Hey,
Did you know…
I’ve meditated, I’ve done a tonne of yoga, and I’ve journaled?
I’ve made my bed, I’ve put the house in order, and I’ve done all my to-dos for the day?
I’ve worked through my trauma, I’ve learned about emotional intelligence, and I’ve accepted who I am?
Oh, and I’m also calm, I’m in my center, and I’m rocking a hot bod?
Well. It’s true (okay, maybe not the last one).
But don’t be fooled into thinking I’m boasting or patting myself on the back.
I’m confused. If I’ve done all this and more, then
Why the heck do I still feel do damn [place your word for terrible here]??
I used to think the more practices you do, the more experience in meditation you have, and the more about emotions you learn, the less anything in life would be able to throw you off.
You’d basically become indestructible.
Marching through obstacles and overcoming challenges like some kind of emotionally resilient terminator.
Well, I was wrong.
Mostly.
This approach did help me succeed in becoming more like a robot-person-thing.
But not in the sense of becoming stronger and cooler.
I became more immune to physical and emotional pain, less sensitive to the moment, more shielded and distant, and less human (ouch).
I became more “emotionally resilient”—breezing through day-to-day stressors like traffic and awkward discussions and cat carpet poo as if living on another planet and simply watching it all happen.
Like a robot, I was running on automatic scripts “all is well” and experiencing the same monotone-calm-but-neutral feelings. If anything particularly difficult or unexpected were to happen, it was almost like the system would crash and implode—unable to process it in the moment with my preset models and scripts.
How could this be?
I was doing all the recommended practices, was taking more self-improvement courses than I could count, and things had never been better.
I discovered my attitude towards difficult emotions was something akin to my attitude toward cooking good eggs—something to master and overcome and then forget about.
Emotions to me were like traffic jams or bad coffee—things that shouldn’t exist but do and that simply require “accepting” and becoming hardened and “resilient” to.
This approach is efficient, but it involves tuning out of the frequency of life—which is like a popular radio station that plays a diverse mix of music—and tuning into an independent radio station that only plays James Blunt.
It’s pleasant (is it really?), but always the same and incredibly predictable.
So what would happen is anytime I happened to get shocked out of Blunt mode, say, when some guy bumped us from behind and gets out his car and starts jabbering in Spanish, when it’s my first time teaching a large group of teenagers, or when a tough decision had to be made about who the kids live with, it would be like someone suddenly switched the radio to Mexican Banda music and turned it up full blast.
I.e. Not good.
There’s no point in time when you will have done enough yoga / meditation / affirmations and you finally “get it” and live without a care in the world.
This stuff helps. But doing it while thinking emotions are to be subdued or overcome, and you’re going to one day arrive at that magical place where difficulty doesn’t exist, can lead to more harm than good.
It can make you more inclined to stay warm and cozy in your fabricated bliss bubble and float through life a few feet above the ground—safely avoiding its sharp and ever changing pricks and pokes and prods.
Emotions can be painful. But they’re also, if you pay attention, incredibly useful, full of wisdom, and key for being connected to yourself, others, and the world.
Just this morning I was sitting pretending to meditate while secretly lamenting over the work I had to do as soon as I finished.
I was happy to notice the thoughts as best as I could and let them pass by. But still, it was like I was dead set that the work I had to do was the worst thing in the world and I’d rather do anything else. Including meditate.
Then, I noticed I felt a bit sad.
Who know’s why. Most likely because I was a bit tired and fed up of forcing myself to work like a coked-up dictator threatening a 1-year-old into going potty.
It’s as if I caught the thoughts in action, and, instead of just letting them pass and being “resilient” and soldering on, I chose to be open and sensitive. This allowed me to see anything else that was present—to see thoughts not as independent things but rather as a part of an ever changing, interactive relationship that includes emotions, actions, and the environment.
There’s no substitute for being sensitive to, and accepting, how you feel in each moment.
Without this ability to emotionally tune in to what feelings are present, no matter how much emotional preparation or how many spiritual practices you do, it will never ever seem enough.
And thank God for that.
This means you don’t have to sign up to 39 mindfulness apps and take a PhD in emotional psychology and wait 20 years until you’ve meditated 10,000 hours to have a clue about what you feel and why you feel what you feel.
You can get an idea in this moment.
Or the next.
Sure, it’s a practice, it takes patience, and it ain’t easy.
But the rewards are worth it. And not to mention, it’s a hell of a lot better than being an emotional terminator.
Your friend,
Joe
Mindfulness coach, MBSR & MBCT instructor.
Visit my new site for mindfulness coaching and meditation for modern life.
I loved reading these words Joe. You have described exactly the challenges I have been facing regarding my feelings-emotions. It’s a relief to learn how important they are and that we shouldn’t try to ignore them but rather be open and sensitive to them so that we give ourselves the opportunity to learn what they are trying to let us know. 🙏