Do you know the difference between a feeling and an emotion? You don’t? I hadn’t, until recently.
So I would have never thought of asking this question prior to reading Margoczi’s books, Feelings and Words a few years ago.
Before, I learned in Landmark Education that regret, remorse, resentment, the ‘infamous’ three R’s are useless, and harmful.
But today I dare to differ.
- These feelings may be useless if you are unwilling to take responsibility for what the feelings signal.
- These feelings may be useless or harmful if you make them your mood for life… pretending that you are THE victim… You were never a victim, although you may have had abuse, misuse, or failures in your life. In fact, in most likelihood, you were a perpetrator! That is what the feeling is indicating. All 3 r’s.
What makes you a victim (also called an effect) is the unwillingness to take responsibility for what belongs to you…
That unwillingness to take responsibility is what triggers more abuse, make you go back for more abuse. This is what fuels the invisible dynamic we call ‘the racket’.
I watched this video on youtube this morning and had an intense feeling of regret. My eyes teared up.
I have been guilty of judgment, the black and white judgment the video talks about.
The regret was, is guiding me to be mindful of how unfair and unjust judging is…
I see that it is often more harmful to me, the judge, than to the other person, the judged. It makes me, the judge, hate myself. Punish myself. Feel disgust for myself. A disproportionately high price to pay for a moment of glee… when I judge.
Very useful. I can now use that feeling, REGRET, as a guidance… thank you. One more tool in my toolbox to walk the strait and narrow.
Here is another one: I finally lost a front upper tooth. It has been misbehaving for about 50 years: 50 years ago I fell on my face at a New Year’s party and two front teeth got chipped. I laughed covering my face for weeks after that. A crown… and no more gap-tooth smile… But for the past ten years that tooth was wiggling… and finally it decided to let go. 🙁
Now, in my 70’s: I can’t see how I am going to have it filled in with a fake tooth… so, at least for a while, I will have to be seen as a person who can’t or won’t get their smile fixed. And I smile an awful lot… I was thinking of taping my mouth for my public appearances, like I tape it for sleeping… lol.
Will I? We’ll see in a few hours: it is Tuesday, it is group exercise time… And the guiding feeling is fear.
I know this fear. Fearing what others will say about me… just like I say about them.
I have been different all my life, a square peg not fitting the round hole… but now I am going to be a damaged square peg… Can I handle society’s disgust, judgment of me? Am I OK with me, missing tooth and all?
It’s decision time. In this decision I will either strengthen who I am, or weaken it. The Self…
Here is how I see it: I am OK with being different from others, but that doesn’t excuse me from being in harmony with life, do what works, and do little or none of the things that don’t… even if everybody does it around me. So can I be in harmony with life with missing a front tooth?
So as I promised I went to my exercise class… and I was OK. The interesting thing was: nobody said anything.
They averted their glances from my mouth…
Ugh, they reacted just like people yesterday: They weren’t even opening my article that asked them, yesterday: are you weak?. Or they ‘ignored’ my invitation to a chat about what prevents them from wanting to have win-win communication with their family.
Moreover, I think that in today’s age, with today’s humanity, no one has to worry about what other people think of you… they don’t think of you. They only think of themselves. (if this is familiar, it is straight out of The Fountainhead… lol)
I have been looking for guidance, living by some guidance all my life… it is not easy to distinguish if a nudge is a guidance or a push off the cliff.
Today’s humanity, YOU, are taught to heed the push off the cliff… Not the guidance push.
You may want to grow some balls.
But how do you grow some balls? The way you grow anything: from a seed, slowly, patiently, committedly.
Do I teach that? I do teach that… Where? What course?
In the Playground… In the Instant Coherence course… in the Carrot and Stick… I have 26 courses to teach it…
OK, confession time: In the courses themselves I teach you what to do, how to do it, but that is not enough. That is why all my courses come with an email coaching offer. Email coaching where we talk, one on one, in email… I often talk audio back… People find that hearing my voice makes the communication cut through their bullshit.
Because what is in the way is your bullshit… nothing else.
What is your bullshit you ask? Your propensity to look away when what you see is not pleasant…
Like the people in my exercise class… lol. not funny.
