Working With Strong Emotions

This talk offers mindfulness-based and therapeutic techniques for managing strong emotions, and pulls from biology, neuroscience, and contemplative traditions. There are many paths to peace. When we resist emotions, we often strengthen them. Telling ourselves to be happy when we're sad often makes us sadder. Telling ourselves to calm down when we're angry only intensifies the anger. With mindfulness, we recognize our afflictions as they come with a curious, gentle, and equanimous spirit.

Transcript

Many emotions have biochemical substrates.

If we address root causes,

We can relieve the symptoms.

Many psychological and physical diseases can be addressed by correcting our diets,

Attending to sleep,

Exercising regularly,

Nurturing our social connections,

And mindfulness practice.

Either pharmaceuticals nor therapy nor meditation,

However,

Will avail us much if we compromise on the fundamentals.

When sleep is disrupted,

For example,

Our hormonal schedules become dysregulated,

Our mood suffers.

We increase the risk of anxiety disorders and depression.

Anxiety,

Depression,

And lack of sleep are strongly correlated.

No drug is as beneficial as sleep is for health.

Or take diet.

Research has shown that the gut microbiota modulate gut and brain functions.

There are gut cells that engage neural synapses.

Gut bacteria produce neurochemicals that the brain uses to regulate physiological and mental processes which affect learning,

Memory,

Mood,

And by extension,

Behavior.

When the body recognizes something is foreign,

Whether an allergen,

Pathogen,

Or chemical,

The inflammatory response is triggered.

Inflammation is the body's response to a problem.

And much of what we eat is the problem.

Morganella,

Klebsiella,

And other gram-negative bacteria in the gut have been implicated in depression and other diseases.

Their presence triggers the activation of the inflammation response.

Once these molecules cross the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain,

Microglia are activated.

Microglia,

The resident immune cells of the central nervous system,

Respond to neuronal damage and remove the damaged cells.

Chronic microglial activation is a hallmark of brain pathology.

The brain gets flooded in an inflammatory bath.

Over time,

Inflammation causes neuronal damage through the release of toxic molecules such as pro-inflammatory cytokines,

Reactive oxygen intermediates,

Proteinases,

And complement proteins.

Can talk therapy,

Pharmaceuticals,

Or meditation reverse this if we continue eating ultra-processed foods and neglecting our diets?

I don't think so.

You can treat the symptoms for a time,

But they'll persist until we address root causes.

Or take exercise.

Exercise improves mood and can be more effective than some drugs for treating depression and anxiety.

When you experience anxiety,

Your body's in a fight-or-flight mode.

The heart pumps quickly so that oxygen can be delivered to the muscles,

Allowing you to use those muscles to escape danger.

Your muscles become tense and primed for action.

You may even experience jitters.

Sometimes moving may be better than sitting still.

Going for a walk or run may be more effective than trying to quiet a hyper-vigilant mind in an anxious state by meditating.

In fact,

Meditation may be contraindicated for those who suffer severe anxiety or depression.

In other words,

It makes the condition worse,

Especially if a person is going at it alone without proper guidance.

So before we dive into mindfulness-based techniques,

I strongly encourage you to pay attention to your sleep hygiene,

Your diet,

Your exercise regimen,

Your social connections,

And your meditation practice.

We call this mindful living,

And it's holistic.

Now,

Assuming you have a handle on the fundamentals,

On sleep and diet,

Exercise,

You may find the following mindfulness-based techniques helpful when intense emotions disturb the balance of mind.

Using metaphor,

The six most common approaches have been likened to triage,

Uprooting weeds,

Waves dissolving into the ocean,

Valuable instruction from respected teachers,

The accepting and welcoming of emotions as honored guests,

Or as alchemy,

Like transforming base metal into gold.

These metaphors are attempts to describe and categorize feelings that are not so easily contained in intellectual constructs.

So the first one is triage.

Triage is a medical term first responders use to determine the degree of urgency and severity of a patient's wounds or illnesses,

Especially in an emergency situation,

Like a war or an accident or disaster.

