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Observations from a life in motion

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Feeling: Observations related to feelings

#91: Dressing for the weather

I recently went for a walk with a friend. We live about 2 miles apart and planned to meet midway and continue together. It was a bit cold and windy so I wore a full-sleeved top and grabbed an extra layer. When I bumped into my friend though, she was in shorts and a sleeveless tank top. She said it felt warm and windless in her neighborhood. Even though we’re geographically close, it sometimes seems we live in different microclimates. I’ve noticed on prior walks how spring and summer flowers in her less-shaded neighborhood seem to open ahead of the ones in our shaded backyard. She also lives in a south-facing home that traps heat and keeps her warm.

Even metaphorically, we dress for the weather outside our front door. Our day-to-day circumstances being the weather we plan for and our thoughts, emotions and actions being the metaphorical dress. How we “dress” is also based on the data points we’ve lived through. We assess our current circumstances but then call upon our personal histories while making decisions on how to behave. The unseen assumption is that our data points are complete and accurate, and our responses are based on the full picture. It’s easy to forget that our history determines what data we collect, and that our current reality is often different from another’s. 

Going back to the metaphor of clothing—we clothe ourselves based on context and when the context changes, we alter our outfit. It gets hot on a hike, we take off that extra jacket. It gets cold, we pull out our gloves and scarves. We don’t waste energy or get attached to the way we were dressed 30 minutes ago. We don’t question our actions or berate ourselves incessantly. We respond to the changing weather without attaching our identity to the artifacts of clothing. The response feels seamless.

Obviously it’s hard to be so detached from the trifecta of our thoughts, emotions and actions. But understanding the current and historical “weather” we or another human has lived through creates an awareness about the context within which they have had to operate. It creates flexibility, and is the first step towards relational ease and eventually shared sense making. It helps us know why they came to the walk in a tank top while we showed up in long sleeves.

“Perception precedes reality.” — Andy Warhol, artist, film-director

#80: Metabolizing hard emotions

Ants seems to have a focus, a sense of connectedness and resilience I aspire to. I see hordes of them walking their path with purpose as a collective, sometimes carrying objects that appear too big for their small frames. Put your finger in their path and they walk around it, making a new path without fuss. And they always pause to interact with an ant coming from the opposite direction, as if exchanging important everyday intel. If we zoom out on a human life, as if looking down from an airplane, we are no different. We commute literally and figuratively on a path towards our goals alongside others. We encounter roadblocks, we bump into other humans and exchange information.

I don’t know if ants are able to go about their business without internal turbulence, but humans are a constant swirl of emotions. You can bet that our emotions will arise and fall every few minutes the way waves crash onshore repeatedly; especially when we interact with others or do work that matters to us. It’s in our cells to experience emotional waves in response to others and to create waves in them whether our interactions are deep or shallow. Our emotional waves create thoughts, which drive actions, which in turn drive more emotional waves…and on and on we go rippling. I’m assuming ants don’t go through this.

Sometimes these internal swells become all consuming and throw us off our path entirely. Our instinctive response to such moments is to either spew emotions or suppress them to live lives of control. In the latter option, we create barriers so the waves don’t crash so hard. But over time, we not only smother that difficult feeling, we block our ability to feel and express in general. The barriers we create to protect ourselves end up locking us in our psyche where unfelt and unexpressed parts of ourselves create layers of density. Suppressed emotions only have two avenues for release ― our reflexive reactions and unexpected bursts of emotion ― so under the right pressure, our dense emotional layers tend to blow up like volcanoes. This brings us down the long winding road back to option 1…the indiscriminate spewing of emotions. 

There is a third option. Over the last few weeks, I’ve created a mental model that I’ve found productive in navigating my own raw emotions. I’ve started viewing quiet moments as spaces to metabolize life and emotion. To digest and move through whatever comes up in the course of my days. To see how like waves, my emotions churn up mud and sediment, making it hard to decipher reality. That the waves feel scary only when they’re tossing me around without my control. But when I sit on the shore and observe without judgment or involvement, they eventually subside. Rather than shutting the door to my difficult feelings like I used to, I now invite them in for a silent coffee when my house is quiet. At some point in this self-accompaniment process, it feels like I’m metabolizing life, learning, and growing with it. I also find important information contained in my hard emotions, that within the ache and fear is the intel for my next step. What’s more surprising is that once I gather that intel, the waves subside on their own and I start walking on the path again with more ease.

Until the next wave ofcourse. I still see myself flinging raw and unmetabolized emotions on others or into my own actions but now I have a framework to anchor back to.

“The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain.” — Gabor Mate, physician and author specializing in treatment of addiction

#75: What is attention?

Is it intense pin-pointed focus on something or is it open awareness of the present, regardless of the object?

Does it come and go or is there an attentive part of us always waiting to be called upon?

Does it live in the body, like in the case of professional dancers or athletes? Where, over time, it takes the shape of muscle memory and mental interruptions are the last thing we need. Or does it live in the mind, like that of a scientist or a writer, deep in focus?

Is it in the achievement of the flow-state, where attention just courses through us without any sense of time? Or is it in the attentive preparation and effort that enables the sought-after flow state?

Is it better for attention to be unmediated by technology, like when we stare at the night sky and dream? Or can technology help us see what we couldn’t without, like a telescope that helps us see the contours of the night sky?

Do we create the world with our attention or is what we give attention to defined by the world we live in?

Is attention scarce or do we have enough of it and the struggle is really about where to apply this attention?

Could all of this be true?

