Here is a surprise.

I just recently realized that I have attached too much importance to emotions and feelings.

All my life I have withdrawn when I perceived my feelings to be hurt. That was so unnecessary in light of the next sentence.

Having experienced similar emotional states with different people, I suddenly realized that the emotion had nothing to do with the other person and everything to do with MY emotional reactions.

In other words, emotions are not person specific, unless that person is one’s self.

I have felt the same kind of emotion in different situations with different people. That realization has helped me to understand that the emotion did not have to do with that other person, it only had to do with my feeling response.

We associate feelings of love, anger, hurt, envy, etc. to a particular person, but in fact, that is an illusion. Those feelings are part of ourselves, our own experiences.

We (erroneously) attach emotions to other people. Then we think that person is the object of a particular feeling. We begin to associate that person with the feeling in question.

Then when we need an emotional fix, we like to get it from that person, thinking that person makes us feel this or that.

Not true.

I’m now thinking that emotions should be something interesting to watch as they go past. Sort of like looking up at the sky and watching the clouds float past. Constantly changing, something to enjoy looking at, but definitely outside of oneself.

If I attach great meaning to emotions and feelings, life becomes more difficult, more turbulent and actually less real. The emotion becomes a dominant factor instead of just a cloud to watch as it floats past.

Comments? (comment below)

- Dave

PS. I believe that ultimately I found this out about myself as a result of reading a book called Zhuan Falun Check it out, I recommend it highly.

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