A degree of self-awareness,

Training,

And presence is necessary here.

Am I sad or anguished and ready to self-harm?

Am I disgusted or full of loathing and close to firing off a text I may regret?

Am I nervous or terrified,

Annoyed or furious and ready to harm another?

We quickly assess and,

If necessary,

Remove ourselves from the situation,

Pause before speaking or acting,

Wait or request an extension before responding.

We redirect or take any other measure that might be appropriate.

It's important to note that in rare situations where a quick response means the difference between life and death or safety and injury,

I default to instinct.

However,

Even in instances where the danger was not misperceived and I was really facing an imminent threat,

I found these skills invaluable for responding quickly and decisively,

Remaining calm,

And for quickly recovering equanimity once the threat has passed.

When emotions are strong,

The limbic system may bypass the rational seat of the brain.

It's called an amygdala hijack.

The brain signals the body to fight or flee.

The heart rate and breathing increase.

The breath becomes shallow and rapid.

We can counter this with deep breathing.

We breathe diaphragmatically.

Inhalations are slow and controlled.

Exhalations are twice as long with a pause before taking the next breath.

This helps dial down and modulate the stress response.

It's exceedingly important to stress the necessity of daily practice.

Don't wait for a panic attack to start practicing,

Just like you don't wait to fall into the deep end of a pool to learn how to swim.

With practice,

You can quickly modulate your physiological response.

With practice.

The next step is to go into the body.

The sensations will likely be strong and unpleasant.

Tightness,

Throbbing,

Sweating,

Contractions,

Rapid heartbeat,

And so on.

So we tend to them.

Observe.

This too is a skill we practice daily in meditation when we're calm.

With practice,

You develop the emotional granularity to recognize the valence or intensity of emotions so that you can assess and respond to the stressor more thoughtfully.

Again,

This speaks to the importance of training.

We're developing skill sets.

We drill so that when stressed,

We default to our training.

In developing these skill sets,

We're taking back our power and acknowledging our responsibility for our emotions.

We're not victims of our emotional states,

But they're authors.

As Lisa Feldman Barrett argues in How Emotions Are Made.

Another metaphor for working with strong emotions is treating them as honored guests.

This approach works best when strong but familiar upsets disturb the balance of the mind.

We welcome them as honored guests.

When sadness,

Anger or anxiety arise,

We welcome them.

We allow them in.

We sit with them.

They may be there to teach us something.

Imagine,

For example,

A Nazi bureaucrat raised on racist propaganda feeling pangs of shame,

Sadness or despair after learning of the atrocities committed by his government.

Do these so-called negative emotions not serve a purpose?

These unpleasant emotions are important messengers pointing him to truth.

Allowing them to express freely will lead him to clarity.

Would it be madness if he remained indifferent or unaffected by the suffering of others?

Would not a so-called positive emotion like happiness be inappropriate and somewhat pathological?

With mindfulness,

We recognize our afflictions as they come with a curious,

Gentle and welcoming spirit.

We might recognize a propensity to worry and become upset that we worry.

With mindfulness,

We can respond to both our worry and our rejection of worry with non-judgmental awareness.

We can embrace them,

Welcoming all parts of the self.

When we resist emotions,

We often strengthen them.

Telling ourselves to be happy when we're sad often makes us sadder.

Telling ourselves to calm down when we're angry only intensifies the anger.

And to get angry with ourselves for being angry is like striking at a hornet's nest with a stick to frighten them away.

With a mindful approach,

We tend to our honored guests.

We attend to the unpleasant sensations we are experiencing as anger,

Despair,

Fear.

We go directly into the center of the emotion without judgments,

Without fear,

Without defending,

Rationalizing,

Spiritualizing or denying.

Just being there,

Sitting with our honored guests.

In this way,

We integrate all parts of ourselves.

The hurt parts,

The scared parts,

The anxious parts,

The courageous parts,

The judgmental parts,

The loving parts,

The critical parts,

The angry parts and so on.