“Before our minds create our world, the world creates our minds.” — Gabor Mate,  Hungarian-Canadian physician and author specializing in treatment of addiction

#64: Walking with fear

Just because we want to do something in life doesn’t mean it can’t scare us. Fear might make an appearance exactly because we want to do this thing. But fear is also a broad word that covers a large terrain. Is this thing truly dangerous or are we afraid of the odds and the possibilities ahead? Are we afraid of failure, are we unsure of what to do next, are we lonely in our pursuit, do we wonder if we have the stamina to get to the finish line, or do we fear that life as we know it will change beyond recognition? It can be hard to know what’s beneath the resistance. It could be one of these things or several, or perhaps something entirely different.

We often look away from fear because not only is it hard to face, it can also be hard to understand. It’s complex and a shapeshifter. One day the fear shows us one side of the story and just when we think we’ve nailed it and addressed the cause for unease, it starts reflecting a different shape and color. How much time can one spend trying to understand their fear and resistance? We can live in our minds and keep analyzing till the end of time; it may not help but it will certainly exhaust us. We can’t look away though and keep doing what we were doing. Tuning things out and turning away our attention means we’re resisting the emerging future.

The only real antidote to fear is action. Small, imperfect, sometimes tear-filled and anxiety-ridden action. It’s not to say that another flavor of this exact same fear won’t return but imperfect action is the only way the world and lives are built. We’re all like that little child—first tentative and maybe afraid of the new face in front of us but then as we start interacting with them, the fear dissipates.

Before we act, it helps to look at the fear directly to try and see what part of us it’s trying to protect. This is different from analyzing or problem solving. The goal here is to create a silent space and direct attention to whatever wants to surface today. As it is. With zero judgment. When I’m really fearful though, it’s harder to sit in silence but easier to move in it. A moving meditation like a walk, swim, row, yoga or even slow improvisational dance makes this inquiry more bearable. But we can’t just stay in inquiry-mode; the key is to move ahead and take action holding our fear’s hand knowing that tomorrow, it might tell us yet another story and make us taste yet another bitter flavor.

In my most recent walk with fear, I noted that life is asking me to be a certain type of vessel for its work…and I’ve resisted and crumbled repeatedly. Silence allowed me to pick up those pieces, re-tape them to create that beaten up and patched-up vessel so life can start flowing through me again.

Life will be full of these fear-filled speedbumps, especially when we really want to do something.

“I’m a spring leaf trembling in anticipation of full growth.”― Maya Angelou: poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist.

#53: Getting stuck and unstuck

Humans tend to live out a cyclical pattern of getting stuck and unstuck; certainly over the years, months and weeks but sometimes over shorter windows of days and even hours. Our approach to getting unstuck makes a material difference in who we become. Getting stuck and unstuck might look different for each of us from the outside but what is likely similar is the internal environment. 

For me, “stuck” has felt first like a mental followed by an emotional valley, moments where everything seems just a bit harder and solutions don’t come easy but the questions keep surfacing. Where the mental chasm between life’s demands and what I feel prepared to handle might increase a bit. When all of a sudden, in the mornings, the bed feels more magnetic and just a bit safer. Where the recurring internal optimism is met by a faint but definite voice of a cynic that sows seeds of self-doubt, calling that optimist a fool. Where the wiser me doesn’t jump in to troubleshoot because it hasn’t been fed the nourishment of solitude, reflection and self-care. When I find myself in such a space, I often realize that it had been on slow boil and I failed to see the signs and “weed the mental garden” in time, only to now find the mind overrun with aggressive vines. It’s often such a subtle shift at first when the thoughts start marching on a downward trajectory. I have also noticed that this always happens when the connection to self is lost and my actions lose the benefit of oversight from my steady, wise and compassionate internal observer.

Getting stuck for me is an entirely mental thing.

The unstuck similarly doesn’t arrive with a big bang. It often begins with the simple yet hard-to-do act of listening to my body. Historically, it’s has been a challenge for me to pause and tune into the embedded wisdom in the body when the mind is running in loops. My particular internal programming would rather I do all the work first and then anything else. When the stress knots arrive, my tendency is to push harder on the gas pedal as if I could outrun and outwork the knot to make it dissolve. It never does. What does happen is that the tasks become Sisyphean―laborious and ineffective. When the mind is overrun with action, the last thing I want to do is take an active pause; by which I mean a pause to understand the fear that underlies all that action and stress (yes, it’s always fear of some sort). That knot in the belly, the labored breathing, the sleeplessness, the tight jaw are often the physical manifestation of a deeper undercurrent, and it’s hard to wade through the pulsating fear when we’re already overwhelmed. This is where things like journaling, breath work, yoga, and other rhythmic movement practices like hiking, walking, and dance come in. They create a safe silence that allows the spidery fears to start crawling out from the nooks so we can see them for what they are.

All fear―fear of failure, fear of not amounting to anything, fear of not being understood, fear of losing trust and respect, fear of losing physical or mental faculties over time…you name it―is ultimately the fear of being othered, of being cast out of the tribe, of not being loved for exactly who we are. Imperfect, afraid and yet deeply desirous of love and belonging. And these fears don’t just create emotional pain, they turn into physical aches and pains. 

Getting unstuck typically requires some physical shift followed by a connection to trusted others. And the thing that felt so big starts to dissolve and lose its hold.

Our fundamental human need to belong and be loved is often at the root of getting stuck, and that unconditional belonging and love from ourselves and others is often what gets us unstuck to propel us forward. The hardest thing of all is to show to someone that we are afraid and need them. The mental and physical shifts are certainly important but they are a precursor to then asking our trusted humans for support and care.

We can stop the work at the mental and physical shifts and get back to productivity or we can add that extra splash of human care and make the journey both fruitful and worthwhile.

(I am deeply and lovingly grateful to my humans who got me unstuck last week!)

“A life truly lived constantly burns away veils of illusion, burns away what is no longer relevant, gradually reveals our essence, until, at last, we are strong enough to stand in our naked truth.”— Marion Woodman