feeling

As I type this, it's early morning and there's loud drilling going on just outside my door. It woke me up and I started journaling, and by the time I finished I was feeling happy and light-hearted. I noticed the drilling and smiled at it - it wasn't/isn't bothering me at all. It might as well be birdsong.

We go about life as if the world is causing our feelings but far more often the opposite is the case - our feelings create our experience of the world. Of the two, the way we feel is primary and has more to do with our interpretations about ourselves, others and life in general than whatever happens to be going on in the present moment. If I was immersed in thoughts that made me feel bad about myself and life, I would experience the drilling as unpleasant. It would reflect and enhance my internal state. Since I'm feeling light and happy, I'm completely unbothered by it.

This applies to everything. It seems like if we just solved all of our outer problems and got everything we wanted, then we would be happy. "If the drilling would just go away, then I would be happy." The reality though is that because we're unhappy within, we find problems everywhere. Rather than going inward to feel and unravel our pain, we externalize and project the cause of our misery outwards onto the world around us.

As long as we feel like shit, life will seem to continuously give us shit. But if we can just be with and feel that shittiness within ourselves, maybe sort through it a bit to see what interpretations and beliefs might be causing it, then suddenly the shit starts smelling pretty good. Hahahahhaah