To embrace all emotions,

Whether despair or confidence,

Sadness or joy,

Fear or love.

To embrace the pathos of being human as a radical act of self-compassion.

Sometimes we'll liken emotions to waves dissolving in the ocean.

By experiencing our emotions fully,

We soon find that they dissipate on their own.

They're ephemeral,

Transient,

Ever-changing.

Emotions are ever in motion.

They're like waves on the ocean.

They rise,

They get stronger and they disappear back into the ocean.

And our emotional states are very much like the weather.

At any given time,

The mind sky may be cloudy or clear,

Windy,

Stormy or sunny.

Emotions may be cold or warm or hot and the patterns may change throughout the day.

With mindful training,

We practice letting go of our storylines and just staying with these sensations.

Experiencing annoyance as a simmering of energy,

An agitation of mind,

A restlessness,

Whatever is there and however it expresses.

So by likening emotions to waves on an ocean,

The mind is like the sea.

The emotions are the waves that rise on the surface of the mind.

All thoughts and emotions dissolve back into this vast ocean of being from which they emerge.

Like this,

We just let them be.

If with training I can maintain some degree of presence,

I can watch the waves rise and peak and fall without getting caught up in the froth.

There's a famous John Cabot Zim quote,

You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf.

And one technique is to sit with the sensations.

You just sit with them.

Let them be.

Feel the throbbing,

The tingling,

The pulsing,

The tension,

Do nothing,

Resist nothing,

Expect nothing.

It's a variation that calls for surrender.

You relax into the experience.

In the untethered soul and the surrender experiment,

Michael Singer calls this technique R&R.

Relax and release.

We relax and allow the experience to unfold.

And in this way we allow the energy to flow and we release whatever blockages were there.

Open awareness is another approach.

It's like sitting on the bank of a river,

Watching the stream of thought and emotion flowing by.

Or like sitting in a house by the beach,

Peering outside the window,

Safe and protected from the elements.

Watching the waves rising and falling.

Sometimes we liken emotions to precious teachers.

Suppose you wake up feeling sad and instead of letting it touch you and alert you to something that may need attention,

You focus instead of how it threatens your ego identity.

If I wake up feeling sad,

There must be something wrong with me.

In his book Toward a Psychology of Awakening,

John Wellwood writes,

When a feeling of sadness threatens your self-image,

You will want to push it away,

So you will judge your sadness negatively and reject it.

You get caught up in dark,

Depressive storylines.

What's the matter with me?

Why do I always feel this way?

The more you ruminate,

The sadder you become.

Cutting through this tendency to get lost in emotionally driven thoughts and stories requires a certain discipline.

This meditative approach is not oriented toward the content of feelings or thoughts,

Their meanings,

Or the history behind them.

It involves opening to feelings directly,

Objectively,

With curiosity.

What if we wake up feeling sad and relate to the feeling as a phenomena of mind,

Transient,

Ephemeral,

As an expression of our basic aliveness?

What if we allow it to dissolve back into mind from which it arose?

We recognize our judgments as judgments,

Our interpretations as interpretations,

Our perceptions colored by mood and distorted by our limited experience as just what they are,

Perceptions colored by mood distorted by our limited experience.

We touch these arising thoughts lightly with awareness but do not blend with them.

Holding on to our limited beliefs may be the problem,

Not the emotion.

The emotion may be trying to point us to our own liberation and humanity if we would only heed them.

What if we find beneath the vulnerable feelings and hurt core human needs?

Connection,

Respect,

Safety,

Purpose,

Peace,

Play,

Autonomy.

Then we go even deeper and get in touch with our basic goodness.

We allow our reference points,

Stories,

Judgments,

Evaluations to slip away and dissolve back into the vastness of mind.

This is the practice.

With this approach we cease to view harmful circumstances as negative and make every effort to train ourselves to view them as valuable.

What if I see in that sadness a longing for connection,

A call for love?

