This question leaped into my mind. It may me wonder the correctness of old adages. My thoughts resulted in this post. I tell you that the answer is not necessarily yes. The adage has an undeclared assumption of what we stored in the pot remains the same.
One quick example is keeping fruit juice in a pot. The pot oozes juice to start with. Wait for a day or two and the juice you get is not the same as before. Fruit juice invites the growth of bacteria and the ingredients of juice provide the nutrients for bacteria to reproduce. The fruit juice is now a health risk rather than a nutrient.
Do you store honey in pots? If honey has higher water content than 18%, it ferments and loses its antimicrobial properties. This happens faster if the pot has cracks or big pores that allow air vapor in. What is amazing is that bees are aware of this fact and dehydrate honey strictly, so that the water percentage stays below 18%.
Our chests are the pots
We store feelings in our chests. These pots may change the content of the feelings.
Storage of feelings and storage of food is indifferent as both depend on how we store them.
If our chests are full of bad feelings and there are no pores for those feelings to ooze out they may contaminate further by the microbial thoughts that feed on negative feelings. What started as dislike may become a grudge.
We need to ooze out bad feelings. We need to express them. It is true with good feelings such as love needs expression. If we keep our feelings hidden in our strictly closed chests, they may turn to despair and hopelessness.
Releasing your negativity keeps you cool. It is like mud pots that keep oozing a small amount of water. This water absorbs some of the heat of the stored water and when it evaporates, it cools the pot. No wonder we call these mud pots as weepy pots. Weeping is a way of releasing our feelings and setting them free.
We crack our chests with the expansive negative feelings and allow microbial assumptions to find their way in our chests and deteriorate our feelings faster.
Leaders who control followers may discourage the release of their inner feelings and only for those feeling to spoil and become toxic.
Do you have a juicy idea? Go ahead and express it for if you keep it tightly closed in your pot the idea shall deteriorate as juices do.
Know what to store in your chest and for how long before what you stored turns to something else.
It is dangerous to feed the culture of repressed emotions, thus repressing our moods. Ignoring one’s emotions leads to short-lived reactions both mentally and physically.
By not recognizing our emotions, feelings and moods we magnify their negative side. Yet, most people tend to repress strong emotions and, especially, those associated with discomfort or malaise, such as anger, sadness, frustration, fear, disappointment.
To reduce the impact of our worst feelings, expressing them openly and honestly (in the right situations, of course) can help reduce their severity and promote recovery from those feelings.
This is exactly the message of the post and I find your comment Aldo an honest reflection of the post.
Bad feelings are acidic and acids corrode pots. Our chests are the box and we crack it with feelings that we store only to cause more harm for us.
I deeply appreciate your comment.
I didn’t know this expression, Ali, so I googled it and didn’t find it. I think it is like many old adages, their meanings exist but they are worded completely different in different languages.
Now I am curious as to whether there is an oozing pot adage in English?
The closest conceptually I could think of in Danish would directly translated be “The mouth runs over with which the heart is filled.” The famous Freudian slip (and no, that is not Anna Freud’s nightgown.)
All that said, I think the premise of your post, that what we keep ruminating over may change character over time, is both true and worth – well, ruminating over a bit.
So often we tell ourselves a story about other people’s intentions without checking it. Sometimes what is a totally neutral observation gets a tinge of something ugly if we look through a lens clouded by lack of appreciation for ourselves. Then we recognize that critical view in words of others regardless if it is there or not.
The honey, our own sweet souls, start fermenting with the pollutants of put downs and childhood trauma. The only difference being that I don’t know how to un-ferment honey, but there may be ways to un-ferment a hurting soul.
You are spot on Charlotte. We make multiple mistakes quick judgment, quick reaction and slow thinking about the consequences.
Small mistakes combine may create greater harmful effect that each mistake acting on its own.
You summarized the idea of the post so well “All that said, I think the premise of your post, that what we keep ruminating over may change character over time, is both true and worth – well, ruminating over a bit”.
Bees are awesome! 18 percent and steadily – I had no idea.
Yes, that does seem useful for people. Though a lot of time I express my feelings in prayer rather than out loud.
Thanks for your reflection, Ali.
blessings,
Cynthia
The 18%ratio has been proven scientifically Cynthia Ann Leighton. It is amazing that bees discovered this safe water percentage.
Expressing your feelings in prayers is a great way of ventilating and purifying them.
Thank you for your appreciation.