Learning to master your emotions

This is an excerpt from a conversation I had recently that I felt I should share with everyone b/c she spoke on this topic I frequently speak to others about so well. What she says is a quote from Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom pg.103-104


Calliope:  I'm learning detachment

me:  detachment?

Calliope:  "To be able to realize the emotion so fully that you can detach from it and realize its true existence , it is not a part of you

Learn to detach...Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent... But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate fully. That's how you are able to leave it... Take any emotion--love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that love entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment."

Ultimately I think it all goes back to putting things off out of fear.  The longer you fear it and avoid it the more time you actually spend dwelling in it. It's as simple as that.

HallaH