“In Irish when you talk about emotion, you don’t say “I am sad”, you say “sadness is on me.” “Tá brón orm” I love that because there’s an implication of not identifying yourself with the emotion fully. I am not sad, it’s just, sadness is on me ..” ~ Pádraig Ó Tuama
What a healthy way to look at emotion. The statements, “I am angry,” or “I am sad,” or “I am lonely,” take on too much ownership and identity. We are humans. We experience a myriad of different emotions every single day. One emotion may be more dominant than another for a while, kind of like a smothering blanket, thus, “Sadness is on me.” When you say it like this, you have the power to throw the sadness off of you, when the time is right. You can uncover yourself from the emotion that is lying heavy on you. Sadness is an emotion. You are not sadness. You are a beautiful spark of life, and of being, and of creativity who is capable of experiencing all sorts of emotions, and thoughts, and occurrences. It is good to feel your feelings, but you never want to become your feelings. When you do let your emotions take over the whole of you, it becomes too overwhelming, and it also diminishes your overall being, at the same time.
Janey Mack! Get off the stage! This is way too serious a post for a Monday-Funday, correct?! Here is another good one from the Irish, more in line with our usual Monday fun:
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
This form of expression really appeals to me. I think I’m going to adopt it for my own use. Sure, people won’t understand it at first, but once they think about it for a few moments, they’ll catch on. It’s such a simple shift of perspective, but it could offer an entirely new way of thinking for some people, especially those who are consumed by their emotions and don’t know how to get out from under them. Thanks for sharing this, Kel!
I’m glad that it was helpful, Kelly! I always read, “Don’t become your emotions”, but I don’t think I fully understood what this meant until I read this Irish version today. Hope that your trip to New Orleans was fabulous!!