I’m sure you’ve had times in your life when you’ve felt sad. Perhaps beyond sad. Maybe even debilitatingly depressed or in mourning over a great loss.
And how about dread? More than likely you have felt deep dread or anxiety, worrying over something that might come to pass.
But my hope for you is that the sorrow passed over time, and the thing you dreaded most and lost sleep over never came to pass – or was not nearly as bad as your mind imagined.
These feelings we have are just feelings. Our minds can do some crazy things to us, turning an intangible like a feeling into something that manifests into a painful state. Beyond painful. A feeling can make us physically ill. It can prevent us from enjoying life. It can make food taste like sand in our mouths and keep us from the recuperative sleep our bodies need.
And it’s just a feeling.
Why does our brain do this?
When you think about the time when humans lived in caves and had to endure extremes of weather and predators all around, it makes sense. Our ancestors who lived in a high state of anxiety likely had a much better chance of survival. And those traits, of being anxious and spun up over feelings, were passed to the next generation.
So here we are in our modern age, reacting as though a saber tooth tiger is in the next room. Not very logical and giving us nothing but misery.
Maybe that will help us put perspective on the intense feelings we are often required to deal with.
First off, those feelings we have of anxiety or fear or dread are just genetic leftovers that no longer serve to give us a happy, healthy life.
And most of all, a feeling is just a feeling. Whatever bad state you may experience, it’s not a predator come to do you harm. Don’t give a feeling that much power.
