S.E Can you tell me about yourself? How would you define yourself?
A.A I’m a positive person.
S.E. Is that so?
AA. Let’s say I’m trying to be.
S.E. How’s it going? Did you get anywhere you wanted to be?
AA. I think so. When I compare myself with those around me, I can say I am a positive person. Also people who know me always say I’m a positive person.
S.E. Why are you trying to be positive?
AA. Because being positive is a good thing.
S.E. What good does it make?
AA. It makes me a happy person.
S.E. Being a positive person, makes you a happy person?
AA. Yes sure, don’t you think?
S.E. Do you think it should matter what I think?
AA. .-Laughing
S.E. Let me see if I get it right. You’re a positive person and you believe that being a positive person makes you a happy person.
AA. Very true.
S.E. So can we call you a happy person?
AA. Of course I’m always happy.
S.E. Always ?
AA. It felt pretentious. Well, let’s say most of the time. .-Laughing.
S.E. Can you describe what is happiness for you?
AA. For me, happiness means having what you want to have.
S.E. Then can we say, you are a positive person, because you are a positive person you are a happy person and because you are a happy person, you have what you want?
AA. We can say that.
S.E. In other words, you are happy with yourself, your life, what you have, what you have obtained and from where you are?
AA. Exactly
S.E. Then you will have hard time deciding on what subject you want to get coaching from me?
AA. .-Laughing…
Where did mankind stumble?
It must be the greatest quest in the world. Happiness… Wherever I look, I see people struggling to be happy. It is as if we are living the experience not only to live to its fullest potential but only to be happy. Have you ever thought why have we attach so much meaning to it? Why have we become obsessed? It’s like a secret filter that limits our feelings, thoughts, dreams, the way we perceive this experience. We have divided every kind of experience into two as the ones that make us happy or unhappy. Would it be the dynamics of happiness underlying ‘Good and Bad’ or “Right and Wrong”? What do you think?
Somewhere along the way, we have lost the integrity and completeness of this vital experience that we called life. Ignoring the innumerable creation of one consciousness within infinite possibilities through time in a timeless now; we decided to roll up our sleeves and rewrite a new formula for life. We have added up, deducted and proudly said this is the formula of a happy ‘life’. Result? Disaster…
None of these new forms which created by the pruning of each piece matched each other. With each piece which has a different purpose and a different expectation has created a different definition and a different meaning for happiness. This tremendous harmony which seems to be dissonant has left out with no harmony.
We could not say better if we say we created the hell on earth with our own hands and as of now we are all burning in it. Stop for a moment! Look at yourself then look around you why are we unhappy? I know you’re all happy but tell me honestly why are we really unhappy?
If you ask me; these delusional lives which we have been creating with our consciousness by holding on to some emotions and by rejecting some, is the only reason underlying our unhappiness. Every time we do not experience life in the ocean of infinite possibilities, every time we do not perceive it as a continuous action, we felt into a dream separating ourselves from the truth. By holding or rejecting the parts of it we have distorted its completeness, we have made this holistic phenomenon which we are a part of even more deficient and limited. We have believed this limited version of this magnificent creation is the reality. We have forgotten that everything we created is a reflection of our consciousness. We overlooked the fact that what ever existed will never be vanished and nothing will ever exist out of nothing. What do you think have happened at the end? Of course we felt trapped and started to question the reasons of our emptiness.
Is it possible? Can we feel complete when the new formula of life we created, is limited? Can we be separated from the ‘whole‘ to which we belong as parts?
Have you ever thought about what we want? What we aim? What are we running away from? Sadness, anxiety, anger? Why are we running away? What are we afraid of? What do we think would happen if we get upset, if we feel unhappy, if we get angry? Do you think the lack of fulfillment we have created in our of lives could be supported by our artificial EFFORT of staying positive? Or would it be the beginning of our end?
Let’s look at this from a scientific point of view. Structurally, when our mind perceives a vital threat, our brain passes into the beta brainwave. In such moments, our brain whose most important purpose is our existence, shuts down all systems that are not critical to operation. In such cases, the sympathetic nervous system becomes active and there are three types of responses that our brains give. It is known as “Fight, Flight & Freeze” because we would either attack the threat or escape from it or freeze to survive. Unfortunately, under extreme anxiety or stress, even though there is no real and vital threat our brain goes into beta waves, activates the sympathetic nervous system and the person is present to implement one of these three forms of responsive behavior.
What if the person perceives this rejective self as a threat? What if your system perceives you as an enemy with the anxiety and stress you experience every time you resist a feeling?
This system which is supposed to work under situations that are perceived as a matter of life and death, unfortunately has became a state dependency for today’s life. People are motivated to live in the beta brainwave even on the basis of everyday events. So when they perceive a mood change in their emotions which they do not want to face and felt anxious or stress about it they apply one of the fight, flight, freeze behaviors to this situation.
That is why I see hundreds of people who I have been observing to this day either fighting, escaping or freezing to circumstances when unwanted feelings involved. Because our minds perceive emotions as a threat when we are confronted with the ones that our ability to cope is deficient, that we have tendency to escape and that we resist to live. Long story short, your mind attacks your feelings.
CIVIL WAR explains this experience very well in which one loses inner peace and wholeness. Instead of surrendering in the battlefields that we have created by our own hands, we hold on to positivity.
People believe that they will end the war if they hold on to be positive, no matter what emotion comes, no matter what they live. It is as irrational as a commander ordering one part of his army to attack the other part, to end the war. No wonder the world is full of AGGRESSIVE but POSITIVE people ready to kill each other at any given moment.
First of all, maybe we should explain this. In an effort to hold on to a state, such as the effort to escape from a state, regardless of the subject itself, is contrary to the structure of existence. Look at your bodies, your thoughts, your emotions; look at your perception, your dreams, your plans, your decisions, look at the world. Nothing is still. Everything is constantly moving.
Our emotions come and go. Our thoughts come and go. Our bodies are in constant change from birth to death, and so is the world. Every concept we have created with our minds; changes, transforms, rises, descends, increases, decreases.
Therefore, while this experience of consciousness has an unstoppable continuity, the power of its structure is far beyond, compares to the structure that we call body-mind. It is not possible at any level (physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual) to remain constant. The stability we dream to create in the name of holding on to a state will only be possible by applying the same amount of force as opposed to the natural flow of life. At least I hope you are all aware that you do not have such power.
By ignoring all of this, can you see how irrational, how unreal and how impossible the stability we are trying to create in the emotions we want to hold or reject? That effort is the reason of our unhappiness.
We must question what we limit at the other extreme by limiting the experience of consciousness in the ocean of infinite possibilities. We must question the point we have reached even though we have endeavored. Maybe we should question who “I” is…
AA. It was a great session
S.E. Thank you
AA. One last question!
S.E. Ask…
AA. These limits in our emotions
S.E. Yes
AA. What’s left of all this when we get free?
S.E. Everything. Nothing. You…
