Saturday, March 22, 2025
Since beginning a spiritual practice about a decade ago of meditation, journaling, and reading books like The Power of Now, The Untethered Soul, The Bhagavad Gita, Perennial Philosophy, and many more, I have experienced a certain transparency when in comes to emotions, especially difficult ones.
Recently, I was feeling the pull of depression. I’ve never been one to have been totally consumed by sadness, but on this particular day, I was feeling it. But since beginning a spiritual practice years ago, this recent feeling of sadness was more interesting than it was consuming. The feeling felt transparent. I still experience feelings, but now I observe them from “afar,” which is hard to explain if you’ve never experienced it.
I may be talking about what The Buddha called detachment. Prior to deepening my spiritual practice, I would never have been able to distance myself from such powerful emotions like depression. Wanting to push away feelings intensifies them. But feelings now don’t seem like they are part of the “I am,” as in “I am depressed.” The “I am” now notices the feeling with transparency. The feeling itself seems to be different, less thorny, and detached from the person, Ryan, with whom I am associating less and less as a “real” entity.
Spiritual practice can mean whatever you make of it, but it has taught me that I am much more than my emotions. Deep meditation, silent prayer, journaling, reading, etc., have an important place in my life now. My practices have helped me deal with the complexities of the human condition and made me realize I’m more than what appears to be “in the body” or “in the mind.” I’m certain I am more than those localized feelings of “me.” From this perceived expansiveness, negative emotions sting far less, to the point where they simply seem impersonal, and from an observational standpoint, interesting and harmless.