Isn't this a basic human need?

No one wants to suffer.

We often regard our fears,

Anger or sadness as parts to be discarded,

Shunned,

Avoided.

Without them we imagine we would be happy but without them we might never change.

Disgust,

Regret and disappointment may be negative emotions but these strong unpleasant feelings may motivate us to change.

Isn't that desirable?

To quote Rumi,

The cure for the pain is the pain.

By habitually delaying the expression of so-called negative,

Unpleasant,

Unwanted or bad emotions I may be alienating myself from myself.

There's no integration,

No wholeness.

Emotions are often problematic when we regard them as a threat,

Imagining that if we really let ourselves feel we would be overwhelmed by them so we resist them.

This is overwhelming.

Our resistance prevents us from engaging them more mindfully,

More skillfully.

Life's challenges are painful and difficult to the degree we are uncomfortable with the feelings they stir up within us.

With practice we can learn to listen to them,

To respect them,

To let them teach us.

We can create beautiful landscapes with our emotions and sometimes you need the rain.

The soul expresses itself through a colorful palette of emotions and trusted our emotions can lead us to peace.

My own awakening came courtesy of sadness.

When I was a senior in high school a deep sadness washed over me and lingered over the mindscape like a sheet of gray clouds.

I remember sitting in bed with an anthology of Walt Whitman's poems and an anthology of poetry called The Mystic in Love.

The poets were of different religions,

Cultures and times but they all described the same longing I felt so deeply.

Longing I didn't have words for,

That I didn't understand at the time.

The desperation I read in Saint Teresa of Avila's poems resonated with me.

She wrote,

What a tedious journey is our exile here.

Drier is the sojourn indeed hard to bear.

Dark is this existence,

Bitter is its thrall.

Life that is lived without thee is not life at all.

The grim poems of Saint John of the Cross read like suicide notes.

I sensed however that he was not contemplating death but longing to die to something else even as I was,

So as to live more fully.

Like the man contemplating suicide he too wished to die to suffering.

His desperate longing was as intense but the intensity of his desire drove him to kenosis,

Self-emptying,

Renunciation,

The annihilation of ego,

Not death of the body which comes to all soon enough without the need for hastening it.

He wrote,

What serves this life I cannot tell.

Since waiting here for life I lie and die because I do not die.

To this dread life with which I am crossed,

What fell death can compare since I,

The more I live the more must die.

Rescue me from such a death my God and give me life not fear nor keep me bound and struggling here within the bonds of living breath.

Look how I long to see you near and how in such a plight I lie,

Dying because I do not die.

These poems resonated with my soul,

How meaningless the world seemed to me.

It offered nothing that I wanted.

Come back my soul,

How much longer will you linger in the garden of deceit wrote Rumi,

The 13th century Sufi poet.

At the time I had received admission to a top university but even the promise of a good education did not offer me hope of liberation from this world weariness.

There was a God sized hole in my heart that could not be filled with anything the world could offer,

Not women,

Not wealth,

Not the fame and approbation of others.

Like St.

John I longed for annihilation,

Not of the body,

Not of the mind,

But the end to suffering.

It comforted me to know that I was not alone in this scene.

The poets gave words to this longing.

Mea Bai,

A 16th century princess who renounced her title in search of meaning wrote,

My heart is a thirst,

I live in death,

Within me throbs the ache of longing and love for thee.

The 15th century Indian scholar Sankaradevi wrote,

My soul is on the point of perishing through the poison of the venomous serpent of worldly things.

On this earth all is transitory and uncertain,

Wealth,

Kinsmen,

Life,

Youth,

And even the world itself.

Children,

Family are all uncertain,

On what shall I place reliance.

Like Sankaradevi,

Mea Bai,

St.

John of the Cross,

St.

Teresa and many others,

My soul ached.

I sat with it,

The ache,

The longing,

The heart pain,

The grief.

I finished reading some verses when this indescribable peace washed over me.

