| | Where do we get the strength to do the things that we do? What drives us as a species? There is survival, of course. When cornered, whether physically by an assailant, or less dramatically by starvation, our insticts will push us to do whatever it takes. But what if things are ok? What if we have a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, clothes on our backs? What if we have more than that? Friends, money, a great place to live? Survival no longer exists as our primary motivating force. What then do we use to push ourselves, hard, towards the future that we want? Towards improvement in the face of immense hurtles? In the face of tremendous fear?
There is a depth inside of us, a well of power. It may be a dark well of fear, or anger, or even hatred, or if you are lucky, one of immense compassion and love. We all feel it sometimes. Something that touches us, brings us to tears. We may not even know why. Incredible beauty, a spark of memory, the words to a song that lifts us up, or burns in our hearts. To tap into this source is to feel a rush of energy with which you can do whatever you wish. You can bottle it up inside and store it, you can try to ignore it, let it flow out of you, channel it towards determination, for action, for change.
For a while now, I've used it to work out. It can get me out of bed at 6:30 in the morning when otherwise I'd sleep until 8. If I'm on the treadmill, and I feel my strength fading, that power exists inside of me to provide for that last push. For me it is my anger, my frustration, my memories that can be refocused.
Recently, I learned of another potential use for this - communicating. I spent many years trying not to emotionally expose myself to other people. I was always afraid that the anger I felt would drive others away because no one likes an angry person. But what I never understood was that emotion is just a form of energy, and that there is a difference between feeling anger or sadness as your emotional power, and being angry or sad yourself. Amazingly, the feelings of my past have forced me to involuntarily flex my emotional muscles. I've come to beleive that the opposing force to the negative feelings that I've always dwelled on is an equally strong ability to feel what most would consider positive emotions.
So, of late, I've been thinking about how this can be conveyed, silently, to others. You always hear that the eyes are the windows to the soul or some such nonsense. I always took for granted that this was just true, but that it was useless to me. Amazingly, it seems that you really can "think" at someone through your eyes, provided you have eye contact with them. What physically happens there may be limited - the only thing your eyes can really do is look in different directions, expand and contract your pupils, tear up, and blink. Perhaps there is some huge range of other subtle cues that we can detect, the wrinkling of a forehead, the stress in someone's shoulders, the relaxed hang of a jawbone. But it seems that its the eyes that anchor us to all these things. A stream of invisible energy shooting out, with a message inside, meant only for us, as we lock eyes with that person, in that moment.
So then, what does "well up" as in "strong emotions welled up" really mean? How do we find it and access it?
My question to you would be: What makes you cry? |
| | Posted 2/5/2008 6:27 PM - 83 Views - 2 eProps - 3 comments
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