Letting Go of the Prize: Freedom in Emotional Non-Reaction
Emotional state as the claw machine at the carnival
Letting Go of the Prize: Freedom in Emotional Non-Reaction — Image by Author.
Remember those carnival games where you had to use a claw to try and grab a stuffed animal prize? It was all about skill and timing.
If you could drop the claw at just the right moment and angle, you might snag the coveted plush. Otherwise, the claw slipped away empty, leaving you disappointed but determined to try again.
Well, our emotional sphere can be likened to that very claw machine. The extreme feelings we experience, whether positive or negative, are like those stuffed prizes huddled on the ledge — enticing and tempting. So often we fall into the trap of lunging headlong into these intense emotions, convinced we can grasp and cling to them forever.
Visceral emotions
Yet in doing so, we end up empty-handed. The most visceral, extreme emotions — both the negative and positive ones — are inherently fleeting by nature, destined to fade away. By embracing them too fiercely, we only fuel a vicious cycle of emotional peaks and valleys.
This is where the art of detachment, non-reaction, and non-judgment comes in. We must learn to let our emotional claw fall gently empty, never quite managing to clutch any extreme. Only then can we maintain a serene equilibrium and lasting inner stability.
Take negative emotions for instance.
When someone wrongs us or lets us down, it’s so easy to get consumed by anger, resentment, and even hatred. These feelings become like giant, glittering prizes on the ledge.
Trapped
Our emotional claw gets magnetically drawn to them, and if we’re not careful, it grips them in a vice-like clutch. We find ourselves trapped in a downward spiral of negativity, ruminating endlessly and stoking a fire that slowly burns us from within.
Yet if we learn to let the claw fall softly without grasping anything, those intense negative emotions lose their power over us. We can acknowledge them, and accept them as part of the human experience, but without being overwhelmed by them.
It’s like observing those stuffed prizes from the outside, with no need to possess them.
The same goes for ostensibly “good” positive emotions. Overflowing joy at success, euphoria over new love, a sense of omnipotence after an achievement — these are all wonderful experiences. But if we let our claws grip them too tightly, we inevitably end up disappointed when that phase passes. For even the highest highs are transient by nature.
Gracefully
Instead, let those extremely positive emotions slip through, enjoying them gratefully but not clinging to them desperately. That way, when they inevitably dissolve, we won’t experience a painful emotional backlash.
We will have simply allowed our claw to open and release that emotion gracefully.
Whether cheering our favourite team, reacting to others’ actions, or riding waves of joy or sorrow, the goal remains the same: keeping our emotional claw in a state of “noble indifference.” Not grasping, not pushing away, but letting everything flow like ocean waves.
It’s an art that requires patience, awareness, and constant practice. But the more we cultivate it, the more we’ll be able to foster that inner stability that allows us to navigate life’s emotional storms with grace. Instead of being swept away by every feeling that catches our attention, we learn to let the claw fall ever so lightly, with compassion, with a smile.
And…so?
Only then can we experience true freedom: to live fully in each moment, without getting entangled in the passing extremes of human existence. It’s a game of skill, but one well worth mastering.
“A person who neither rejoices upon achieving something pleasant nor laments upon obtaining something unpleasant, who is self-intelligent, who is unbewildered, and who knows the science of God is already situated in transcendence.”
(Bhagavad Gita 5.20)
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