Jelaluddin Rumi
In the 13th century a now famous Sufi poet – Jelaluddin Rumi wrote a poem entitled The Guest House in which he claimed that “This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.” Rumi went on to encourage us to welcome them and entertain them all because each is sent as a guide or teacher.
Truly our feelings are our sixth sense. Feelings clarify, arrange, prioritize and direct the other five senses. Feelings are a guide for interpreting your experience. Another way to think about feelings is they provide psychological feedback for your consideration. How and whether you process this feedback makes you unique. That’s why no two people have the same experience. We process life so differently. The secret lesson in learning to maturely manage your life is to be open and honest with your feelings at all times. It’s your faulty pattern of dealing with feelings on a day-to-day basis that causes most of the difficulty in your life.
By way of analogy, feelings are the cat’s whiskers. A cat was not given feelings as we are they were given whiskers. Whiskers tell the cat where it is in proximity to life, much in the way our feeling do for us, but only if we are available to them. Cutting off your feelings is tantamount to cutting off a cat’s whiskers. You finish the sentence; how easy is it to navigate your course in life without navigational aids?
Fear, anger, joy, contentment, anxiety, and depression are examples of feeling. Have you ever heard, or perhaps thought to yourself, that certain feelings are negative? The truth is feelings are not positive or negative. Those who teach such nonesense do not understand the nature of this most human experience. Feelings are true or false, not positive or negative. You either feel the way you do or you don’t, true or false, never positive or negative, good or bad, right or wrong.
In the article entitled, “Don’t Believe Everything They Told You,” I asked whether you believe what is true or what you have been persuaded to believe is true? Part of what it means to grow up and not just old is learning to think for yourself and not believe everything others told you.
If you believe that feelings are to be shared, you believe what you were taught to a fault. Feelings are to be felt not shared. Sharing doesn’t make them any more legitimate. Feelings are one way we communicate with ourselves. We usually think twice before sharing our other five senses. The only person who needs to know how you feel is you, every minute, every day. What you choose to do with what you experience is what makes you unique.
When you use words to describe what you experience you are managing your feelings and experience, rather than experiencing them. As valuable as communication can be, it can also distance you from your experience, just as too much talk from other people distances us from them. Feelings are an experience you are having with your life. Be there. Allow your life experience to affect you so that others can participate in your life.