emotions

No wait – don’t click away! THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL POST! 🙂

One of the most insidious parts of the ego is the need to be right.

Where does this come from?

It’s embedded deep within us, coming from the survival mechanism of evaluating threat in the world.

Find a red berry on your morning forage?

You’d better be able to evaluate if it’s a yummy one or poison before you eat it!

This need to be right in our perceptions of the world has run amok and to a large degree is the cause of our current political climate.

It’s useful to reflect on how this might manifest for you. Many of us (myself included!) hold strong views of the world and we’re committed to those views, and deem them to be correct.

But what happens when you encounter someone who is equally certain that her view is true instead?

This does not cause problems only on the big stage of political discussion. It’s a very real problem in everyday life. The need to be right is likely driving a huge portion of the small arguments and little conflicts you have every day.

It’s helpful to be aware of it, but it’s even more helpful to examine what’s underneath it.

Meaning: What do you feel is the right response when someone is wrong?

There’s this human tendency to use violence in teaching our young. We do it with dogs — roll up the newspaper and swat him on the butt — and we do it with kids, with yelling and screaming and sometimes worse.

If you dig beneath the surface, and examine your beliefs, it can be shocking to see how much you’ve internalized these behaviors.

I recently did this type of exploration. I had a small argument with someone over how insurance policies work — not even an argument, really, just one of those things that comes up in life when you’re talking with people at work or your friends. It was, ironically enough, about how insurance companies ascribe blame, and whose policy might suffer an increase in rates based on the specifics of a certain kind of claim.

These types of arguments, when I “know” that I’m right, cause me to feel physical symptoms: Rising blood pressure, accelerated breathing, quickening speech, restlessness. In other words, frustration.

I can’t stand frustration.

I stepped away, and later on examined the situation. Why did I react so strongly? (I still thought that I was right on the specifics of the insurance debate.)

Why did it matter? Why the reaction? What was underneath all of this?

The Work developed by Byron Katie [icon name=”fa-sign-in”] is the best tool I’ve found for looking under the hood and figuring myself out. I did a worksheet, and about five minutes into the process I uncovered this core belief:

“When you’re wrong, you must be punished.”

I can easily trace that back to the parenting style I experienced growing up. That’s not a statement of blame, it’s just how it was, and I think still is for many families around the world.

What was even more distressing was the accompanying acknowledgment that it feels good to be the punisher. This is the ego out of control.

There are some type of “victor” endorphins that get released when we have vanquished a foe. This too goes back to our hunter-gatherer origins. Humans are the dominate species on this planet not by accident, but by violence. We have overcome and subordinated every other species. This is a biological mechanism: When we win, the physical system rewards us with a shot of dopamine and we feel good.

Dominating over another person makes us feel good.

This is one of the most basic ways that the ego maintains separation.

When you dominate, you are separate from; you are removing your commonality and identity from the other and denying any part that is shared. The other is foreign. The enemy. I am at risk.

It manifests in this very simple requirement: I must make you suffer in order for myself to feel good.

When the ego sees an opening, it goes for it. It’s not enough then to somehow acknowledge that both are the same. Both of you cannot be right; one must be WRONG and that involves a fight and a declaration, and a public display of their shame.

So insidious.

So how do you counter this? What do you do?

Well, per that incredibly useful process found in The Work, you turn it around. Instead of “When you’re wrong, you must be punished” it becomes “When you’re wrong, you must be loved.”

I invite you to reflect on that for awhile. The comments are open if you have any observations to share.

In our current social media world, the new normal appears to be sharing everything.

Going out to dinner? Insta your meal!

Trying to figure out what to wear today? Snap your outfit!

Have a fight with your mom? Tweet your frustration!

It’s common and sharing is now accepted, and even among certain circles, expected.

But if you’re interested in finding stillness in your life, then I have a novel proposition: Keep it to yourself.

This advice actually goes much broader than whatever social network app you’ve got loaded onto your phone.

Here’s how it works:

You go to grab coffee from Starbucks and some guy cuts in line and starts an argument with you. You react. Maybe you even get quite upset.

The standard reaction to this event after it’s happened is to tell a friend about it.

