You will be free to let go of your unhappiness the moment you recognize it as unintelligent. Negativity is not intelligent."
"What really matters is not what function you fulfill in this world, but whether you identify with your function to such an extent that it takes you over and becomes a role that you play. When you play roles you are unconscious. When you catch yourself playing a role, that recognition creates a space between you and the role."
"INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE
Any negative emotion that is not fully faced and seen for what it is in the moment it arises does not completely dissolve. It leaves behind a remnant of pain.
Children in particular find strong negative emotions too overwhelming to cope with and tend to try not to feel them. In the absence of a fully conscious adult who guides them with love and compassionate understanding into facing the emotion directly, choosing not to feel it is indeed the only option for the child at the time. Unfortunately, that early defense mechanism usually remains inplace when the child becomes an adult. The emotion still lives in him or her unrecognized and manifests indirectly, for example, as anxiety, anger, outbursts of emotion, a mood or even as a physical illness. In some cases, it interferes with or sabotages every intimate relationship. Most psychotherapists have met patients who claimed initially to have had a totally happy childhood, and later the opposite turned out to be the case. Those may be extreme cases, but nobody can go through childhood without suffering emotional pain. Even if both of your parents were enlightened, you would still find yourself growing up in a largely unconscious world.
The remnants of pain left behind by every strong negative emotion that is not fully faced, accepted, and then let go of join to form an energy field that lives in the very cells of your body.It consists not just of childhood pain, but also painful emotions that were added to it later in adolescence and during your adult life, much of it created by the voice of the ego. It is the emotional pain that is your unavoidable companion when a false sense of self is the basis of your life."
From A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.
2 comments:
Sometimes, it's hard to let go, but it's an absolute necessity! I have a friend that cannot let go of abuse she suffered as a child as well as her family's reaction (or lack thereof) to it. As a result, of course, it colors every aspect of her life, and even changes the way she smells!
Well, Janet, I think the idea that recovery or healing means you never feel pain again is a mainstream misunderstanding. Even with therapy and meditation scars don't go away...but it is a different thing to let go of them. It sounds like your friend has the double pain of a family that doesn't support her...
Letting go doesn't mean we forget...it means we have the focus to not engage.
It is very sad how many people who have health and positive lives are suffering emotionally. I've been following the Oprah club discussion web boards and it's amazing how many people have responded to this book by Tolle that is on Oprah's book club. People are savvy and they are really getting the ideas in this book. Two million people are participating in online discussions about this book...and following her web casts online.
It's an incredible thing to witness and read people's feelings and how they are affecting their lives.
Post a Comment