It is interesting that we think that “feelings” are so important, to the point that in the 21st century, many folks believe that feelings are more important than facts, and to the point where, “there is no external facts, there is only our subjective feelings and reactions”.
But what are feelings?
The feelings we experience, are a combination of our hormones, our thirst level, our hunger level, whether we are tired or not, our gastrointestinal digestive processes, and the general feelings rising from our muscles and nervous system.
Apart from how the outside world has been impacting our body on that given day (or perhaps the activities of the night before), the feelings the body is currently producing, have nothing to do with our overall life circumstances. The DMN processes of our brains, tie in our life circumstances with the way we feel. It is this DMN narrative which ties us up, and says we are “stuck”, and that our feelings are proof of that.
To repeat, this is because the DMN processes of our brain, interpret our feelings in terms of our life circumstances, and produce narratives and reasons for why we feel the way we do.
For many folks, every morning, the process of :
waking up,
gauging our body sense and feelings,
allowing the DMN to label reasons for why we feel the way we do,
then adding that days life circumstances narrative, which is brought over from yesterdays narrative.
By the time we begin our daily activities, we are already burdened down with this narrative, which in fact is, “the burden we carry”.
I remember my 6th grade teacher, Miss Bell, who I had the experience of bumping heads with, telling me, “I could not be a teacher, except that I begin every day fresh, without carrying the attitudes of the day before”. At the time, I did not really understand what she meant. Miss Bell had a very positive impact on me, and I attributed it to her, “I won’t put up with any nonsense”, approach to teaching. Our school was in a relatively poor area, and there were many students who were far more trouble than I was. It seems she developed her way of “self-cleaning” after each day, to deal with the difficult students she had to deal with.
To repeat, “Apart from how the outside world has been impacting our body on that given day (or perhaps the activities of the night before), the feelings the body is currently producing, have nothing to do with our overall life circumstances. The DMN processes of our brains, tie in our life circumstances with the way we feel. It is this DMN narrative which ties us up, and says we are “stuck”, and that our feelings are proof of that.”
Please read on how the network of the DMN pulls us into this narrative downward vortex, and how we can learn to escape that ruminating vicious circle, to the TPN, where those narratives are shut off, and where we are “fully present and attentive in the moment”.
Additionally, if that DMN narrative carries our social identity, this causes confirmation bias to kick in, and reinforce the “WHY”, of why we carry those narratives, and muddies the water of what is actually taking place, making letting go of those narratives very very difficult.
Reality is Dharma 