During my Vipassana meditation, I heard a distinction that I hadn’t come across before. Well, at least, not in this way.
When we start doing the process of internal healing, we are often called to action by the overpowering feeling of our fears and anxieties.
Through this work, we learn to better understand these feelings. Further down on the journey we also learn that these emotions are actually our own creation. The external events may be the prompts, but it’s the way that we give them meaning and power that really prompts the emotion.
For example, A knock on the door in of itself does not create fear. But if a knock on the door is associated with a stressful event, for example a room inspection or an altercation with a parent, it is this association which makes it anxiety inducing.
This was a concept that I felt I understood pretty well. Yet what I also heard was pleasant feelings can also create suffering too.
‘But surely, feeling nice is good?’
Yet it was here that I learnt something that has dramatically and permanently improved my mental wellbeing.
So what was the revelation? That when we want something so bad that we would feel bad or disappointed if we do not get that thing, we create a new condition for our misery.
For example, we can get so caught up in the fantasy of something we desire in the future. A new job, moving to a new place, or dating that special someone in our mind.
When we start drifting off into this land of fantasy, we start creating conditions where we see our salvation in having that thing. We start basing our life’s happiness on whether we will get that thing or not.
The signs of this are when we start saying ‘when I will get…., thenI will be happy’.
The problem with this is two fold. Firstly, it takes us away from the present. We stop paying attention to our current life because we are so busy living in this future dream world. We are no longer paying attention to the nice things we have sitting right in front of us.
Secondly, we create an enormous amount of pain for ourselves when we do not get the thing that we want. We start questioning ourselves, and whether there is something wrong with us. We start even considering that maybe we weren’t meant to be happy. We are not ‘one of the lucky ones’.
I realise that this is something that I’ve been doing throughout my whole life. Most recently, I noticed how I was creating my own misery around my weight. I was on the right path – exercising more and experimenting with my diet. Yet the moment I started looking at my weight and fantasising about when I would be thinner and look better, it killed all the joy out of the progress I had made.
Seeing this shift has made quite a dramatic change already. Already, I do feel a lot happier in my body. I’m not pushing myself too hard, risking injury as well as getting myself more frustrated. And I’m also not spending an enormous amount of mental energy around the topic anymore. Instead, I’m just more calm and happy. The additional effect is also that I’m now eating and sleeping better, which also helps me in my goal.
Once we realise this distinction, it becomes far more visible when we start doing it. Over time, and with practice, we become more disciplined at stopping ourselves down that path of inquiry. It is like the way that we learn to no longer pick at a scab – we realise that we’re actually doing far more harm in the long run.
The course described these as mental defilements – created through our aversions of unpleasant emotions, and cravings for positive emotions.
It is important to state that this is not saying that you cannot need or want things. There are certain basic things that we need for our survival. Food, clothes, companionship. And desiring things is perfectly fine too – indeed it is good to have a prompt to want to better our lives, for example.
But the danger arises when we become absorbed to an idea that we must have these things to enjoy our life right now. It creates an attachment to a non-existent reality, and takes us further away from living in the now.
My sense is that my life feels a lot more in sync now that I have gained the balance around these cravings and aversions. I can feel and see that things are going to move quite quickly for me now towards the things I want in life.
Indeed, I believe that when we feel stuck, this is the solution to de-block ourselves and strive forwards towards our life path. It’s what I’m now bringing towards my clients, and looking to create workshops around.
If you want to shift your life from a space of unhappiness to one of peace and happiness, this will be the key.