I felt such a mix of emotions that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So, I did both. It was cathartic. The way to look at life is to laugh with one eye and cry with the other—at the same time! Life is not all good nor is it all bad. We must constantly learn to “go with the flow” of the ups and downs of everyday life. However, we might feel that our mood swings are abnormal. They are not.
A human being is an amalgam of feelings and emotions. We can feel happiness, fear, hope, frustration, anticipation or anxiety in rapid succession in response to the flow of daily events. It is normal to experience overlapping or conflicting emotions. That is what makes us human. There is no rule of the compartmentalization of feelings. Perspective is the key. We can choose to be “brought down” by these events or we can see them as a symphony with highs and lows. It is a package deal.
How do we learn to maintain perspective in the midst of these ups and downs? If I have a problem with my child, for instance, reacting immediately would probably be an instinctive, impulsive and angry reaction, resulting in my screaming at the child. However, how educationally instructive would that be for the child? How will it teach the child to react to his own frustrating situations? How will it reflect on my own personal growth i.e., my self-control? The answer lies in learning the art of “conflict resolution.”
If I slow down and respond from my chilled self, I could say to my child, “Lets’ talk. What happened? Did she provoke you? Were you upset or angry? You are entitled to be angry but is not a good idea to act upon your anger. You can tell your sister, ‘I am angry with you and I would like to hit you,’ but you cannot raise your hand against her. Use your words.” This way the child will learn to resolve conflict by reflecting on her own emotions instead of blaming or lashing out.
This “slow down and reflect” approach can be applied when challenges present themselves in marriage, the workplace, and parenting. If we take our time before we react, we will learn to “stay with” the situation,” while at the same time psychologically disconnecting from the situation. This will enable us to put the situation in perspective and to see the “big picture.”
This approach is called CBT: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which holds that the way we feel about something and how we experience it depends largely on our attitude toward it. The same event will be experienced in extremely different ways by different people.
The problem, however, is that we cannot simply choose which attitude to have. We have a pattern of attitudes that we have learned since childhood which may not be the most desirable or effective way to deal with certain situations. When faced with a certain challenge we may go into autopilot and react the way our parents taught us to react or how we learned to react and cope in our formative years.
The secret is to try to erase the tape of old attitudes by first becoming aware of the way we usually react to certain situations. We must first observe ourselves and watch how certain events seem to push certain “hot” buttons in us which cause us to react in a certain way. I can “watch” myself react and say to myself, “Isn’t it interesting that I react this way.”
I should not try to modify my reactions, just yet. Once I get a handle on myself and become aware of my patterns, then slowly, as I monitor my reactions, I will be able to unlearn old attitudes and insert more effective reactions into my repertoire.
The second thing I can do is ask myself- "what is expected from me here? How can I become a better, more understanding, compassionate, empathic, wise, person through this event or experience.” Thus, each event will not incapacitate me or cause an impulsive reaction. Rather, it will lead to a moment of introspection and then personal growth.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is built into the fabric of the universe. When God created the world He Said, "And it was evening and it was morning, one day” (Genesis 1:5).
The mystical meaning of this verse is that evening signifies darkness, difficulty, ordeal and crisis. Morning, with its clarifying dawn, means the ability to see clearly how to deal with, cope with or even solve a problem. The world is made up of both aspects—negatives and positives. Together they make up reality.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy posits that I have to learn to hang in there during the night times of my life in order to get to the morning. It is precisely to test my faith that these challenges are sent to me in the first place. The test of faith is not to lose my faith. It is easy to give up during the darkest part of the night and throw in the towel. If only I could make it to the morning…
The Jewish day begins at sundown instead of dawn. God wove Cognitive Behavioral Therapy into the universe in this way in order to integrate this idea into our souls—that life has system of sunsets, and evenings—trials and ordeals; and yet it also has its dawns and mornings, its joys and its moments of clarity. First, we must work through our nights—our challenges—and only when we have worked through these moments of darkness and confusion can we arrive at the clarity that comes with personal growth.
On a personal level, the secret is to step back from a crisis and look at the big picture, which is made up of “evening” and “morning,” of difficulty and clarity. In this way I can learn to accept the ordeal and learn to deal with it, rather than fight it. If I can gain this perspective on the total or whole experience, then I will have mastered the technique of laughing with one eye and crying with the other eye, at the same time.
Since reality is made up of highs and lows then it would make sense that I learn to deal with this duality simultaneously with a smile and a sigh. Doesn’t it often happen that during a good cry a friend’s comforting comment will cause me to smile in the midst of my tears? I can find myself laughing and crying at the same time. This is a good model to apply when I face my next challenge.
This means that life is composed of hybrid emotions and feelings. Happy and sad, trying and cathartic, painful and joyous—and these conflicting emotions can be felt by each of us, simultaneously. We can learn to travel our life’s journey while carrying within us heavy baggage of painful moments and difficult challenges.
The deeper “soul” understanding of laughing and crying simultaneously is that crying is the laughing. Crying as a result of a painful challenge is an indication to me that the issue I am now facing is one of my key “life purpose” issues. If I then delve into my soul and try to figure out what God wants me to learn from this ordeal, then I can extract a measure of personal growth and character development from the difficult situation.
Thus, the crying and laughing together comprise a spiritual laughter that comes from an inner realization that I have learned an important life lesson from and through the ordeal. Working through the situation was necessary for me to move up a level in the growth of my personality. This growth leads to true inner happiness, since, personality growth and character development is the main purpose in life.
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