Ruby,

I’m sorry for the feeling of cold inside, where the thought of being happy feels nauseating. There’s nothing wrong or broken with you, its just some simple associations in the mind. For instance, someone who has been in the cold for a long time feels disoriented when they walk into a warm tub of water. The contrast is painful, and they perhaps grab ice cubes and snow to attempt to cool the tub. It is better to relax, sit with the feeling and let the body get used to being warm.

Said differently, perhaps as you began to feel joy, your body noticed the contrast and tried to sabotage the joy to make it feel more like what you were used to. So you grabbed on to all the reasons why you don’t deserve joy, why others are bastards, and so on. Grabbing ice to cool the tub. If you don’t do that, a couple things happen. First is that there is the pain of the water being warm. The joy is scary, and fear is painful, unsettling. That fades as you notice and let go of the fear. Deep breaths, and the fear (which is just chemicals in your body) fades as you realize you are safe.

The second is that the contrast can inspire regret. If joy is available now, then what did we do with our previous moments! How many lost relationships and opportunities came and went as we turned our back on love, falling into old patterns of avoidance and sabotage. This, just like fear, we can breathe with. Every person’s path toward joy is unique, and therefore we all stumble along the way. There is no one to blame for the past, so we just do our best to honor the past by learning from it, to turn away from old icky ways of acting and thinking and begin anew. Said differently, Buddha taught that ignorance was fundamental, so you act in ways that you were taught by your parents, and they act in a way that they learned from their parents, and so on and on. So instead of blaming the past and feeling regret, we have our light bulb going off in the present. “The past can settle? I can find a stable joy? Let’s do that!”

Consider that when we develop a mindset which wishes for the happiness of ourselves and others, that each of us find that unique path to joy, our mind becomes free from greed, judgement, craving. One way to do this is through cultivating loving positive regard for all beings. Consider watching the following meditation. Its about 30 minutes long, and can help create a foundation of warm feelings for all living beings (including ourselves!)

With time and practice we heal. Remember that first part… it takes time! We cannot rush a flower to bloom, nor a heart to open. However, by acting in certain ways, working certain practices, we can give ourselves the conditions of opening. Metta meditation is much like the sun… shining warmth on our actions so they can produce the heart’s blooming in time.

With warmth,
Matt