To thine own self, be true.

The road to freedom is not through feeling good; it is through feeling true to yourself.
-Deepak Chopra

There is a common belief that I keep coming across whenever I'm talking with someone who is actively working to better his or her life. Although each individual has his/her own ways of expressing this, in its simplist form it goes something like this: Being Happy is Good. Being anything other than Happy is Bad.

I see this belief run its destructive course in many places and invalidate many a person. I've seen it turn spiritual people into depressed beings and turn even the most sincere people into phony baloney. And for those of us who are in fields where our entire careers revolve around helping other people become happier and healthier, this belief can cause havok.
Why is feeling anything other than happiness so taboo?

I was reminded of this the other day when I was talking to a friend who is also a healer. She is an incredibly intuitive person who I feel blessed to have met. I love how honest and how real she is. I notice she has a habit of doubting herself and her healing abilities whenever she talks about her negative emotions and thoughts. She'll confide that she is angry or sad or frustrated and then say-How can I heal people when I feel these negative emotions? No matter how many times I try to convince her that she is a very gifted healer, there seems to be a part of her that believes a healer should always be happy, should never feel negative, should never get sick. Basically, a healer should never be human.

I have also lived the majority of my life being imprisoned by this belief that anything other than happiness is really not warranted. I thought that growing up in a country as prosperous as America-and having all of my material needs met-meant I had no right to any negativity at all. And any time I DID feel negative, I would feel guilty. A few years ago, I met a wise person who said: Feel your feelings. So I took his advice and started doing just this.

When I was angry, I felt my anger. I just decided to be there, with it. Not to act on it, but just to keep it company. I watched how my jaw would tighten, how my stomach would clench and how my breath would become more shallow. I would say to myself-Right now, I'm feeling angry (even if my lizard jumped in with its invalidation).

Then I learned Vipassana meditation and this took my entire skill set of self-observation to a new level. With Vipassana, I learned not only to feel how my body reacted to the sensations of negative emotions but to notice the thoughts that preceeded these sensations. "There's that thought again!" I would find myself observing. "No one loves me and soon I'll run out of money and be homeless." Then I would watch how my body would react to this thought. It was interesting to say the least, like watching a storm roll in. No matter how awful, eventually it would pass and then the sun would come out.

This past Sunday, G. and I had our American wedding. Even though we had a large wedding in India, and our wedding in the states was small and just for friends and family, I felt myself getting nervous as I walked down the aisle. We wrote our vows and I felt that familiar lump in my throat when G. started saying his.

These were my thoughts: Oh no! I'm going to cry. My make-up is going to get ruined. Everyone is going to think I'm such a sap. Why am I even nervous? We've already gotten married before! This is so stupid that I'm even getting anxious up here. We practiced these vows so many times. Why I am about to cry now, in front of everyone?

These were the sensations in my body: Knees shaking slightly. Legs tensed up. Lump in throat. Surge of heat from stomach up to the neck. Hands feeling slightly sweaty.

In that moment I was woman at the altar feeling nervous, about to cry. I stayed with those emotions and those sensations and kept them company. Then, I watched them slip into a beautiful sense of love and joy and yes, happiness.

Your negative emotions are yours to feel. Notice them when they pop up. Observe them. When you see your lizard jumping in with its invalidation (ie: You should not feel this), keep feeling them anyway. Keep those negative emotions company and see what happens. You might just find, as I did, that they are actually great gifts. If you learn to watch them (rather than suppress them, judge them or immediately act upon them), you may realize that your negative emotions are there to clear the way for your happiness. Happiness is then no longer something you have to chase after but something that you just feel your way into.

Don't entertain this nonsense that you have no right to feel your negative emotions or that you should always be happy. Be true to yourself and what you feel. It's the only way to be free.