How emotions are not enemies, but a car navigation system 🚗💨

Lately, the humid nights have been continuing,
it's so muggy.
The air is heavy with moisture and clings to my body.

Thinking about that,
I was walking along the night road.
Looking up, the moon was floating there,
and the lights of cars passing by flowed along the road.

As I was vaguely gazing at that scenery,
I suddenly realized something.

Perhaps emotions
might not be the bad guys.

🌔 I was making emotions the bad guys

For a long time, I thought of emotions as
something troublesome.

Myself getting sad.
Myself getting irritated.
Myself getting anxious.

Every time such emotions appeared,
“I shouldn't be feeling down over something like this”
“I'm worrying too much”
“I have to try harder”

That's how I tried to suppress them.

I thought that the appearance of emotions itself
was the problem.

🌔 What I realized while watching the cars

But that night, while watching the flow of cars, I thought:
perhaps emotions are like a car navigation system,
I thought.

A car navigation system
tells you the direction to go, like
“Turn right ahead.”

Of course, whether or not to follow that direction
is decided by the driver.

You can ignore it and keep going straight.
Emotions might be the same.

Sadness is
a guide saying,
“You are actually hurt.”

Irritation is
a guide saying,
“You are pushing yourself a little too hard.”

Anxiety is
a guide saying,
“Let's stop and check things out.”

Emotions might just be
telling you the direction you need right now.

🌔 I was ignoring the guidance of my emotions

Actually, it would be better to rest here.
It would be better to stop for a moment.
It would be better not to keep pushing myself.

Even though my emotions were telling me that,
I kept running without listening to that voice.

Trying harder instead of resting.
Continuing to move instead of stopping.
Enduring instead of feeling sad.

That's because I thought that was the right thing to do.

But looking back,
my emotions weren't trying to trouble me all along;
they might have just been telling me
that there was another path.

And I,
while ignoring that guidance,
had just been continuing to run.

🌔 When you notice your emotions, you can also hear the voice of your body

When I became able to notice my emotions,
something strange happened.

Not just my heart,
but it became easier to notice the voice of my body too.
“Oh, I was tired.”
“Oh, I haven't been resting properly lately.”
“Oh, I was actually pushing myself.”
I started to understand things like that little by little.

Until now, I
tried to overcome both physical fatigue
and mental fatigue
with sheer willpower.

But even if I pretended not to notice,
both my heart and body were properly
continuing to send out signs.

🌔 The problem wasn't the emotions

Now I think.
The problem was,
not the emotions themselves that naturally well up,
but the fact that I kept ignoring them.
I have come to think that emotions

do not exist to trouble us,
but exist to make us notice important things.
So from now on,
instead of chasing away sadness when it comes,

instead of blaming myself when irritation appears,
I want to listen and ask,
“What are you trying to tell me?”

I realized it while looking up at the moon.

Emotions are not enemies,

but perhaps they were a car navigation system
that was trying to protect me.