I've noticed...that just because something doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t mean it’s bad.
A couple of nights ago, I felt very flat emotionally, perhaps even depleted — in other words, I didn't feel good. This was likely a result of an intensive two-day self-discovery process I had just completed. I expected (or, perhaps, was just hoping) to come out on a high. So, it was easy for me to feel that this flatness was something bad (disappointing, confused, a problem, etc.).
As I elected to just observe (and not fix) what I was feeling, a metaphor came to mind. What If...it would be more accurate to describe the experience of the two things (intensity / flatness) like the ebb and flow of a tide?
Certainly, a tide of emotions had rolled in for two full days and there was really no more space left to be filled. So, as all of that continued to move, at this point perhaps more of a kind of retreat, it looked like just a bunch of open space...like nothing was left (of the emotion or of what had caused it). By comparison, it might even feel like something bad had happened, in the sense that it appeared that now there was nothing there. But, really there was a lot there, for one thing...space. A space had been created in fact, by the discovery of many wonderful things. They weren't gone; they had just receded into another place or another shape for an appropriate period time.
Emotions are indicators — important ones even — designed to detect certain kinds of things. How or what we feel is an indication of something, of something that has or is happening. But, these indications, aren't the only things that are happening. The things these indications are pointing to are also there (in both times of flowing or ebbing).
So, just because something doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact, it could just be the most natural indication that what is alive in me IS still active and moving in my life.
