Lessons learned from the first half of 2020, spirit of Zen, and the goal for the rest of the year

It's July 1st in 2020 (will be already 3nd when this will go public) and it means that the first half of the year had already gone by.

What a year (so far), I may say.

With all the hectic days with countless emotions, loaded baggage on my shoulders I couldn't even carry, and ever-increasing stress that lead to one of the biggest decisions made in my life.

It feels that for the first time I’ve been more conscious of the meaning of time this year.
A lil break from work followed by an outbreak of stress-related autonomic disorder left me a vast space to ponder upon my "yet-to-come" life.

"How would I like to spend time for the rest of my life?"

Answers to this question have always been very vague, nothing solid, as I didn’t even have a clue about myself to begin with.
Since the stay-at-home order for Covid-19 was fully implemented here in Japan, I started to think about lots and lots of things, literally staying at home.

Living solely with none other than myself each day was rather a strange experience. Waking up to face another weakness of mine and going to bed fully wrapped around with self-doubts. Without being careful about it, those ugly emotions could easily take up my days with no advance notice. Hence my rather forced, unwilling confrontation with ugly thoughts has begun.
It wasn’t fun, to be honest.

"Wow, this wasn’t expected from me"

Every time I discover a new, unpleasant side of me I immediately felt the urge to look away as I used to. However, just like those old hectic days made it easier for me not to face them ugly emotions, empty times made it much harder.
However, I realized that the more I experienced this chaotic face-to-face chat with my inner self, the better understanding I had about me as a whole human being.

"At the end of the day, this might not be all that bad"

Finally started to have a glimpse of the positive aspect of this self-chat, I’ve decided to write down the lessons I’ve learned from this experience in the first half of 2020, as well as the goal for the latter half of the year.

■ Lesson 1: Dear me, Know your boundaries/limits

Just like you can’t change the way how other people think about you, there are things that you can’t control in life. This might sound a bit too obvious but believe me, the line between the two (the things you can and can’t control) is too obscure sometimes which can cloud one’s perception. That being said, it will most likely be the case that you can’t judge something before even trying it so "just try it" kinda mindset is the way to go when you want to explore more about your boundaries/limits in the unknown field. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut when it comes to discovering new boundaries so just put every possible experience into practice and observe how your gut reacts.
You may notice; "Oh I don’t have as much stamina as I thought I’d have" or "I just get exhausted when I’m around people who talk shit about others all the time".
When you learned your new boundaries/limits from the actual experience, remember it’s ok to say "NO". I believe it also is a good reminder that you can always walk away with light steps when facing a situation where your well-deserving "NO" gets rejected. At times, your boundaries might be dotted rather than solid in case you are not sure about how to identify them. They may change their forms as you grow older, or perhaps when you have more experience in life. However, just know that being aware of the lines as they are is part of the first steps you can take for your self-acceptance journey.

■ Lesson 2: Dear me, Savour the unpleasant emotions, yes, them ugly ones

"No one is perfect".
Again, you know this very well in theory but often I see you covering up all the unpleasant emotions when they try to raise their voices from within. You also have this unique tendency in categorizing all sorts of colorful emotions just between the two boxes, the "good" and the "bad".

Although you take time to savour the "good" emotions with your whole body, you quickly swallow or don’t even try to taste them at all when it comes to the "bad" emotions. Recently though, I see your struggles with the latter ones as you spend more time with none other than your own self. It’s getting more difficult to ignore them ugly emotions so you have no choice but to face them. I see you’ve been trying to understand where they come from and what kind of events could be the triggers for them. I can tell that it’s not an easy journey for you to date back to your old self as you may have to face some traumatic events from the past, or the vulnerability that’s long been exposed.
However, I am aware that now you start to see yourself from a whole different perspective after facing this unwavering fact that you have all colors of emotions, including the ones you’ve categorized as "good" and "bad", just like any other people. Without trying to taste those "bad" emotions, or even savouring them for the first time in your life, you wouldn’t have had a clue about such colourful emotions that make you a whole you.

■ The goal for the second half of 2020: 八風吹不動

Speaking of emotions and feelings, my goal for the second half of 2020 is "八風吹不動".
It is a Zen word that basically stands for the calm, still mind which wouldn’t be swayed by our colourful emotions.

I came across this word when reading one of my favourite books, "Live life with a calm, simple mindset"*¹ by Shunmyo Masuno.
He explains that those colourful emotions we experience in life could mainly be classified into 8 different categories (stands for 八風, meaning 8 types of wind):「利」「衰」「毀」「誉」「称」「譏」「苦」「楽」. 八風吹不動 mindset is a practice of letting go of all winds without being obsessed with them.
I made a free translation of these 8 different types of emotions below so feel free to take a look.

*¹Note that this is a free translation of the original Japanese title of the book

These are the kind of emotions that arise when…
・「利」things go well in life
・「衰」things go against your will
・「毀」talking bad about someone behind their back
・「誉」having a sense of admiration for someone
・「称」praising someone
・「譏」spreading rumors about someone’s shortcomings
・「苦」things hurt your feelings
・「楽」things make you joyful

There is a line from this book I would especially like to emphasize:

"You should know that even the positive emotions generated from things like joy, pleasure, and words of praise can also be the wavering of your mind. Positive emotions are no different to negative ones in a sense that both could take the stillness away from your mind"

"Live life with a calm, simple mindset" - Shynmyo Masuno

This verse was eye-opening to me as I used to make sure of savouring as much positive (a.k.a "good") emotions as possible while neglecting the negative (a.k.a "bad") ones. This habit dates back to my childhood when I used to feel pretty upset as the fun events came to an end. I was too obsessed with the fun part of life that sometimes made it harder for me to go back to reality. This is no secret that I still can’t help but feel this way sometimes.
Moreover, being not only emotional but also very sensitive to other people’s feelings, stillness in my mind can easily be taken away by the waves generated from colourful emotions of people.

Savour the feelings without being obsessed with them?
Sounds pretty good to me.

Peace!