It’s Your Fault That You Feel Bad! February 14, 2007
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Consciousness, Emotions, Gratitude, Personal Growth, Psychology, Beliefs , 2 comments
It’s your fault that your inconsiderate boss irritates you. It’s your fault that you felt sad and abandoned when your girl/boyfriend left you. It’s your fault that you get angry in traffic jams. It’s your fault that you feel hurt about what others say to you. It’s your fault that you get depressed when you are diagnosed with cancer.
And yes, it’s all your fault that you feel offended and shocked about what you’re reading right now.
Nobody likes to get told that their thinking is wrong. Nobody likes to tell themselves that their thinking is wrong. And here I am doing exactly these two things in hopes that you break free from the internal chains of your own faulty mind. A snowball’s chance in hell, right?
It’s time for you to take control over your emotions. However, there is only one way of doing so and it starts with this revelation - that it’s your fault that you feel negative emotions inside of you. You want proof? The proof is inside you and it looks like you needed somebody to remind you of it. Yes, it’s time for you to stop playing the blame game and take full responsibility over what goes on inside your mind. And when you do so, the truth will set you free and give you unlimited power to create whatever state of mind you wish.
The first step is the most difficult one and it is exactly what I’m talking about here. Many people live their whole lives never truly getting it. Which means that you can consider yourself a very fortunate and happy person if you have already internalized what I want you to tell yourself.
Here’s the thing. No circumstance has the power to create, change, manipulate or control your emotions. No other human being has the power to create, change, manipulate or control your emotions. I can not control what you’re feeling right now, thousands of miles away in the form of digital bits that show up as a pixels on your screen that make up this text you’re reading. And neither can anyone you know either, no matter in what form they are communicating with you. If you think this statement is false, then you’re bound to live the life of a drone, walking around blaming the universe for your emotions. That doesn’t sound like a good fate for you now does it?
And oh my goodness what a liberating moment it is for you once you truly realize this!
Because the second and last step is simply choosing for yourself what kind of emotions you’ll start feeling. You are the unbeatable master of your own reality! You create, change, manipulate and control whatever you choose to feel. And if you’ve gone this far, I assume you’re a person smart enough to choose positive emotions from now on.
You realize how happy you are for not being as inconsiderate as your boss is. You feel good about your partner leaving you because it proves you that it wasn’t meant to be. You feel calm when you realize that you can’t control traffic. You understand that it’s your own level of self-esteem that defines how other people’s words affect you. You feel humbled about getting cancer because it teaches you to appreciate life and gives you the greatest challenge you’ve ever faced.
And yes, you feel good about what you’re reading right now because you internalize that I’m writing this to set you free - not to mock your thought patterns.
Are you still blaming external sources for what you feel or are you starting to realize how powerful your mind truly is in creating your own reality?
(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
Empathy or Equanimity? February 1, 2007
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Consciousness, Communication, Emotions, Society, Personal Growth, Philosophy, Relationships, Beliefs, Abilities , 5 comments
I was recently faced with yet another new challenge of battling two concepts against each other and introspectively seeking out an answer on which one is better, if both are good or if neither of them are. It seems that this is what I do and it goes to show by the articles I’ve written so far. So let’s break it down into details and see if we can find a reasonable answer.
Empathy is the ability to listen to a troubled individual and literally opening your mind up so that all the problems, worries, negative emotions, traumas and anxiety can flow into you. You literally feel the pain as you balance the garbage so that the other person starts to feel better when the weight gets transferred off their shoulders and onto yours. This is basically what therapy is about, or starts out as. Therapy Doc Linda Freedman posted a great analysis of it.
Equanimity is then exactly the opposite of empathy as it’s an inner state of total deflection from external negativity, misery and nuisances. This means that whatever inner emotional state you are in is very stable, completely of your own making and other people’s misfortunes or troubles don’t mean anything to you on a mental/emotional level. Comedy and Humor blogger Andrew Brunelle wrote a more in-depth post about this state on his blog.
A quick overview of these two concepts makes you think that empathy is service to others while equanimity is service to self. But is it that black and white?
The pros of empathy is that people will love to seek you out and open their heart to you, if that’s what you want through mastering this skill. Moreover, empathy doesn’t necessarily mean that you only use it to acquire negative feelings, but you might use it to gather some positivism and greatness for yourself when you surround yourself with uplifting people. The con is that it might be hard to turn off that connection in places where there’s little joy to go around. Additionally, it may take time to rid yourself of the miseries that you’ve taken upon yourself from a ’session’. Empathy is to improve the world through suffering (or easing suffrage).
The pros of equanimity is that you fully embrace the concept of your thoughts creating your circumstances. It is also the way of living in total emotional balance and harmony as opposed to the roller coaster of empathic living. Whatever you’re facing, it won’t paralyze, discourage or disappoint you, be it either things or people that affect your objectives. The con of it is that you may find it difficult to spontaneously rejoice over your own or others’ fortunate events. You might also become somewhat of a recluse as people don’t find much interest in spilling their guts over you, because they feel distant in your presence. Equanimity is to improve the world through leading by example (as in showing people that you are calm and unshakeable when facing otherwise stressful, terrifying or wretched events).
Equanimity shouldn’t be confused with indifference though. Or that a person becomes incapable of taking action. Or even that such a person is foolishly unafraid or unaffected by immediate danger. It could be described as total clarity of the present moment, but without having emotions influence your decision making or mind-set.
I believe each person is innately orientating toward one of these concepts more than to the other - as with an MBTI preference. Even though one can’t experience both concepts simultaneously, the question is if one can master them both and use which ever state of mind suits a given situation. This would mean that you can have the pros of both and focus on lessening the impact of the cons of each that I mentioned.
Personally, I’ve always been following the discipline of equanimity very strongly. Empathy has naturally seemed to me as something I want to avoid as I feel I’m meant to orientate towards equanimity. My guess is that if I’d start to practise empathy with much effort, then my level of equanimity would suffer. But I’m not ruling out the possibility that a person can make such a mental shift as easily as pushing a button.
What I do suggest is that a person picks a side, any side. And moving from there it’s all about improving the chosen skill as far as possible to help balance society in the right direction. Both skills aim to reach a balance, either internally within each individual or then on the plane of interrelationships. So unless you happen to be a person who finds himself or herself capable of mastering both states whenever you want, my best bet is that you focus on the one that seems more right to you and that you practise it constantly to make it even better.
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) 
