Thoughts
So I went to Korea for a holiday for 2 weeks which was amazing. The contrast of me there and me here in Ireland is black and white to be honest. There's a lot to write about the experiences of that vacation but I just want to write about a thought I had on the plane going to Incheon.
I was reading Robert Greens book, Mastery and, not that it's directly related, reading his books makes me self reflect a lot. And as I was reading, a thought came to me.
"What if the deeper feelings we have inside like frustration, anxiety, depression are just our soul's way of communicating to us the same way a baby cries to it's parents?"
When a baby cries, it doesn't necessarily mean it's sad. It's calling for attention before he/she has learned a language. Parent's over time have learned to differentiate between cries for attention, food, or actual distress and pain. To a non-parent, such as myself, this language is lost on me.
I think, similarly, the soul is the baby and the conscious me is the parent. In this dynamic, the baby is the most important. Without a happy and healthy baby, it's impossible for the parent to be happy.
For the longest time in my life, the way I treated my soul is the same way my parents treated me, ie. "We're just going to do what the conscious me decided (based on what other people told me to do) and that's the plan for us (conscious me and soul me)." And when soul me didn't like what was going on too much, I would get down, sad/depressed/frustrated (my souls way of 'crying' saying 'this isn't what's really good for us'), I would just ignore the message and drown out bad feelings with escapism like gaming, drinking, smoking. Even to just acknowledge that I felt down or depressed at some stage, which everyone does, felt stigmatising, as if it's a sign I'm a bad person or something.
But when using the parent and child analogy, it's the same as saying 'Your child cries sometimes? You're a bad parent.'
So, thinking of these emotions as a communication from my soul to by consciousness, it's easier to separate them from my identity and any kind of stigma.
In Korea for 2 weeks, I was so happy and so busy. I was hanging out and meeting so many people. I lost weight, on my holiday! I was really supported and cared for.
In Ireland, I'm depressed. I want to sleep all day and just let the time pass. I'm criticised and disregarded daily by my family. I feel like a fraction of the person I am in Korea.
It's easier to endure this depression knowing that this is just my soul's way of saying, "You really don't belong here. We need to go, now!"
To be able to properly separate the emotions from my feelings, I think I need to develop a more stoic personality. Just because I have these negative emotions doesn't mean that I have to react to them. They are a communication, a feedback loop only. They are not the measure of your worth and are not part of your identity.
Ah... writing this is just trying to convince myself really. But, I guess it's good to keep records of the darkest blacks and the whitest whites so that the picture in-between can show a lot of depth.
I was reading Robert Greens book, Mastery and, not that it's directly related, reading his books makes me self reflect a lot. And as I was reading, a thought came to me.
"What if the deeper feelings we have inside like frustration, anxiety, depression are just our soul's way of communicating to us the same way a baby cries to it's parents?"
When a baby cries, it doesn't necessarily mean it's sad. It's calling for attention before he/she has learned a language. Parent's over time have learned to differentiate between cries for attention, food, or actual distress and pain. To a non-parent, such as myself, this language is lost on me.
I think, similarly, the soul is the baby and the conscious me is the parent. In this dynamic, the baby is the most important. Without a happy and healthy baby, it's impossible for the parent to be happy.
For the longest time in my life, the way I treated my soul is the same way my parents treated me, ie. "We're just going to do what the conscious me decided (based on what other people told me to do) and that's the plan for us (conscious me and soul me)." And when soul me didn't like what was going on too much, I would get down, sad/depressed/frustrated (my souls way of 'crying' saying 'this isn't what's really good for us'), I would just ignore the message and drown out bad feelings with escapism like gaming, drinking, smoking. Even to just acknowledge that I felt down or depressed at some stage, which everyone does, felt stigmatising, as if it's a sign I'm a bad person or something.
But when using the parent and child analogy, it's the same as saying 'Your child cries sometimes? You're a bad parent.'
So, thinking of these emotions as a communication from my soul to by consciousness, it's easier to separate them from my identity and any kind of stigma.
In Korea for 2 weeks, I was so happy and so busy. I was hanging out and meeting so many people. I lost weight, on my holiday! I was really supported and cared for.
In Ireland, I'm depressed. I want to sleep all day and just let the time pass. I'm criticised and disregarded daily by my family. I feel like a fraction of the person I am in Korea.
It's easier to endure this depression knowing that this is just my soul's way of saying, "You really don't belong here. We need to go, now!"
To be able to properly separate the emotions from my feelings, I think I need to develop a more stoic personality. Just because I have these negative emotions doesn't mean that I have to react to them. They are a communication, a feedback loop only. They are not the measure of your worth and are not part of your identity.
Ah... writing this is just trying to convince myself really. But, I guess it's good to keep records of the darkest blacks and the whitest whites so that the picture in-between can show a lot of depth.