It was as if the little self had disintegrated,

As if a veil had fallen from my eyes,

As if I were enveloped in love and something eternal and sublime.

I was experiencing what the mystics had been writing about,

And this transformative experience oriented my heart's compass.

Because this was what my soul was longing for,

This was the peace I sought,

The fulfillment that I knew that could not be had in the accumulation of things or titles or degrees or power.

My thirst was quenched.

Like the poet Kabir,

I have drunk of the cup of the ineffable,

From the cup of the inbreathing and outbreathing of love.

I have found the key of the mystery.

I have reached the root of union.

Traveling by no track,

I have come to the sorrowless land.

The mercy of the Lord has come upon me.

My heart's bee drinks its nectar.

I learned to respect the yearning,

The sadness.

It was a needle pointing me to the way.

In the guesthouse,

Rumi wrote,

This being human is a guesthouse.

Every morning a new arrival,

A joy,

A depression,

A meanness.

Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all,

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

Who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture.

Still,

Treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought,

The shame,

The malice,

Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes,

Because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

I'm grateful for my sadness.

I'm grateful that I didn't ignore it,

Or pretend it away,

Or lose myself in distraction,

Or entertainment,

Or dissipation.

I didn't numb away the longing with drugs or alcohol.

I didn't pathologize it.

I didn't think there was something wrong with me.

I consulted no therapist to help me feel better or talk to a trusted friend to work it through.

I would have been offered well-meaning but useless platitudes.

To describe the void to others who had never known true liberation would not only have been futile,

It would have led me astray,

Away from the valley of grief I had to pass through.

To ignore or pretend the longing away in some vapid,

Happy place.

I understood from this experience the import of Rumi's words.

He wrote,

I wish that grief and sorrow would shatter your heart,

Disloyal lover,

And deprive you of everything you value in the world.

As no one remembers me but sorrow,

I bless it a thousand times a day.

How many people understand this?

For me,

There was no formal path to peace and bliss except through suffering.

Kabir writes this,

When the guest is being searched for,

It's the intensity of the longing for the guest that does all the work.

So from this experience,

I developed a sense of solidarity with those who were suffering from depression,

Those with suicidal ideations.

I respected their suffering and their rejection of worldly conceits and illusions.

I could identify with their longing and their thirst.

I just thought their strategies caused more suffering for themselves and others.

Sometimes we liken emotions to weeds,

Cultivating inner pieces like into cultivating a garden.

Meditation is a tool to help us garden the plots we were given.

With care and effort,

We plant seeds of compassion,

Equanimity,

Patience,

Discipline,

Confidence,

Concentration,

And other qualities that sustain the soul,

Bringing health to body and mind.

We grow these qualities and nurture these qualities daily with intention.

The laws at work in nature are applicable to the field of mind within.

As with gardening,

We will quickly discover weeds growing on the patch where we planted seedlings of hope and peace.

What I'm calling weeds are sometimes called some karas in Buddhism.

In the West,

We recognize the weeds as insecurities,

Unresolved traumas,

Phobias,

Biases,

Attachments,

Misperceptions,

Cognitive distortions,

Grievances we refuse to forget,

And so on.

These mental states are likened to illusions,

To shadows,

To dark clouds,

To veils that obscure the light that is in us.

The light is a kind of clarity,

An awareness,

A stillness that abides whether we recognize it or not,

Either hastening its delivery nor delaying it to quote Walt Whitman.

The goal is to recognize the mental states that cloud awareness,

That clarity,

That light.

We pull them out from the root where we see them.

Like gardening,

This is a daily chore.

Like gardening,

It can be dirty work.

Your task,

Wrote Rumi,

Is not to seek for love,

But merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have created against it.

In Buddhism,

One set of weeds are called hindrances.

They include desire,

Aversion,

Laziness,

Distraction,

And doubt.

One way to uproot these weeds is by acknowledging,

Identifying,

Objectifying,

And labeling them.

And how to meditate,

A beginner's guide to peace.

