It is 100 percent natural to have opinions about all aspects of our experience. we are designed this way. Opinions are not a problem. How we interact with and hold these opinions certainly can be a problem. A ridged, unexamined opinion can damage relationships, communities, nations.
Opinions held in the light of awareness can be sign posts that give us information, help us understand ourselves and others better. When approached with humility, opinions hold up a mirror and offer us the chance to see and grow and reroute our paths.
It is natural to prefer things that are pleasant to those things that are not. There is a natural desire to hold on to the pleasant and to push away that which is unpleasant. Pain and disappointment are inevitable when you engage in this way because of the changeable nature of all life. When we, through practice, get used to watching as things arise and pass away- including attachment and aversion- our life gets freer. We can be with the passing states with more tolerance, more understanding.
I am a very opinionated person. I care very deeply about things. I take the world seriously. I take people seriously. My opinions are not the only opinions, My opinions are colored by my own conditioning. Beneath my opinions, and those sometimes explosive reactions they cause in the body, is a deep dedication to justice and compassion. I trust that dedication. When I am able to hold my opinions lightly, it is after all not the opinions themselves, but what they point to, I am able to stay aligned with what really matters to me. I am able to move with the pleasure and pain in a way that doesn’t add extra hurt to that natural, inevitable dance of pleasure and pain that plays itself out through a human life.
One way that I work with this in myself is when a strong opinion (usually an angry one) arises, I feel it in my body, I take a deep slow breath and I sense what is beneath it, what matters about this to me, why it is important. I try to speak to that place. If I am worked up about an injustice I saw on the news for example, I might put my hand on my heart or face (touch is powerful!) and say, yes I know, you care that people are respected and safe or whatever it is… and then I might drop in a little Metta to honor that. “May all beings be safe and protected…”
Sensing beneath the surface of opinion can keep us from moving into judging mind. It can help us from getting caught in the snag of opinion. It can protect us from the difficult fallout of an opinion weaponized.
May you be safe and protected.
May you live in peace, with ease.
kim