Emotional By-pass

Over the past two months there have been a number of real life, on the ground disruptions in my life. On the potential scale negative events, these circumstances are relatively small in scale. These circumstances have caused some hurt and shown me that we cannot always trust people, and it is a good thing to have boundaries.

What I do when these things happen, is I lean into the teachings and self help. I search good reads from the spiritual teachers, I search for meaning in the circumstance. I look for guidance on how to handle the feelings, thoughts, the "right" way. I pray for guidance, I meditate, I journal, I talk to a friend. I do Byron Katie's, The Work; I read Pema Chodron's Buddist teachings, I lean into all I have learned through Yoga.

As I sat this morning, looking to the Universe for strength, I finally saw a truth I had not realized before. All these actions are my attempt to by-pass the negative emotions.  These actions of a studied person trying to do the right thing, handle the situation in a positive way were not a whole lot different than trying to handle negative feelings with drugs, food, exercise, and/or work to by-pass the feelings. 

My reaction to Covid lockdown, which coincided with the death of my father, was house projects. I leaned into hyper productivity consuming my thoughts with measurements before I made the cut of wood for the deck. Problem solving how to replace that window over the stairs with a stable platform. Where is the property line as I cut the trees moving up into the view of the ocean. My body exhausted at the end of the day, I had earned my zoning out in front of Netflix with a glass of wine. And there was no time or space for the feelings of loss, the grief, sense of isolation, and worry of a world in chaos.

The attempt to by-pass negative emotions is the antithesis of acceptance of the situation as it is and it just creates more suffering.

I was ashamed of my daily glass of wine habit, I hated my body. This suffering just added to all the emotions I was trying to stuff away and block from feeling. This push and pull between so called "healthy choices" and unhealthy reactivity continued for years, even as we emerged from Covid.

I recognized the pattern from my eating disorder days in my late teens, early twenties so I reached out for help and was blessed to meet not only someone who mentors folks with eating disorders, but also a spiritual seeker. In our very first conversation ​

I was explaining the circumstances, listing all the things that were applying pressure - Covid, unable to see my son, my dad's death, the challenges of Covid and handling the estate... He stopped me. "Back up, your dad just died?" And I replied, "yes, in February and we have to clear out the house and the recycle places are closed and my dad has stacks of plastic containers...." He replied, "Your dad died just a couple of months ago." I started into the explanation of we needed to do and he said, "I am so sorry. How do you feeling about losing your dad?"

My lip started to quiver and tears sprang to my eyes. I stared out the window to the ocean beyond the tops of the trees and I could not speak. Silence. As tears rolled down my cheeks, I finally said, "I feel like something was unfinished between us."

Witnessing how we dismiss our emotions is an essential step in healing. The goal is not to by-pass suffering, the goal is to experience the suffering without building on the story with more suffering. My house projects, hyper productivity was a feeble attempt to by-pass the feelings of loss. So too in the past two months, I have moved into hyper productivity, new projects around the house, searching for a goal to by-pass how all of these events in recent months have felt.

It is human to feel all the emotions. Attempts to deny the negative emotions is also very human. As we move into more chaos with an election on the horizon and major storms in the recent past, it is a very important time to sit with the emotions, allow them in and to experience them. The goal is not to react. All that productivity, the reading the self help and spiritual books, those are reactions. It is how we respond that matters. Reaction has a hurried nature to it. A response has a measured quality. A reaction is often not well planned. A response has considered the consequences of any action or inaction. 

First feel the pain of the circumstance. Allow the pain to wash over and through you.
Then with a little breathing space, consider...
How will your response impact your relationship with yourself?
How will it impact your relationship with others in the moment?
How will it impact the relationship in five years in the future?
Ten years in the future?

Then decide what is appropriate for you to say or do. And remember, it may be nothing.