Yutadamo Biku writes,

When we feel pain,

We say to ourselves,

Pain.

In this case,

We can actually repeat it again and again to ourselves as pain,

Pain,

Pain,

So that instead of allowing anger or aversion to arise,

We see it merely as a sensation.

We learn to see that the pain and our ordinary disliking of it are two different things.

That there is really nothing intrinsically bad about the pain itself,

Nor is it intrinsically ours since we can't change or control it.

End quote.

It's important to note that there's primary pain that's experienced as a sensation,

A throbbing,

A tingling,

A stinging,

And so on.

And the secondary psychological pain experienced as thoughts.

Why me?

I don't want this.

This is terrible.

And research suggests that the secondary pain can actually exacerbate the primary pain and make it worse.

There's another set of weeds that go by many names.

They're categorized as afflictions,

Disturbances,

Conditioned factors,

Defilements,

Dissonant mental states,

And so on.

More colloquially,

They're known as anger,

Fear,

Jealousy,

Anxiety,

Lust,

Greed,

Hate,

Delusion,

Restlessness.

These cause suffering,

Which you've experienced for yourself if you sat for a time observing the machinations of mind.

Attachment or identification with experience is another kind of weed.

In some traditions,

Attachment is a kind of unwholesome root.

Decoupling ego from identity is the hardest root to pull.

Sit with yourself long enough and you may notice how the mind clings even to unhelpful or destructive thoughts and emotions,

Identifying and ruthlessly defending self-hatred,

Depression,

Or self-criticism.

For example,

As this is just who I am.

From this perspective,

The egoic self is in an illusion that spins illusions that do not exist outside of your mind.

The world we imagine,

Whether safe or dangerous,

Peaceful or violent,

Meaningful or without purpose,

Is of our choosing.

We create our own virtual world,

A simulation of sorts,

A model of just how the world is.

And if you investigate their models,

Their assumptions,

Their perceptions,

They simply assume them to be true.

Sensations arise within the body,

The mind creates an interpretation,

Emotions and thoughts blend with these movements of mind in an instant.

We believe what the mind conjures and take this construction for reality.

It's important to note that we're not warring with the negative aspects of ourselves.

Rather,

We're seeking to develop greater insight into our conditioned habitual ways of seeing,

Of relating,

Of engaging with ourselves and the world.

We're tending our garden,

Cultivating curiosity,

Self-compassion,

Acceptance,

Love,

Forgiveness.

In this way,

We cultivate positive states of being and purify the mind stream,

Making the mind a serene place of refuge by cultivating those qualities which sustain us.

In this way,

We continue to till,

To work the soil,

Trying to reach that light that is within.

You won't find much peace in the illusions that obscure that light.

Self-criticism,

Judgment,

Doubt,

Laziness,

They're like thistles.

If we plant thistles,

We will reap what we've sown.

More self-criticism,

More doubt,

More judgment,

More excuses,

More blame.

It's not a war.

Rumi expressed it this way.

Look at the man beating the rug with his stick.

He's not angry with it.

His aim is to get rid of the dust.

The door inward is full of dust from the veil of I-ness,

And that dust will not leave all at once.

With each blow,

It departs little by little from the heart's face.

This moment is the space within which we work,

Because it's within which everything is unfolding now,

Including our neuroses.

In meditation,

We stress now-ness because what we call past are encoded memories that express in the present.

The illusions of the past,

Colored and distorted by memories that are neither accurate nor fixed,

Inform this moment and filter perceptions in this moment,

Augmenting what we perceive as reality.

But it's a co-construction and not objective truth.

Much of what triggers fear,

Anger or sadness are recalled from memory.

What we call memory is not fixed,

However,

But dynamic.

Our memories aren't reliable facsimiles of past perceptions,

But distorted and imperfect records of the past.

The process of laying down and retrieving memories is malleable.

Neural circuits undergo extensive sculpting and rewiring in response to a variety of experiences which are time-stamped and stored at the cellular level.