Maybe there’s nobody to tell until you get to work. You walk in and Becca the receptionist ask you how it’s going, and you are compelled to tell her: “This guy at Starbucks was so rude!”

It’s like you just can’t keep it to yourself.

Or if it’s a big-enough rude — like, it’s something between friends, or you’re planning a major party and there’s some kind of disagreement with your mom about it, or in a meeting your boss totally snipes at you in front of the whole room — then it’s likely you’ll feel the urge to pick up the phone and call someone or text your BFF and vent about it.

We all do it.

But what if you didn’t?

What if you went through your morning and experienced some type of snub or difficult interaction with another person, and you just let it go and didn’t replay the whole incident again with your buddy later on?

Or you had a mishap of some sort, a paper cut or you pinched your finger in the door or stubbed your toe really bad, and you just kept it to yourself and didn’t tell anyone that it happened?

This can be especially powerful if you practice it on those challenges that can come up in intimate relationships.

You know, the standard “he said/she said” back and forth thing (or “he said/he said” or “she said/she said” or “they said/they said”) that everyone experiences at some time or another with those we love.

I’m not suggesting that you stuff your feelings. If you’re already someone who tends to keep things bottled up, then the exact opposite advice might be better for you! But for anyone who tends to seek relief from the infractions of the ego by verbalizing them to another person, then this suggestion is about corralling that instinct. If you need to share what happened with someone, then that’s fine, it’s not like there’s anything wrong with doing so. However, it disperses the energy and perpetuates the infraction; it reinforces the sense of being victimized or wronged.

It’s very likely that whatever the a-hole did to you was at least in part unintentional or accidental. It’s pretty rare where, in everyday interactions, people seek to actively hurt another person. Sure, it happens, but usually it’s more of a misunderstanding or someone not being mindful or attentive in how they’re trying to get their needs met, and when you’re trying to get your needs met at the same time, then there are inevitable crossed wires from time to time. Our reactions to the initial incident is often what makes it into an offense; that’s where things can get out of hand and the emotions can kick in.

On both sides, it’s usually about defending myself and judging another’s behavior.

What if, the next time you experienced some form of a slight or a “I can’t believe she did that!” type incident, you just smiled and let it go — and really let it go?

There is tremendous power in just accepting the event and letting it process through, without regurgitating it through the victim lens and seeking external gratification about how wrong the other person was and how awful it happened.

There are definitely situations where you need to speak up and enlist allies and get support from the outside world.

But for the standard misconnnects of modern day life, maybe try it this way one time, and see what happens.

It seems that the quickest way to feeling crappy about yourself when you’re striving to be better is when you lose it and have an emotional reaction. Outbursts are not pretty, and they can be embarrassing, or even damaging to relationships with loved ones. Yet for many of us, they happen again and again, an out-of-control pattern that seems impossible to rein in. Such episodes feel jarring, even dissonant, with the calm, collected, serene person you know yourself to be when you’re meditating.

This can also happen with a trigger event, such as news of a layoff that prompts instant panic around money when you’d been feeling comfortable, or the threat of a breakup when you had not realized that your relationship was at risk. Whenever the “I” is challenged and the status quo is being upset, emotions will run rampant.

How can you avoid feeling like a spiritual failure when you’re constantly swept away by your emotions?

One important teaching to remember is that we’re living in Maya. It’s the land of duality. Regardless of whether you intellectually understand that Maya is an illusion or not real, it’s very very difficult to remember this in a moment when the ego feels attacked or is scared. We have built-in patterns and programs that are prompted to run at even the slightest trigger. Until we unravel these patterns through intense inner work, they can control us and carry us away. Sometimes we can catch them before they create damage, but at other times, especially if we’re tired or hungry or otherwise stressed out, we may become victim to our own set of patterns that wreak havoc before the energy that is released from them peters out and we’re left picking up the pieces of damage that we ourselves have created.

Here’s an important tip:

When you find yourself running an endless loop of worry or fear, such as the panic that comes when you’re worried about money, or thinking about whether your partner is going to leave you or not: Recognize that these are just thoughts.

