Transforming Painful Emotions
Sometimes we don’t have domestics in public.
Andy and I had a (not so) fun little domestic dispute last night at our community’s weekly Friday night music in the park. My cute friend got to witness it, giggling as our style of tamped-down but gradually elevating argument is slightly less heated and boisterous than she and her husband’s Latino versus Italian fiery brawls.
Andy left the park and I thought to myself, “I just spent 5 days in zen, meditating, reading, walking, nourishing my soul and grounding. And here I am set off like a Roman candle firecracker on July fourth. I thought I’d do better this time!?” I took a couple breaths and remembered that yes, I laid a foundation, but there is more work to be done to build my internal home of peace and calm. I remembered I needed to relax and release, and then look at why I was upset.
The answer: Fear.
Fear rose up and bit me and I acted out. I was fearful that if I didn’t control a certain situation, my children’s future would surely be set on a downward spiral where they try meth just once, but they’re immediately hooked, and then they’re stealing my rings to pawn them for money and living on some cardboard boxes in the woods. Totally rational, right?! Lord help me.
During my time away, a sweet little paperback book found me and every time I picked it up, I couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of peace, and smile ear to ear before I set it back down. It is called Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh. One of the essays written is specifically about transforming your feelings, and it was just what I needed for this fear story loop that my brain was spinning.
Nhat Hanh breaks down the process of transforming painful feelings into five steps:
1. Recognize the feeling as it arises. Recognize the emotion (fear) and name it out loud, mindfully.
2. Make peace with the feeling. Don’t tell it to go away, or that it’s ridiculous. Instead, get non-judgmentally curious. I thought, “Oh right, you want to protect your kids.” Nhat Hanh says if mindfulness is present, it can “chaperone” your feeling, without it drawing you in deeper.
3. Calm the feeling. Breathe. Nhat Hanh suggests holding the feeling, nurturing it as a mother would her child. He suggests saying the words, “Breathing out, I calm my fear.” Treat it like the hurt part of a child.
4. When you’re ready, release the feeling and let it go. Your calm mindfulness gives you the ability. Smile, let it go, but stay curious about what brought it up.
5. Look deep inside yourself. See what is wrong. Is there something that needs to change in order to bring in tenderness and care into the situation? What viewpoints or beliefs are causing the pain? Do those need to change? Ask yourself, what is the truth about this belief? This is where your transformation happens.
After recognizing the feeling, calming it, releasing it, looking for causes, then we can transform the belief and remember the truth. I decided that I needed to apologize to Andy for acting out in fear and blaming him for the situation. I asked if he could forgive me and if we could make up. At first, he was still very clinched and guarded from feeling hurt, but hearing me say I’m sorry, and better understanding me and my fears, and my humbly asking to make up took the sting out of his pain.
I’m learning and re-learning the lesson: if you slow down, breathe, stop fighting your emotions, get curious about where they came from, there is nothing I can’t handle. Life is good. And if my kids end up sleeping on cardboard boxes in the woods, I will search until I find them and bring them home and feed them soup and hug them all day like my own mother would do for me.
