As humans our main objective in life is to be happy. This totally makes sense because that’s one of our brain’s main
jobs, to seek out pleasure; and pleasure is a very positive feeling. But what if you could live a life that was better than happy? What could be better than happy? For me, better than happy is a life fulfilled. A life that offers me the opportunity for a genuine human experience.
Life is more than one feeling. Why go through life feeling just one feeling? Why go through life being happy, when you can feel joy which is way better than just happy.
Imagine you’re looking at 2 paintings. One’s monotone; just one color. Not even variations of that color. Just one solid, boring color. The painting next to it has different hues of blues, pinks, purples, gold and more. It really holds your attention as your eyes scan from one side to the other. Then you begin to notice the different techniques and textures; how each adds upon the next to create a new element to the story. The longer you look, the more connected you feel to it. like you’re becoming a part of scene. Just like a boring painting, if we are constantly happy, it eventually loses it’s luster and we can’t fully appreciate it because we have no variation to compare it to.
Balance is 50-50. Not 90-10, 80-20 or 0-100. I know so many people wanting to achieve balance in life. It’s easy to forget that balance requires equal weight on both sides. 50-50 doesn’t mean 12 hours of your day is awesome and the other 12 will be awful. Imagine the yin yang symbol. There’s a delicate balance between light and dark. Sometimes extreme light on one side and a little darkness and sometimes there’s extreme darkness and a little light. Life is messy and fun and hard and amazing. Today may be 80-20 and tomorrow may be 20-80. The good news is when you’re feeling an extreme low, you’ve got an extreme high waiting in the wings for you! With the yin yang symbol each side eventually balances out the other with half of it white and half of it black to make a complete balanced whole.
Being willing to feel a negative emotion opens you up for new adventures. When’s the last time you thought about trying something new, but decided not to because you weren’t sure about the outcome? If you’re willing to feel disappointed, then you’re more likely two try new things and to push yourself further because you’re not afraid to feel that negative emotion. What I see happening with my clients is they don’t want to feel any negative emotion, because its uncomfortable, so they seek for ways to numb the feeling by over-eating, over-drinking, binge watching entertainment, or over-spending money. This ends up causing more negative emotion so they numb it out again and they get caught in a vicious cycle that leads down a path to self-loathing and regret.
A feeling is caused when neurons in the brain fire and signals are sent to somewhere in the body. They are felt as
vibrations to various degrees of intensity. That’s it. When you stop and actually feel these emotions, you realize it
doesn’t feel as bad as your brain is making it out to be. Each emotion has a different resonance and shows up in a specific way in your body. Your job is to learn what each emotion feels like it your body. Being aware of our emotions is important. It’s what allows us to gain more depth as a person and live a fuller life. What’s a life better than happy? Most definitely, a life fulfilled!
Want to learn more? Listen to the expanded version as I dive deeper into this topic and share stories and
examples on my podcast here.