Memories are made in the present,

Though,

By changes in collections of neurons and the strength of the connections or synapses between them.

In the human brain,

Each neuron forms connections or synapses with about 1000 other neurons.

A memory may be laid down in one group of neural circuits,

But recalled in another.

Memories are stored as changes in the strength and number of synapses.

Each time we recall a memory,

It may change depending on the neural circuits that are engaged at that particular moment.

A neuron can modify synaptic strength,

Create new receptors,

Remove old ones and produce new proteins.

In other words,

We don't remember a memory in the exact same way each time.

Details may change.

Its emotional charge or significance or relevance may also change.

The amygdala and hippocampus play key roles in processing emotions and in learning and memory.

When these structures are activated,

A chemical process unfolds.

The body reacts and sends data back to the brain which creates the narrative.

This unfolds in milliseconds.

We experience these as thoughts and feel the subtle chemical changes as emotions.

Now the ancients didn't have fmri's or PET scans or EEG's to see how the brain constructs the illusion we call reality in real time,

But they were able to see this experientially.

In extensive and intensive training,

We can abide squarely in the now and slow down the unfolding to such degree that we see as a frame by frame,

How the simulation is constructed,

And how we pull stored memories from our perceptual database to create narratives to make sense of both our inner and outer worlds.

In a very elaborate movie set,

We see how we write,

Direct,

And star in our own productions.

We see too that we can author new scripts and rewrite old memories.

There's power in this.

We can extinguish our fears and reframe events,

Transforming traumas into triumphs and securities into insights.

So what we call memories are made up of discrete units called engrams.

Engrams are defined as a sparse ensemble of neurons across multiple brain regions that store and recall memories.

I like that word ensemble because it has to think of music.

And I think of engrams as discrete notes.

This is an E and a G note.

There isn't a lot of context here.

If I root this to C,

It sounds happy.

If I root it to E,

It sounds like a minor chord.

However,

Even if I root it to minor chords,

Which are generally sad sounding,

I can add color and give these notes some lift.

I'm playing the same two notes,

But they sound different.

The movement's changed.

The tempo has changed.

Similarly,

I can color my memories.

I can root them in gratitude,

For example,

Or self-compassion and produce a different sound.

So suppose some memory comes up and the fragments are sad sounding.

This is a D minor chord with some color added to it.

This is E minor.

But these sad sounding chords sound insipirational when I add structure and tritones.

Can I be grateful for the learning that came from an experience,

Even a dramatic one,

That turned a tragedy into triumph?

This takes some skill,

Some study,

Some intention.

You can't sound this good without years of practice and study and music theory.

But with practice,

You can conduct the ensemble of thoughts,

Sensations,

Memories,

Emotions,

And produce something beautiful.

Now,

Memory can still be sad.

We don't have to change it.

We don't have to resolve it to joy.

We can color our memories,

Invert them,

Add tension,

Make them sound fuller.

We can give them motion and more interesting places to land and explore.

With some creativity and skill,

We can reappraise,

Recast and challenge thoughts that are causing us to stress.

Again,

We are rewiring the brain.

Rather than engaging thoughts,

Believing them and getting swept by them like a man being carried downstream by the strong pull of a river,

We may find it helpful to question our judgments,

Perceptions,

Evaluations,

Or interpretations.

We are responsible for our mental constructs and can change our mental models.

So if my light were shining at its brightest,

What would that look or feel like?

Does it help me to hold on to this feeling or thought?

How would I feel without this thought?

Here I'm not interested in whether the thoughts are true or false,

Right or wrong.

Working with emotions is sometimes likened to alchemy or the transforming of base metal into gold.

When we're suffering,

We remain open.

We try not to force our feelings into some set of rigid expectations.

We let them transform themselves.

This is alchemy.

Transformation.

There are many approaches.

In one,

I approach my experience objectively like a scientist.

I see the mind-body complex as an integrated system.

When I am upset,

I recognize the body's chemistry has changed.

