Emotional beings

The reading from my morning meditation book this morning was all about finding a spider in your home and instead of killing it catching it and releasing it outside. Initially I thought that was fucking stupid, for one it’s winter in SD so finding a spider in here right now will be next to impossible, secondly if I set him outside right now he’ll freeze to death anyway, and thirdly fuck that I hate spiders. It wasn’t until I meditated that it actually made sense. The book doesn’t mean literally find a spider and free him what it meant was don’t let your first emotional response dictate your actions. We as human beings are emotion beings, but that doesn’t mean we have to let our emotions control us. Let me give you an example, my first reaction to many situations is anger, white hot, break your teeth back anger. Now most of you are probably thinking that’s a bit extreme, but that’s how I lived most my life up until this point. I was the type of person that would try to fist fight the construction worker that cat called me while walking downtown. Anger was almost always my go to emotion. How dare you do something that makes me feel anything other than happy, I’m going to physically hurt you because I don’t understand how to cope with my own feelings. In case y’all aren’t aware anger is a secondary emotion that’s usually masking another emotion that we aren’t emotionally mature enough to process so we act it out in the only way we’ve learned how. Instead of “what you said really hurt my feelings”, I would generally start crying, feel really stupid for bursting into tears, try really hard to resist the urge to punch you in the mouth for saying something that hurt my feelings and making look stupid for crying in public and then I’d go sit in the bathroom for 45 minutes ugly crying and plotting your death. I hope everyone can see where that is entirely fucked up. For one the person most likely wasn’t trying to hurt my feelings, for two they definitely weren’t expecting me to burst into tears, three they’re probably super confused about the entire situation, four they absolutely don’t deserve to be physically assaulted because I don’t know how to handle my own emotions, and five (this is the most important one) NO ONE MAKES YOU FEEL ANY TYPE OF WAY. I mean it! No one can make you do or feel anything (unless it’s a hostage situation), your feelings and actions are completely within your own control. Words are literally that, just words. Some words might hurt your feelings, some words you may disagree with, but words from others don’t affect how you feel; you do. If someone called me a wet napkin, I might be a bit confused, but I’m not going to let it ruin my day because I know that I’m absolutely not a wet napkin. Now if someone called me a dumb bitch, I’d have to walk away and readdress that with a level head. Why? Because I would need to cool off, re-center and talk to the person about how I let that affect me. See things that we let affect our mood are generally things that are subconsciously part of our own internal mantra. “That hurt my feelings a lot because deep down I know that isn’t true, but for a long time this is how I felt about myself and it makes me sad to think that this is how you see me”. There’s a huge difference there. Own your own feelings, express why those words made you feel that way, talk it out and move on. Different people are controlled by different emotions; anger, fear, whatever it may be let it go. Letting your emotions dictate your actions is only holding you back. Take the time to think about what you’re going to say or do before you do it, walk away if you have to. But words said out of initial emotional reaction cannot be taken back and we often don’t mean them we just want you to feel as badly as we do at that moment and you’ll regret it later. Don’t live your life based on regret, out of fear, or in a rage. Try to understand why you’re feeling the way you are and vocalize it, work through your issues so you don’t stay stuck in them and pass them onto others. Everyone deserves love, kindness, and understanding. Be kind and patient with yourself and others. We are emotional beings, but we are in control.