{PandaMomo Lifestory} "shining as a star ...life is a never-ending journey of discovery learning"

07 June 2007

Awareness... Understanding My Feelings

As I read this book 'Live the Life You Love', valuable lessons are gained.

'The young man who has not wept is a savage and the old man who will not laugh is a fool."
- George Santayana

Well, I am definitely young, but has often wept during tough and challenging times. Times of sorrows and struggles.

"By starving emotions, we become humourless, rigid and sterotyped; by repressing them we become literal, reformatory and holier-than-thou; encouraged, they perfume life; discouraged, they poison it." - Joseph Collins

Feelings play a special role in the journey toward the life I will love. They serve as a compass that will guide you toward the right goals, but they can also gather up into a heavy burden that can stop you. Because behind everything you do, or avoid doing, are your feelings. If you find you are often stopping yourself, of if you don't know what direction to take or what you really want, all you have to do is listen to and understand your feelings.

The KEY is LISTEN to MY FEELINGS.

What can FEELINGS do for me?
1. Guide me. Acts as a compass, directing me toward what I love.
2. Connect me to others. Gives a sense of belonging to the human race. I love children, need security, enjoy a certain amount of adventure; like everyone else, I can be hurt by unkindness or tickled by a good joke.
3. Distinguish me from others. My reactions and preferences are uniquely mine, made known by my feelings.
As Confucious says, "The wise person listens to everyone and thanks them for their opinion. Then he sends them away and does what he thinks best."

4. Intituitive --> When I know how I feel, I know what others are feeling too. Be emotionally wide open. Keep my feelings wide open.
5. Signal problems --> feelings call out when I need to take care of myself
Unhappiness or hurt draws my attention to a problem that needs fixing, just like physical pain sends me to a doctor.
Uneasiness tells me to be careful.
Happiness shows that I have done the right thing.
Feelings give instant feedback about the world, by sending off alarms when I am in danger and calming down when it's past.

5. Being aware of my feelings makes me patient with myself and others.
When I understand and admit all my feelings, I realise that perfection is impossible. It's good to be tolerant of imperfection just because it's always a good idea to accept reality - even if I am trying to change it.

Naming MY FEELINGS into 5 categories...
1) HAPPINESS
Characteristics: Total exhilaration, comfortable calm & a sense that nothing's missing

2) FEAR
When my system senses danger, real or imagined. Happens when I feel a little blank or not as comfortable as I like to be.
Characteristics: My feelings freeze, feel numb, my behaviour becomes unpredictable and unreliable. Feel scared but don't know why.
Uneasiness, apprehension or dread.

3) PAIN
Painful emotions that ranges from agony to wistfulness. Moved/ touched = sweetness + pain
Hurt feelings from someone being unkind to me and anything that register as loss causes pain.
Emotional & Physical pain tend to be mixed. We often cover pain with fear: we go blank or feel anxious when we should be feeling hurt.

4) ANGER
Characteristics: Rage, irritation, impatience or frustration.
Happens usually when I feel combative or stubborn, when I want to tease someone in an unkind way.
Anger is rarely pure. Often, I am only angry on the surface while right underneath it I am very hurt. Sometimes I am angry because I am frightened and I either resent the person frightening me or I choose to feel angry because it makes me feel stronger.

But occasionally, anger is nothing but anger without any pain or fear in it at all. --> "Identity Anger" = "I exist. I count. And I've had enough of this!"

5) MISCELLANEOUS
Hybrids of feelings: jealousy (rage + pain), guilt (painful regret+ anger) & embarassment (pleasure + shame)
To choose guilt when I had no power to change things is a way of avoiding the more painful and frightening feeling that I am truly helpless.
"Good guilt" is a civilised feeling. It's pain and shame at having hurt someone who didn't deserve it and the discomfort of this feeling can push me to make amends and behave differently in the future.

FUN is going after what I want and meeting new people and making discoveries and fashioning things never seen before and learning things I don't know. Excitement is half joy and half fear.

Popeye's affirmation, "I am what I am, and that's all I am." Simply, take it or leave it.

- Live & LOVE

- Don't look for trouble

- Handle trouble when it comes

* To work with feelings, you must use feelings.

* Unexpressed feelings are toxic.

* Express feelings = discharge the toxics that built up inside

= turn a bad feeling into a good one i.e. let a negative feeling have its moment of release so that it can lighten up & change itself.

Irreverance aka Rebelliousness = declaration of independence & it announces that you have a mind of your own. It is a triumph for freedom loving spirit.

My Affirmations

* I am not missing anything at all.

* I am a complete & superb emotional package.

* I was born that way.

* Take a good look at my rich & colourful interior.

-> Understand my disturbances --> Find out what makes me happy

Clear the Decks for Action

"Disorder & procrastination help avoid boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do. " - Anonymous

Clutters: a tribute to indecision

Live the life I love ... what I must do...

1) Don't let my life be hopelessly crowded with obligations

2) Make space/ coom for a wish to come true

3) Let my dreams have a place to perch on my tree

PASSION is hot stuff!

It excludes everything else & burns out fast. Do work we love. Wrong emotional measuring stick for good life.

Need for passion comes from an aching emptines in the heart.

Instead, contentment combined with lots of steady energy for work that is absorbing.

UNCOVER MY GIFTS

"A champion runner doesn't even know he's in a race. He runs because he loves it." - Anonymous

*Gifts = genetic potential that needs to be developed. Simply, developing talent.

Ways to uncover my gifts

1) Track what I loved

2) The Shock of Reality

* Put imagination into action/ reality, everything changes.

Step 1: What I love

I LOVE TO CARE & SHARE. I love to teach. I love to take photographs, admiring God's creation. I love to cycle at East Coast Park. I love to play badminton. I love to spend time with my dear ones ... family and friends. I love to do handicrafts to give to my loved ones.

Step 2: What I loved most

Step 3: Themes : Freedom & independence

Step 4: My Fabulous Career ... as a GTM (Great Teacher Monica) & PJ (photo-journalist) Take it to the LIMIT

Step 5: 5 years later ... as a photo journalist

Step 6: Another 5 years later... back as a GTM with great photo-journalist skills to be used in teaching...

* Have a habit of enjoying myself with small, potent bits of experience.

* Small joys that come from the heart.

* GIGANTIC difference between thinking about something & actually doing it.

** Leap from THOUGHT to ACTION!

* Swing into ACTION!

* Stop resisting!

Idleness comes in 3 forms: Laziness, Lack of Character & Baseness of my nature

*Resistance saps my energy. It's a bodyguard taht runs my life. Primitive safety mechanism.

Disguises of RESISTANCE

1) You think you are too busy

2) You are probably lazy

3) Maybe you don't really want it badly enough

4) You suddenly get bored

5) You have more important things to attend to.

What do I do when resistance stops me from going after a dream?

1) Find the smallest unit I'm willing to do & do it

2) If I can't do, take a stand & refuse to do anything everyday

3) Find something I love in this unit & love it with all my heart

4a) Protect myself from forgetting by setting up external triggers to remind myself

4b) If I forget to do all the above, start up again once I remember.

Most importantly, Go After my GOALS with a watchful eye on resistance - with a heart full of LOVE.

12:07 pm;