Brainstorming with Nanda

From a girl to a boy: A letter about embracing rejection

Dear R,

There are so many things I would love to say to you, but I feel deeply overwhelmed by emotions right now. So, this is my way of showing you all the ideas that are jumping into my mind nowadays.

For me, Happiness is the sum of experiences from the past, present, and future. We must work on happiness. It is built, and it depends on the approach we take in managing emotions. The psyche is in tension because it is inevitably – and permanently- encountering challenges; therefore, managing emotions necessarily implies an emotional work, and that demands to relate with others. According to the Greek concept ‘Pathos,’ to enrich our lives, it’s necessary to suffer from reality, in the sense that we suffer from the pain caused by something alien to us, that it’s integrated into our lives, and this is what makes us grow. Hence, it’s critical to create the experience, that is, to submerge into reality, let us drill by it, and at the end, elaborate a response. When we take negative emotions as challenges (such as pain, sadness, anger, grief, envy, frustration, boredom, so on and so forth), the responses we elaborate become symbols and in the long run, these symbols populate our mind and that is what enriches us, and so, our mind is better prepared to face new challenges and, as a result, being more emotionally stable. That stability is what we call Happiness.

On the other hand, pleasure is a biological constitute part of our species, it is what allows us to feel life as attractive and be enthusiastic about it; thus, it gives us an attachment to life. That’s why Pleasure is important; positive emotions enrich us so we may enjoy life, being excited and spreading our joy vibe to others. It’s cool to be surrounded by positive people, isn’t it? To sum up, emotional work -positive and negative emotions- is mandatory to enrich our lives and build Happiness.

Attachment to life? What about life? What does it mean? We certainly do not know. What we do know is that it may be perceived as something that is happening from which we can say something. And yet, we do not know how it works. In life, nothing happens as we expect. So, instead of projecting life, the only thing we can certainly do is being aware of ourselves. To understand what happens to and for us. Bringing meaning to life implies a lot of self-knowledge: looking for oneself, looking for being, looking for who we are behind the things we are doing, and so on. The only way to see ourselves and prove how strong our psyche is, is in the relationship with others: colleagues, parents, friends, bosses, siblings, etc. Everyone is mirroring each other. You do not hate, or love, or whatever else to others; instead, we are triggered by them. So, whatever hate or love is within ourselves. That is why relationships and my closest bonds are so important to me. Having a partner is like doing an intensive course on the matter: is the encounter of two completely different worlds to grow and so, while they are mirroring each other they stay together towards emotional work: scrubbing the negative emotions, communicating, and exchanging the beautiful art of sex (not only because it is great, as we already know, but also because it is a way of letting go of negative emotions on a physical level. Cool, right?).

Do you know that birds, fishes, insects, and humans among others, have access to a different color palette? In other words, each one of the different species has a unique perspective of what the world is, and that is not a contradiction. It is like each one of us had his own tale of the world, and every single one is acceptable. It is not as the world imposes the right version of what the color is, which case would imply that either a bird, a fish, or a person is wrong. Hence, our systems are so different and incomparable that only one conclusion is possible: everyone is right, and we should accept and respect that. That means to put ourselves in the other’s shoes. As soon as we see and understand where the other is talking, then acceptance and respect naturally take place. And this is love: nothing to add, nothing to subtract, the person is truly herself.

However, we are all dependents on conditions. We cannot have control over our feeling nor what happens around us, only on what we think and act upon them. Whatever comes, it comes. Modern life, social constructions, among other things, are making us even more dependent on different things and even at a faster pace. Then, emotions and mood are like the weather: they change all the time because of hormones, sugar, etc. We are strongly wired to the circumstances! And so, I do believe that if a relationship comes to us from a very odd corner, we should be confident and embrace it. Let life flow. We can never know. The same reason why everything is dependent on conditions, we should not blindly fall for the value of a relationship, nor be afraid of it. If it comes to us, if we like the person and feel the butterflies in the stomach, then we must go for it. All we have to remember is, from day one, we will make sure that we are not caught by expectations and hope, but rather, focus on the challenge that implies mirroring on each other.

Everything is temporary; nothing is permanent. Eventually, everything comes to an end, so please, do not let this fact stops you from living. We enjoy a cup a coffee even when we know it will finish, but that doesn’t stop us from drinking it, right? In the same way, we open up our hearts, despite the fact it is possible to be rejected. While today I feel rejected by you in the way I would have liked you to be with me, I am grateful for my broken breathing heart. I wear that badge proudly. It means I am taking action, building resilience, putting myself out there, letting my heart be open. Rejection is a blessing! So, thanks a lot for giving me the space to share with you my light and shadow. You were kind and receptive; I appreciate that.

To live passionately implies to suffer, opening up ourselves to the encounter with others, and by doing so, enriching our mind with such a diverse variety of symbols that, by the end of the day, we have an attractive perception of life and so, we’re attached to it. That’s beautiful!

I am very grateful for the time shared. You are a sweet, wonderful man, and you will always be part of my heart. I wish you many blessings in your life, I hope you will find the answers you are looking for and most of all, from the bottom of my heart, I wish you a lifetime of happiness.

With love and light, Franzi