There are times you feel good about yourself and times you don’t feel good about yourself; these are the ups and downs and comings and goings of life as a human. Amid the ongoing, always-changing experience of relative existence, emotional strategies appear usually unconsciously. These are the strategies used to try to maintain feeling good and feeling loved as well as to avoid everything other than positive feelings. The strategies take many forms, but they all have in common the need to prove one’s value and lovability.

Underneath all the strategies, there is a steadiness, a reliable emptiness, that always operates exactly as it must, meaning that there’s always a sense of reliability even if you cannot name it. This sense doesn’t go up and down or have understanding and then loses it. This sense doesn’t question whether people like you or not, whether family is connected to you or not. This sense does not try to achieve or prove anything. This sense is One Life awareness.

The recognition of emotional strategies as false notions and attempts to identify yourself according to your expectations and beliefs about who you are, while not separate from One Life awareness, can facilitate a deeper knowing of who you are. For example, you believe yourself to be a certain kind of person — a spiritual person, an emotionally aware person. You also can believe you are unworthy, lacking, or naïve. These beliefs are supported by evidence gathered over the years that develop into important concepts that must be defended and maintained. The defense and the maintenance of ideas about who you are become the foundation of the emotional strategies you employ.