We're not yogic robots
In yoga we're taught to be constantly equanimous, indifferent, to all situations in life. We're supposed to be able to watch ourselves and our life as if we were watching it on a screen. No attachment to the emotional ups and downs, not losing ourselves in the story of the mind. Because really, they're just distractions from the real life. Truth in its purest form. This simply doesn't make sense to me.
I understand the importance of reflection and meditation. When we feel confused or a little out of touch with ourselves we need to sit down and reflect on our situation.
I met a man on a cafe in Ubud, Bali once who was a 'perspective coach'. He was very popular in his therapeutic approach. He saw humans as in surrounded by a pentagon or hexagon och heptagon (one of those multy sided geometric shapes anyway) full of mirrors. And he described it as 'all these mirrors won't only just show the person in the middle from different perspectives, but will also mirror the other mirrors perspective in another perspective.' Well, he had an intresting way of telling me that, simply, every person and situation can be viewed from an incredible amount of different perspectives, and if we ever experience pain, we've just got stuck in the wrong perspective for that specific situation. All he did in his therapies was to bring light to other perspectives to his clients, and *poof* the problem was fixed. Now, the simplicity of that almost made me laugh out loud. But it does show the importance of reflection. That is exactly what reflection is and does.
In meditation we're taught to allow everything to come and go. Breath, thoughts, feelings, sensations. This is an incredible tool, because sometimes things get a little too close to us. And that practice of letting things that should be there to arrive and come up to later be able to let them go, gives us an opportunity to feel that we're deeper, stronger and wiser than we sometimes believe ourselves to be. Not to mention all of those times when we're in desperate need of peace.
But sometimes we're not supposed to just watch our emotions and thoughts come and go. And sometimes we don't need to *poof* make the problem go away. Sometimes that specific pain, or emotion, or thought, is an indication of a boundary that needs to be set. And when that's the case, the way we need to express that specific boundary can depend a lot of the person or the type of people we need to express it to. Sometimes, if you come across characteristics of stubborn ignorance, it's even necessary to talk to people in the type of language they understand. Maybe even dropping to their level, only to rise again to a height they might not be able to reach to you at.
Some emotions are meant to excist, to colour, to be expressed, to create strong, deep connections. We're not supposed to be constantly detached, equanimous robots. Unmoved by all of life. We're supposed to be colourful, beautiful, unpredicteble, uncontrolled, expressive, individual and connected. With the ability to reflect and meditate.