Life is not linear. Presence is not linear. Positive emotion is not linear.
The ebbs of flows of the ocean are cyclical. The planetary seasons are cyclical. Our life and states of being are cyclical.
Moving out of presence in times of chaos gives us an opportunity to discover more intimately the process of finding presence in a world and life which is perpetually draped with distraction.
Maintaining presence and deep connection to our environment and its inhabitants is not the necessarily the aim or highest ideal. In my eyes the highest ideal would more be connected to noticing and being present to the process of you sitting in disharmony and then acting out what is needed to heal. The healing is evolving to a state of being which is once again filled with grounded positive emotion with the addition of the integrated learnings of what was illuminated by the previous disharmony.
Evolving your state does not wholly refer to recovering a previous state of positivity but is actually defined by the two terms of transcend and include. We do not leave the disharmony in the dust never to be spoken about or remembered. Instead we transcend from that state and include the teachings that were presented. This is evolution. Moving up the spiral elevator of consciousness neither disregarding any previous state of being yet including every state as an integral set to the whole.