Turning me into we (DW#335)
Have you noticed that when we are feeling negative unpleasant emotions such as anger, anxiety or fear, we feel quite alone and distant from other human beings?
When our bodies and brains are experiencing such emotions, they are designed to contract. In other words, we develop tunnel vision and cannot see anything or anyone except our own pain and our own problems. In fact, the problems in our life appear large and crowd out anything except the pain.
When we have a headache, for example, do we notice anything anything but the headache? Do we notice that our knees, stomach or feet are fine? Not really. The headache becomes the focus of our life. The headache expands to push everything else out of our awareness.
On the other hand, when we are experiencing pleasant emotions such as gratitude or joy, our focus widens beyond ourselves. When we are feeling positive emotions, we can include others in our field of awareness. Our awareness expands from our habitual focus on "me" to a more generous focus on "we".
As we explained yesterday when we have this expanded awareness and share positive emotions, our brains synchronize with others.
There is, what the scientists call a "biological manifestation of oneness". The people closest to us appear to be a part of us.
Are you beginning to see the impact of this kind of thinking and feeling on the world? Can you imagine hurting another person whom you felt was a part of you?
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