If you don’t like the feeling, stop touching it!

This may sound funny, but if it works for you, it’ll work, if not, don’t over-analyze this as it is really as simple a trick as it sounds. When you feel an unpleasant emotion, it’s common to get stuck with an emotion you don’t like and don’t know how to stop feeling that way. This is particularly confusing when there’s another person that this emotion is directly connected to. (THAT PERSON is making me feel this way.)

The hot stove analogy

This analogy is generic and applies to people, situations, life events, you name it. Anything that causes an unpleasant emotion to arise.

The thing is… If a hot stove makes your hand hurt, you’ll stop touching the stove. There’s nothing wrong with your hand for hurting on a hot plate, is there? You should be worried if you DIDN’T feel pain touching a burning hot stove. Therefore, stop touching the stove.

When we experience an emotion, we tend to dwell on them at times. If you don’t like the emotion, stop touching it. If you like it, dwell all you like, OK? It’s really that simple, just tell yourself that it’s stupid feeding that emotion for no good reason if it doesn’t make you happy.

We often get the part about “if you don’t like a person, stop hanging out with them”, but that’s not what this means. It means, stop FEELING that person and the negativity that they push on you. Just stop touching that feeling.

Isn’t it suffocating your emotions?

Okay. If you stop touching a hot plate, is that suffocating your sensory information or simply avoiding the cause of pain? You don’t have to keep RE-EXPERIENCING a trauma to make it “felt”.

On a personal note. I’ve been arguing with my mother for 30 years. We go over the same shit the same shit the same shit, over and over again. The last 10 years, on a daily basis in spirit. Has that made the trauma go away? No. Not the slightest. It has made 0 impact on the way I feel, if anything, it has made things worse. It’s like touching the plate over and over and over again, expecting it to stop hurting eventually. (If it does, THAT is a sign of a trauma WAY more serious than the original one. That would be equivalent of becoming unemotional about being hurt. Like holding your hand on a hot plate, and not feel the burn because your injury is already that severe.)

I say, when emotions are concerned, dwell to the point when you understand where the trauma came from, and then, move on. (Use the memory of the event, not RE-traumatizing yourself to find out why it hurt the first time. For example, try to analyze the reasons why your behavior made someone strike you, not return to that person, repeat what you did, only to see whether they’d hit you again or not. Victim blaming? NOBODY hits anybody for no reason at all. There is ALWAYS a reason for every action. They may not be good ones, but if you’re tempted to go back to pick that fight again, the blame is at least partly yours.)

Still, sometimes, tho?

There are situations when you can’t stop yourself from dwelling in a feeling you don’t truly enjoy. (Anger, sadness, loss, depression, and weakness can be addictive feelings that people enjoy similarly to say bitter beer or spicy hot food. These emotions come with a balance of pain and pleasure, and therefore, they can feel good. They can feel very good.)

Still, you may sometimes GENUINELY not like a feeling but you STILL keep going back to it for some reason. You keep poking at it and you can’t stop. This can be when you’re looking to learn something from that feeling or from whatever is causing that feeling. It’s then wise to ask yourself what is it that you are truly doing here, and why is it that you can’t stop.

You may be trying out an emotion, to make up your mind on whether you enjoy it or not. It maybe a feeling your logic says that you shouldn’t like (for example, something sexual) but you keep being obsessed about it because, against all logic, it feels good or almost good. Or something else about the situation feels good enough to justify the bad feeling.

You maybe LEARNING to enjoy an emotion, that you think WILL give you pleasure if you figure out how to take it. (Example: How to enjoy the death of a loved one? While it is PERFECTLY POSSIBLE to enjoy the drama of losing a loved one, do you HAVE TO enjoy that?! What you enjoy, you invite, after all. What you hate, you reject. Emotionally, and thus, spiritually, that is. If you genuinely don’t want to lose loved ones to death, the SENSIBLE thing to do, spiritually speaking, is to HATE THE IDEA of losing a loved one to death. Although you won’t create death to your loved ones if you enjoy the feeling, you’ll invite the spirits who love being mourned after into your life, just to die for your entertainment.)

If your answer is good enough, keep going.

Lastly,

Everyone is looking for a certain emotion in life, but we are not all looking for the SAME emotion to live in. It’s like a favorite song or a favorite flavor. Emotional senses are just as much a matter of taste as anything else of that nature. Just because someone wants potato and gravy for the rest of their lives, doesn’t mean you have to settle for the same. Whatever you enjoy is what you should seek, and stop playing with other emotional sensations, except for, perhaps that thrill of finally getting what you always missed after years or decades of deprivation.

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