Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Eric from the one you feed with
Speaker 1: this week's mini episode, although that would imply one comes
Speaker 1: out every week, of which I am not willing to
Speaker 1: make a commitment to. Hope you're having a good holiday season.
Speaker 1: And what I wanted to talk about this week is
Speaker 1: I had a previous episode about setbacks and disappointment, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about another one because I think
Speaker 1: it brings up an awful lot of the themes that
Speaker 1: show up in the show a lot and really brought
Speaker 1: him into focus for me. So the other day I
Speaker 1: had one of those experiences where I didn't get something
Speaker 1: that I thought that I really wanted. Um. It was
Speaker 1: a big, big disappointment, and it was one of those
Speaker 1: things where there's an element of rejection in it. So UM,
Speaker 1: what I was amazed about was how quickly certain things
Speaker 1: we talked about showed up. Um. Immediately the stories in
Speaker 1: my head started up with is like, well I'm not
Speaker 1: good enough, or I'll never get this, or um, what
Speaker 1: a loser. And some of those stories they're they're embedded
Speaker 1: so deeply that it takes real effort even to question
Speaker 1: their validity. They seem so incredibly true at the time
Speaker 1: then I went into a couple of things we talked
Speaker 1: about on the show, like the mental or spiritual bypass,
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh, it's for the best, or I
Speaker 1: really didn't want that, or it is what it is,
Speaker 1: and and just sort of trying to jump right from
Speaker 1: I don't feel good to acceptance because I don't like
Speaker 1: not feeling good. It's such a lousy feeling. And then
Speaker 1: comes the oh, I shouldn't feel like this. I should
Speaker 1: know better than this. You know, haven't we already learned
Speaker 1: this lesson before, etcetera, etcetera. So there I was right
Speaker 1: in the middle of all those things that we talked
Speaker 1: about all the time, and the reality was the only
Speaker 1: thing I could do. The best thing to do is
Speaker 1: to simply feel shitty for a while, And so that's
Speaker 1: what I did. The amazing thing about allowing yourself to
Speaker 1: feel bad, or I should say allowing myself to feel bad,
Speaker 1: is that it usually passes relatively quickly. Quickly, I guess
Speaker 1: is a relative term, but it passes so And once
Speaker 1: I allow myself to feel the feelings, then I think
Speaker 1: it's okay to start to think about, you know, what's
Speaker 1: really happening. And I think one of the things that's
Speaker 1: always important for me is to realize that I have
Speaker 1: this idea of these things that are going to make
Speaker 1: me happy, and I am so frequently wrong. I get
Speaker 1: something that I wanted and I'm not any happier, or
Speaker 1: something happens that I thought was going to be bad
Speaker 1: and it turns out to be fine or even better.
Speaker 1: So reminding myself that I don't know what's gonna make
Speaker 1: me happy. A listener recently asked me, somebody who's going
Speaker 1: through a hard time, you know, how long do you
Speaker 1: feel your emotions and when is it time to stop
Speaker 1: wallowing in them? And that is a question that I
Speaker 1: am in no way qualified to answer, nor is probably
Speaker 1: anyone else. Um. But I think the path forward has
Speaker 1: something to do with the difference between emotion and thoughts
Speaker 1: or those stories. So I'll do a show in the
Speaker 1: future about the second arrow. But the basic concept is
Speaker 1: that we get shot with one arrow. That's the original pain,
Speaker 1: so the disappointment or the rejection, and then the second
Speaker 1: arrow is everything that we put on top of that.
Speaker 1: I say on the show a lot, it's this layering
Speaker 1: on of additional layers of suffering. There's the I'm not
Speaker 1: good enough, or I'll never get that, or this always
Speaker 1: happens to me, and then the oh, I shouldn't feel
Speaker 1: that way, which you could almost call a third arrow
Speaker 1: in that case. So I think that back to that
Speaker 1: idea of how long do you feel your emotions and
Speaker 1: when is it time to stop wallowing in them is
Speaker 1: to make a distinction between what's happening. Am I feeling
Speaker 1: a legitimate emotion here that's that's relevant to what happened,
Speaker 1: or am I feeling emotions that I'm feeding by negative
Speaker 1: thinking or the stories that we talked about. And I
Speaker 1: think making that distinction is part of the way to
Speaker 1: know whether to be alien something or whether to try
Speaker 1: and move on from it. So thanks everybody, I hope
Speaker 1: you have a great week. Remember to check out audible
Speaker 1: trial dot com, slash one you feed for your free
Speaker 1: audible book. It's a great way to support the show.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk again soon. Thanks