CASTING OF EMOTIONS

I’ve already expressed here an idea that I think is central to any internal alignment/grounding ambition: our emotions are much more a reflex of our thinking, than they are of the practical context where they occur.

Therefore, everyone already experienced quite different responses to relatively identical situations. A familiar phrase, an identical traffic queue, an analogous situation of distressful deadlines and, almost paradoxically, we had totally different reactions. Sometimes we reacted more towards neurosis, other times it was merely fun. We say “it depends on the mood”. Yes, because a calm spirit allows us to absorb a lot more, and an insecure spirit fires great reactivity and will of control.

I see emotions as characters in some sort of casting, candidates to our attention. Entering the stage, one by one, they play their role, entitled to a set, sound, lights and special effects, overall, an atmosphere. And we become mentally associated with what’s aroused by that performance. A fear or a discussion, and the stage will become tenebrous, dark and loud. Tension, and the space shrinks between claustrophobic walls, we want to run away from our seat. But soon after another candidate enters the stage, acting a peaceful landscape, or a smiling baby, immersed in a profound peace and innocence, and pink tones and sea and flowers waving in a soft breeze, while birds sing, appear.

Backstage, waiting in line, there are thousands of characters ready to enter the stage! Each one with it’s own emotion, some repeated, some new, all candidates to the judges’ involvement. It’s like the initial part of “American Idol”, if they like it they let the scene roll over for sometime and maybe even want to see him again in the next phase. When the performance is really bad, they cut it early on and call in the next, with renewed curiosity: this one didn’t fit, I wonder what comes next.

When we invest too much energy trying to control who can and who cannot enter the competition, we take the risk of losing perspective and focus. We want to not let bad characters in and to limit the casting only to the good ones, but that is not possible. Nor desirable, I say. And if we try, the system starts to tangle. Everything piles up at the reception. Some candidates are outraged, it’s necessary to create some order by all means necessary and what was supposed to be a fluid session with highs and lows becomes a mess hard to tame, and that doesn’t mean it’s more pleasant.

We don’t have to act on the candidates list. We don’t have to make a great effort in that point. Lets allow for every applying candidate to enter the competition. Because we have values, we can and should quickly dispatch the bad moments, and to give ourselves with pleasure to the good moments. But, good or bad, it’s in the present moment itself that we truly live. Lets not rise from the experience chair to go backstage, to manipulate, to pre-select. Because that will only reduce the amplitude of our experience and give too much importance and concern to what we don’t want to experience.

And how can we calmly wait for the storms that are closing in on the stage? Knowing that is all just a theatre, and that, for sure, there is always peace at the candidates line. So, on this account, keep a mere curiosity for what is coming...

Gonçalo Gil Mata