We live for many years denying our emotions.
We hear from our caregivers, parents, teachers: “Don’t cry, you’re not in pain.”
But when we’re sad, we want to cry, not because we’re hurting physically, but because we’re hurting inside.
Emotions must be lived. We live in constant pursuit of happiness. But life is not always a bed of roses. This is not funny at all. Living happily ever after must be pretty boring.
We live in a society, with people who are completely different from each other. We often come across people who work in a bad mood and serve us with extreme ignorance and rudeness and this is actually her problem, but it affects us. We were also irritated.
Do you imagine yourself working with what you don’t like?
It’s very bad!!!! You don’t even want to get out of bed the next day.
People who do what they love are more fulfilled, even with the normal challenges of our busy lives.
Our life these days is very fast, when we realize that we are already at the end of the year, again. And our resolutions from late last year? Can we reach them?
Ahhhh, we want to be happy. All the time.
But what about sadness, anger, fear, disgust? Other basic emotions of our life. They also have to exist, and so when something very good happens, when we live a very happy period, we appreciate that moment and cling to it, keep it in our memory.
Sad moments are also remembered. They are memories, they are moments, we all live good and not so good moments in life.
Ever heard of a movie called Inside Out? It’s a cartoon of a little girl and her emotions living inside her head.
This film was requested by the Dalai Lama by two Buddhist psychologists and teachers Allan Wallace and Paul Eckman.
Paul Eckman has studied emotions for years, and his daughter Eve Eckman has followed in her footsteps and works with her father, bringing people quality of life through self-awareness, especially understanding our emotions.
Allan Wallace is considered one of the happiest people in the world. Originally he was a Buddhist monk and every Buddhist seeks the cessation of suffering. He wrote the book “True Happiness”.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama wanted to bring information about experiencing our emotions to the masses, so they decided that the best way would be through a movie and nothing better than a Disney animation to reach a large number of people .
The film takes place inside the brain of a little girl.
I will make a strategic stop here.
If you haven’t seen the movie, stop reading, get cozy on the couch, with a big cup of popcorn and soda and watch it, then go back and read the rest of the column, because Spoilers are coming.
I watch this movie every time I start a new Mindfulness Program and I notice different things each time.
Back to the movie: it takes place inside the brain of a baby named Riley Anderson. The five basic emotions live there: Joy (Joy), Sadness (Sadness), Fear (Fear), Nerdhya (Disgust) and Anger (Anger).
There are marbles that are the little girl’s memories and every night the marbles are kept in order. Polka dots have the colors of emotions: yellow for joy, blue for sadness, purple for fear, green for disgust and red for anger. The prevailing emotion is joy, after all it is a baby, it does not know time, present, past and future, it has few obligations in life, in short the magical years of early childhood.
Several personality worlds are created: Family; toys; Friendship; School, and so on. Alegria doesn’t understand the existence of sadness, she can’t understand what Sadness’s role is in that baby’s life, and throughout most of the movie Alegria tries to prevent sadness from getting close to the Control Panel that runs the life of the little girl.
This is exactly what we do in our lives, we try to keep sadness away from us.
Because?
Sadness has a function, when we are sad we open up to others, we let them welcome us, protect us, embrace us, take care of us.
Sadness does not last long, it is a fleeting emotion, because soon someone comes and brings us joy.
In the film, Alegria realizes this almost at the end, and together Alegria and Sadness save the girl from experiencing one of the most critical moments of her short existence: Puberty.
The control panel of the child’s mind almost triples in size.
Now, she already has a sense of time, space, right or wrong, good or bad, and so on.
I advise you to watch the movie Argetim and then RED, another movie that talks about emotions.
Take stock of your moments of sadness and remember the people who welcomed you, who were with you.
Fear is also very important, without fear we would cross the road without even seeing if a car is coming or not.
Our basic emotions must be experienced. Do not deny their existence. If you need to hug yourself, hug yourself. Don’t let anyone belittle your feelings and emotions.
I invite you to use an Instagram template to make a photo like mine.
Make your five basic emotion “faces” and your normal “faces”.
Tag me when you do.
Say hello to yourself every morning, FIVE yourself in the bathroom or bedroom mirror to get your day off to the right start, regardless of your mood.
I hope you are happy and healthy and free from suffering.
Until the next column.
