I wrote the words “I am slightly annoyed.” They unconsciously spilled onto the page. I had to double back and observe the inaccuracy of the phrasing.
I consider mindfulness to be an essential skill to develop, and its practice – meditation – I prioritize and implement with regularity. Its greatest lesson is observation. Mindfulness teaches us that we are the feeler of feelings, not the feelings themselves.
“Who are you?” Meet a stranger or attend a dinner party, and it will be one of the first questions asked. A mumble of monotony usually follows: my name is this, and I live here, and I work there. Perhaps we are these titles, but this writing is not dedicated to the philosophy of identity. Instead, I use this example to highlight the frequency of the phrase “I am” and how it infiltrates our inter monologue.
Now, imagine that we ask a stranger “Who are you,” and they reply with an emotion: “I am happy, sad, bored, irritated, anxious, blissful, overwhelmed, satisfied, content.” The strangeness of the reply would confuse us – we were asking who they are, not how they feel. We recognize that the responder is not an emotion. Feelings are fleeting and momentary. Logically, we – the observer – understand this.
Despite this recognition, we – the experiencer – illogically and habitually identify with emotion. The voice in our head or inner roommate attaches, exacerbating the temporary state. We experience pain or pleasure and instinctively say, “I am miserable, joyful, discontent, wholesome,” yet our identity is not tied to an emotion.
“I am” is a lie – an unconscious behavior so deeply embedded that we forget its fallibility. We need to change how we speak to ourselves. We must flow with emotion, shifting from “I am” to “I feel.” There is freedom in this alteration. No longer are we a slave to the impermanence of emotion. No longer do we attach. Instead, we observe.
