a place of turbulence and is expected to pass in a few minutes, so the passengers themselves, too do not panic. Everyone knows it is just a turbulence in the air. It will pass in a matter of minutes and all will be fine. It does not - by any means - mean that there is something wrong with the plane or the pilot.
So, I decided to acknowledge the turbulence, acknowledge that I do not like it, and that as well, it is not mine. It is not me. And I move on.
This, in addition to correcting the labels on the experiences; situations, feelings and thoughts that happen to us, have both worked for me in the last few days...
And, this thought caught me by surprise the other day, but I chose to hang on to it for longer "If sadness is a habit, would not that make happiness a habit, too?"
I mentioned gratitude and acknowledgment as two ways to combat this sadness. One more mistake that I did, and that encouraged sadness or pain to stay, was the incorrect labeling of whatever happens as "sadness" or "pain" or "disappointment". "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder" and so is pain, and ugliness and sorrow. Yesterday for example, I found myself saying "I feel awful" then I stopped. In truth, I was not feeling awful. I was tired, very tired, which is not the same as feeling awful. Feeling awful to me includes the overall physical and emotional down state, which was not remotely the case. Days before, I kept saying that I felt "sad" and "disappointed". These were the re-current words. From my learnings and my teachings I know that your thoughts are not you. I know that you can switch your own thoughts. And I said, I will give it a try again. "They are just fleeting thoughts" I said to myself, as I was driving. "I am neither sad, nor disappointed". I questioned the labels that I have so freely, out of habit, out of culture, or out of the commonness of the words, chosen.
"They are just passing by" I said to myself. "You do not have to OWN them". Like the plane, you see....when you are in a flight, sometimes the planes go through turbulences, if the planes owns it, it falls, and crashed and becomes a huge catastrophe... but if the plane itself is fine, the pilot does not panic. And instead of letting the passengers wonder, he announces calmly that this is a place of turbulence and is expected to pass in a few minutes, so the passengers themselves, too do not panic. Everyone knows it is just a turbulence in the air. It will pass in a matter of minutes and all will be fine. It does not - by any means - mean that there is something wrong with the plane or the pilot.
So, I decided to acknowledge the turbulence, acknowledge that I do not like it, and that as well, it is not mine. It is not me. And I move on.
This, in addition to correcting the labels on the experiences; situations, feelings and thoughts that happen to us, have both worked for me in the last few days...
And, this thought caught me by surprise the other day, but I chose to hang on to it for longer "If sadness is a habit, would not that make happiness a habit, too?"
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