The emotions you’re feeling in your body — the tightness in the chest, the clench of the stomach — these are manifestations of thoughts only. Because you are fixated on the fears that you imagine of what is going to happen to you in the future, then the body responds with its fight-or-flight mechanism, and you get hormones coursing through you and the physical sensations that they generate.

Then, you place yourself in opposition to that, because you have labeled these reactions as unpleasant.

If you stop and settle, and allow the physical and emotional sensations to just be there, without resisting them, then what do you find?

Oftentimes, the emotions feel painful because we have labeled them as “bad.” If you let them simply arise in you, and observe them, and actually experience them, you may discover that they’re not actually all that awful. They’re just emotions.

By labeling them as unpleasant, they BECOME unpleasant in the mind.

This is the first step to understanding how you control your experience. You may not be able to control what happens to you, but you can most certainly determine how you respond to that.

In order to not let your emotions take you for a ride, it’s critical that you not set yourself apart from the emotion. The tug-of-war that comes about when we fight the reactions that occur within the body to the thoughts we are thinking is what causes a great deal of the suffering in our lives.

Sit with the emotions that arise. Let them be there. Observe, identify what they are, literally label them. Trace them to the physical sensations you’re experiencing. “I’m feeling tightness in my chest. My breathing is shallow.” Take an intentionally deep breath and let it calm you, then do it again. Label the new sensations that arise, or identify what’s still there. Find what’s beneath the emotions, through an alert state of passive observation.

The life circumstance that’s occurring to you is not necessarily going to change or be moderated as a result of these practices, but guaranteed, you’ll be better equipped to deal with them.

Over time, you may start to experience a gap between the initial trigger event, and when the emotional and physical response starts to hit you. You’ll have a moment of clarity or a respite before the self-induced attack starts in. You may even be able to step aside from the onslaught, in that slight buffer moment before it crescendos. This takes time, and commitment to understanding the nature of such reactions. These always occur first in the mind, by thinking a thought that’s untrue. Unpacking that is an intense and often initially painful practice of self-inquiry, but those who embark on such journeys and who persevere through the challenges are always left lighter.

You may also be interested in:

• Mindfulness and Emotions – a Lighten Up guest post on The Pursuit of Mindfulness

Read a fairly heartbreaking “Dear Abby”-type column recently – this one called “Ask Amy.” Here it is on the Washington Post website: She’s happy enough. But now what?

Here’s what the writer-inner says:

I got married (for the first time) three years ago. My husband and I are both in our 40s and are well matched, happily childless and happily married. We bought a house, and both of us have good jobs.

I recently wondered, “What do I have to look forward to?” I couldn’t think of anything. I spent a big part of my adult life searching for a good husband. So now what?

“I couldn’t think of anything.”

Just… wow.

The last time I didn’t have some big goal to work towards or project to finish was… 1990? Something like that. In other words, before I (thankfully) found my spiritual path.

Not only does a true spiritual journey keep you infinitely busy (pun intended!) but it also keeps you from boredom. There is NO WAY to be restless if you’re working your meditation every day. It just will not happen.

Now, that’s not to say that you won’t sometimes hit dry spells, or get down, or wonder why you’re doing this. There are certainly phases and ups and downs on the spiritual path. But, if you keep going with it, it inevitably turns back to an “up” – and usually an even-higher one than you ever experienced before. It’s not only exciting, it’s downright intoxicating.

The sadness and soul sickness so pervasive in our culture today is largely due to the fixation on material things: job, car, money, mate. These are dead ends. They’re what the Buddha talked about in terms of attraction and aversion. We get attached to the “things” in life and we overlook the reality of life itself, coursing through our consciousness, right here, right Now.

At least in that advice column, the advice-giver pointed vaguely in the general direction of a real solution. Getting some exercise can make anyone feel better. And, more importantly, Pema Chodron studied with an Enlightened master. I’m not familiar with her work but she likely is a good resource to begin a spiritual journey.

Another suggestion would be to do some volunteering. Find someone who’s worse off than you, and give give give.

If you’re meditating every day and focused on ways to help the world, instead of dwelling on how things aren’t what you thought they would be, then you’re going to end up just fine. And you might even find some honest inspiration along the way.