If your house was on fire, what would you do? Surely, as soon as you became aware of the fire, you would call the fire department or grab your fire extinguisher and put out the flames. Wouldn’t your number one goal would be to stop the fire and limit the damage to your property? The desire for immediate action in such a situation seems to be universal. Why is it that this sense of urgency is missing when it comes to putting out the fire of your emotional pain?
When you’re suffering from emotional pain, what do you do? In most cases, don’t you act out to change something in the world to make your pain stop? When you’re confronted with someone that irritates you, don’t you seek to avoid them or change them in some way? When you encounter a situation that frightens you, don’t you try to get away from the source of your fear? When you see something that saddens you, aren’t you sometimes moved to improve the situation and lessen your sadness? The fire of your emotional pain causes you discomfort and so you try to change the world to make the pain stop. This is obvious, isn’t it?
Seeking to change the world in order to put out your emotional fire is like pouring water on your neighbor’s house when your house is burning. It really is that silly… and equally pointless. The mistake that most people make is to confuse the world as the cause of their emotional fire. In truth, your emotional fire is always burning. The world simply provides fuel for the flame that already exists. When you act to change the world, you’re just trying to move the fuel off of the existing flame. If you wish to be free of your emotional fire then you must attack the source of the flame.
What is the source of your emotional flame? It is your comparison of The Image to the world that causes your flame to burn. It is your thinking about the world that causes the flame of emotional pain to burn. If you wish to be free of the fires of emotional pain then you must change what you think about the world. Seeking to change the world doesn’t put out the fire; it merely moves the fuel around. As long as your thoughts about the world are conflicted your emotional fire will always burn.
To see this clearly you must see it directly. Observe how your discontent with the world is always present in your mind. This discontent – this conflict between The Image and reality—is the emotional fire. Watch yourself as you continually find things to be upset about. No matter how the world appears you will find some reason to be upset about it.
The key to putting out this emotional fire is to see it clearly. You wouldn’t try to put out your house fire with your eyes closed, would you? The best way I know of to see the fire is to observe yourself as you are having emotional pain. Your conflicted thoughts about the world are quite clear when you’re in the midst of your emotional pain. Your inner dialogue will tell you exactly why you are creating the pain. Simply being aware of this inner dialogue will help you to see clearly why you are in pain. You must strike while the iron is hot if you want to catch your conflicted thoughts. The longer you wait from the moment of pain to observe your conflict, the harder it is to see.
Your thinking about the world is the emotional flame that causes you so much pain. You compare reality to The Image and dislike what you see. So, you turn up the flame of emotional pain and suffer for it. Do you want to be free of this self-created fire? If so, then you must strike while the iron is hot… you must observe your thinking as you are in pain. Don’t wait until the pain subsides. Watch it while it’s burning you! Once you see the conflict within you then you will understand why you are in pain. Watch and you will see your conflict. See your conflict and you will understand the cause. Understand the cause and you can finally extinguish the flame. Put out the fire of your emotional pain and you will experience freedom from pain and a peace that cannot be disturbed by the world around you.