We all have
different tolerance levels to stress. We
also all have different triggers. What
sets off one person will pass another by like a cloud across the sky.
My particular
triggers are always to do with emotion.
So, this past week has been particularly hard for me. Things happened at work, people got upset, I
found myself in the middle of it all, and when my feelings are churning around
inside me I find my eating and sleeping and concentration are altered too, and
consequently my ability to continue to deal effectively with whatever the
situation demands. If it drags on for
days or even weeks, the stress can become unmanageable.
Mindfulness has
helped me enormously, and still does. I
can usually remain calm in the midst of strong emotions, even my own, and I can often find
space around the feelings which tends to stop them escalating and creates a
pause in my gut reaction, allowing me to respond much more, well, mindfully. But then, as
soon as I'm off guard, either when my mind starts up on the storyline again, or
when I'm trying to fall asleep and my thoughts have become untethered from the
present moment, I find my body is reflecting the unease once more in a physical
heaviness in the pit of my stomach, or a tightness in my chest, and my
attention is unwillingly drawn back to it. The buddhist nun Pema Chodron helpfully wrote about this:
For a moment or more, touch
the quality, the mood, the bodily felt sensation free of the storyline. This uncomfortable experience, this familiar
sensation that can sit like a lump in your stomach, that can cause your body
and face to tense, that can physically hurt - this experience itself is not
the problem. If we can get curious about this emotional
reaction, if we can relax and feel it, if we can experience it fully and let it
be, then it's no problem. We might even
experience it as simply frozen energy whose true nature is fluid, dynamic, and
creative....Our repetitive suffering does not come from this uncomfortable
sensation but from what happens next....It comes from rejecting our own
energy when it comes in a form we don't like...[If we choose to] abide with the energy, and then move on, the power
of this is not just that it weakens old habits but that it burns up the
propensity for these habits altogether....We can live from a broader
perspective, one that admits all experiences - pleasurable, painful and neutral....We can learn to accept the present moment
as if we had invited it, and work with it instead of against it, making it our
ally instead of our enemy.'
This reminds
me of many years ago, when I was a live-in home companion for someone in Oxford,
on my afternoon three hour break walking around a nearby park. The usual feelings were assailing me; deep
loneliness, old pain from past heart wounds and more recent fresh ones, a sense of hopelessness about the future....And
suddenly I heard myself saying, 'I accept this pain. I fight it no longer. I'm not going to resist it. I'm going to welcome this pain,' even opening my arms wide (I must have
looked mad to any onlooker). Which
sounds like masochism or insanity or both. I have no idea to this day what
prompted such weirdness, but the reason I mention it here is because something
profound happened. It is really beyond the scope of language to express it, but I will try. I was aware of something deep within me
shifting. Instead of being overwhelmed
by what I had imagined as overwhelming suffering, it actually diminished. It kind of melted inside me. I was aware that some kind of healing had
taken place but didn't have a clue what, or whether it would even last. I felt freer and lighter. And that was it.
Of course I continued to feel great sadness from time to time over the
years, but it's become clear that some blockage within me was able to begin clearing by
my decision to stop resisting and start embracing what felt like hell. I had to literally 'embrace' it because
otherwise, when I try to just 'accept' something, it becomes more like
resignation which is not acceptance at all and can lead to depression.
I think I've
written this post for myself today. I think
this is what I need to do right now, and remind myself that emotions themselves
last for an extremely short time (something in the region of 90 seconds) and the
cortisol resulting from stress lasts about 1.5 hours, and then they've passed
by unless, unless I keep feeding them
with the storyline, or am deep down resisting the unpleasant sensations they produce. Right, I'll get to it.
Photograph 'Sinking' courtesy of Eva at http://fantasticfoto.shutterchance.com/
6 comments :
Maybe you did write it for yourself, but someone noticed.
I should probably get more stressed than I do because stress can be a good trigger for taking action against a problem. Instead I am supremely lazy and will watch impending problems approach until the last possible moment before doing anything. And sometimes I misjudge the last possible moment and things go a bit pear shaped.
I also find writing the most fantastic bolt-hole for when things bother me.
Colin.
I feel that you've written it me as well as yourself today, Julie. Beautifully written as always, always here to listen to you, you're not alone ;-)
Embracing your feelings no matter what they maybe is the start of wisdom and ultimatley they will become smaller and more manageable .the power to acknowledge bad as well as good ( i.e. not stuff it down) is the begining of healing. Well done!
Hi Julie, as you know, the pain in my life has been my greatest teacher. Without hot we wouldn't know cold, without pain we would not know joy. So it is my belief that with each painful lesson, we grow into more consciousness. The pain teaches us, as you say, to be more mindful of our thoughts. And of course the more mindful we are of our thoughts, the more joy we find. Great work, as always.
Thank you for sharing this my friend... I call this my 'mole-hill to mountain syndrome', when I am conscious of ruminating over and over and the issue appears to become bigger and bigger. But, I will take a leaf from your learned book, now, and just learn to 'feel' and recognise those feelings. Maybe even embrace them! Thank you for sharing your wisdom... X
Great to read all your comments, everyone. And to think, I really wrote this post for myself. Didn't think anyone else would particularly relate to it, but looks like I am happily proved wrong. What complicated beings we humans are!
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