Emotionally intelligent

Day 74: Blackberries

I have this brilliant friend who was speaking to me the other day about emotionally intelligent. About living our lives from a standpoint of emotional intelligence, and the art of being present. One of the things I think is of the utmost importance is to understand and live with the feeling of our emotions. Most of our lives we are so busy trying to live in one emotion why feeling another emotion all together. When we do that it confuses our emotional state of wellbeing. Most of us when happy are so busy trying to guard our happiness so that no one sneaks in and takes it away that we don't actually live in the state of happiness. We instead live in the emotion of fear, or anxiety of it going, or being taking away from us by some outside source. It is much the same with grief. We are often so busy trying our best to be strong, or hide our feelings so that others want feel sad that we really don't feel our emotions and we then label ourselves with depressed or in despair.

Emotions are fluid they are designed to support up in our fluidity. So many times in life we are told to focus on the positive that we overlook that all emotions are good. It is our judgement and the judgement of others that make some emotions good and the others bad. Anger is an emotions that I speak about a great deal is Season so Change because it shows up in nature as well. Earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanos, can all be classified as natures way of expressing its emotions. The key is that nature shows us constantly that it is imperative that we allow our emotions to flow rather than trying to hold on to the ones we deemed as good and release the ones that we deem as bad. Anger is often labeled as a bad emotion, yet when we allow our emotions to flow it is often anger than allows us move from despair, to frustration, or regret. We do this by allowing the emotions to flow through us rather than trying to suppress them or hide them.

Much of western philosophy is suppression, or avoidance, which has caused a great many disasters or dis-ease of their own. I feel the sign of emotionally intelligence is when I am aware of the many emotions that I have an allow them to flow through my life. That it is usually my resistance to some emotions that actually pulls me off course. If I would allow myself to feel the emotion I would find that most often I move from one to another with ease and that it is quiet fluid. It is often despair that helps me to enjoy joy more. It is my sadness that allows me to embrace the heights of happiness. It is my willingness to experience the feeling at hand that allow me to become comfortable living within my own skin. Learning to embrace my emotions and allowing them to flow is actually how I start living in the first place. Yes, emotions with lower frequency can be scary and it may feel like we are going to get trapped within them forever. When in fact by allowing them fluidity of movement through our lives we allow ourselves to embrace the thorny parts so that when we get to the fruit of life it is all the sweeter in contrast. Much like the blackberry.

I love you,

Thank you,

Rev Allen