Emotional Well-Being

“The real battle is with our own inner feelings and beliefs about how it ought to be.” — Ram Dass

Ain’t it the truth? In the time we are living in, I look at the news daily and usually have the thought “it shouldn’t be this way”, followed by a flood of strong emotions ranging from sadness to anger. What about you?

Being fully human is moving through the highs and lows of life. We can choose to do that skillfully, or not. Perhaps we can all agree that a good deal of that difficulty is born of circumstances out of our control. At the same time, we humans can exercise the power to choose our responses.

Victor Frankl, a holocaust survivor who lost his entire family describes a major learning from his horrific time in the Nazi death camps in his book, “Man’s Search For Meaning”. “Between stimulus and response is a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”. This was Victor’s strategy for survival as he faced choices that most of us would never want to imagine.

This powerful nugget of advice can alleviate tons of personal and collective suffering.

Mindfulness teacher Tara Brach refers to this concept as “the sacred pause”. Consistently finding that space between stimulus and response can be the hard work of a lifetime.

How do we pause before responding skillfully on a consistent basis? One way is to consistently cultivate mindful self-awareness of our internal emotional state so that our actions and words can be appropriate, clearheaded, and skillful in a variety of situations.

Easy, right? Not for me, especially when anger shows up.

Anger was a frequent emotion in my family of origin. While it was not to the degree of outright violence, there was a lot of verbal expression, yelling and drama. There was not a whole lot of space between stimulus and response. It was more like a collision. I learned early to shoot first and ask questions later, often when it was too late to undo the damage of my thoughtless words.

I also learned to stuff my sadness. The unspoken message I got in response to my big emotions, (of which I had many) was to “suck it up, especially when it came to grief and sadness. This lack of emotional intelligence served me poorly, especially as I got older and entered romantic relationships.

While you may be nodding your head at this predicament, the bigger question is not IF we can understand this dilemma mentally. It is HOW can we work with emotions, particularly the challenging ones that cause us to act out and do harm to ourselves and others.

Meditation Teacher Pema Chodron tells us that “inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.” In other words, while we may not be able to change the button pushers in our lives, we can work on the buttons.

It starts with the practice (and I do mean practice) of clearly seeing the emotions that come up, whether they be positive, negative, or neutral. Another word for this clear seeing is awareness. When we cultivate the awareness of our feelings, especially the ones we may be conditioned to stuff or act on, we can make different choices by putting space between what comes at us and what we do about it.

Mindfulness meditation offers a great means to start this process. Once we get adept with this in our practice, we can take this skill into our lives, applying the “the sacred pause” when we are triggered to get to a better outcome.

The process is simple. We settle into our meditation position relax and release the tensions in the body and begin by finding an anchor for our attention. This point of focus can be the breath, bodily sensations or sounds.

Inevitably as we sit, stand, or walk in practice, thoughts and emotions come up. We allow these to be there without getting caught. When strong emotions surface, we notice our reactions and note them. Ah….. anger. Ah….. sadness. Ah……..joy. The key is to experience our emotions directly without getting carried away by the stories our minds are prone to create.

Over time, this ability to be with our emotions without immediately reacting spills into our lives. The continuum of this skill ranges from having more patience on the grocery line to offering wise responses to people or events that trigger strong emotions in ourselves or others.

Reality check, please! The aim of practicing Mindfulness of Emotions is not to turn us into emotionless, chilled-out zombies, always peaceful and serene regardless of the situation. Nothing could be further from the intention of this practice. It is to remain steady in the face of adversity, and to express all emotions whether they be anger, rage, grief, sadness or even joy appropriately with an understanding of the impact we are having. This is a powerful life ability. As recounted by one of my teachers, Jack Kornfield, the late Thich Nhat Hanh told of the crowded refugee boats in Vietnam. If even one person on the boat stayed calm and steady, it was enough to calm everyone down. With every fiber of my being, I believe that the equanimity we find in this practice can provide a balm for our troubled times.

Remember that like so many other tools of mindfulness, awareness of our emotions and the ability to act on them with skill is a lifelong process, not a destination. It takes practice, practice, and more practice.

It is important to honor our humanity. In the face of today’s challenges, excess stress, or fatigue, we all get cranky and mindless. Practicing mindful meditation will not solve for 100% of that. What I can say is that when I am triggered or act in a thoughtless manner, I recover more quickly, I apologize more quickly, and I get back to center more quickly. My family sure appreciates it.

How might this skill serve you?

Peace,

Cynde

Cynde Denson is a Mindfulness Instructor, a certified Yoga Instructor, a Co-Active® Coach and a group facilitator. For more information about Cynde’s classes, workshops, and coaching services, click here.

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