Sonya: Hi Vineeto,
I do enjoy the rain sometimes. Mostly when I’m inside but definitely not when the cold wind is blowing and my umbrella is being turned inside out or when I’m driving on the motorway. Although, I very much used to enjoy the monsoon storms when I was younger in Malaysia. My favourite weather is straight after it has finished raining in the spring, I find everything has this extra richness and the smell of wet earth to be captivating. I enjoy both rain and sunshine but do have a preference. I think I was just getting excited about the evidence of summer coming through to the UK after a long couple months of constant rain.
Hi Sonya,
That is good to hear, especially when you say, “everything has this extra richness and the smell of wet earth to be captivating”.
Vineeto: The other question which arose from reading your report – when you say you “go back and forth between feeling “normal”, bad, or enjoying and appreciating”. What is it that triggers your feeling good dipping into “normal”, let alone “bad”. When you are back to feeling good, is there a way for you to go back to the event and identify the trigger and investigate the cause so that it won’t happen again next time?
Sonya: Yes, I am definitely aware of what triggers my feeling good into “normal” or “bad”. It is always the exact same thing at work
, which I have been noting each time and I have been progressively been able to get back to feeling good quicker and quicker when noticing that I’m not feeling good anymore. I have yet to nip it in the bud so it doesn’t happen again. I find that I struggle when investigating to get past a certain point, I can often find what the belief is that is preventing me from feeling good but to get further than that to nip in the bud is where I fail. (link)
I wonder if you missed something in the actualism method. You see, being aware of your feelings is not enough, and sometimes something cannot be just nipped in the bud – it is keeps coming back again and again, which indicates that it is too complex. It may be that you need to look for a belief or a moral/ethical concept, a pattern of emotional reactions to understand first, before you can conclude what it is and then make the decision that it’s not worth keeping it. There could be things like pride, competition, wanting it your way or rebellion against the other wanting it their way. Sometimes there is a ‘good’ feeling connected with it that needs uprooting as well.
Saying you are “aware of what triggers my feeling good into ‘normal’ or ‘bad’” you have a good start to dig deeper into this stumbling block.
Here is something feeling being ‘Vineeto’ wrote about it –
Respondent: Maybe I could make this a little clearer … When I label the feeling and investigate it, is there a further technique for getting rid of the feeling that I am having? Or is it observing the feelings as they happen that lessens their grip?
‘Vineeto’: Personally, observing the feeling was not enough – I had my fair share of this observing business in my spiritual years and the only result was detachment. In actualism I look for the cause that prevents me from being happy and harmless in this moment and mostly, seeing and understanding the cause, coupled with sincere intent, is sufficient to get me back to feeling happy again. If not, then I need to dig a bit deeper why my feeling of worry, misery, anger, love, loneliness, etc persists, for instance I need to look for a particular pattern, or habit, or a perceived advantage that persuades me to choose to be miserable. (Actualism, Vineeto, Gen. Corr., No. 11a, 27.12.2006)
There is more in ‘Vineeto’s’ reporting about how ‘she’ used the actualism method here if you are interested.
Cheers Vineeto