I may be bathing in a low-grade cortisol bath.

My biochemistry has shifted.

My moment-to-moment experience,

Especially if emotionally charged,

Is leaving psychological imprints that affect perceptions.

I am rewriting implicit memory.

So the first step is to recognize and acknowledge the inner experience.

I'm dysregulated right now.

I'm experiencing anger right now.

Whatever it is.

The mind-body complex is reacting to a perceived threat.

Step two is to relax into it.

I can dial down the sympathetic response and override it.

I have the power to respond mindfully to the event.

It's not the event in and of itself that's causing the stress response,

But my own perceptions,

Reactions,

Visual patterns,

Etc.

Which affect how I interpret the external event.

I can interrupt the conditioned-feel response,

Change my biochemistry,

And integrate body and mind.

By intentionally relaxing and slowing the breath,

We can elicit a more calming response.

By simply attending to the sensations of sensations with curiosity and without the entertaining storylines that demand attention,

We rewire the brain.

The insula calibrates the intensity of external stimuli to internal responses.

The insula is associated with determining whether sensations and reactions are reasonable given a set of conditions.

A mild electric shock,

For example,

Would elicit a mild reaction.

A strong electric shock would elicit a strong reaction.

The insula matches the intensity of the stimulus to the response.

When inhibited,

The insula misreads the intensity of external stimuli.

We make mountains of molehills.

Within terraceptive training,

We can recalibrate the insula back to default settings,

Responding appropriately to circumstances rather than going code red when minor discomforts disturb the balance of mind.

The next step is to rewrite or replace the narrative.

With intention,

We can elicit a heartfelt emotion like gratitude,

Focus,

Stillness,

Compassion,

Strength,

Resilience,

Courage,

Fearlessness,

Curiosity,

Persistence,

Humor,

Creativity,

Authenticity,

Generosity,

Forgiveness.

Assuming we re truthful about what we re calling.

The mind and body react to the truth of the heartfelt experience,

Not to what one is trying to convince the self to be so.

Here's an example.

Suppose someone directs a comment at me which I interpret as a personal attack.

I perceive a threat.

Maybe a threat to my employment,

My identity,

My relationship,

My safety.

My habitual reaction may be to fight,

Withdraw,

Attack,

Defend or accept the perceived insult.

With practice,

We can reframe these events as opportunities to grow,

To experiment,

To respond more intentionally,

More thoughtfully,

More skillfully.

The stress may be a misperception,

But it's there.

It feels true.

I can recognize the fear without feeding it the way a parent may recognize a child's fear of monsters.

If my heartfelt intention is to grow in courage and resilience and compassion and strength and power and love.

And if that intention is also sincere.

I can approach this problem with authenticity from a more embodied experience.

This will feel true as well.

So I'm scared.

That feels true.

But my heartfelt intention is to grow in courage and resilience and strength and power and compassion.

That feels true,

Too.

So it's important that your intention be sincere and heartfelt.

You have to be real as to feel authentic and true.

We don't want to replace it with wishful thinking or some spiritual ideal we think we should attain.

The felt sense of your intention must be as intense as the distress in order to alchemize it.

If my daily meditation practice consists of visualization,

Kindness,

Compassion,

Or those generative techniques,

Which encourage the growth of desirable qualities like resilience,

Courage or forgiveness,

I may be able to remain grounded and approach the person from a more centered and calm place.

If I've been doing the inner work that needs doing,

The little self will not be as triggered.

We can approach more skillfully.

Like a boxer who's trained and is in an optimal condition,

I can relax into it.

I don't take the attacks personally.

I can take their best punch.

There's no ego to be offended.

With skill,

I may be able to hear the needs behind the perceived criticism.

This is only an example of many choices we can make in a seemingly tense encounter.

We're reframing,

Rewriting,

Replacing what seems to be with a more open and curious mind.

Conflict can be a game,

Not a stressor.

I give myself what Elaine Doherty calls the gift of shift.

The gift of shift and her excellent book,

Unstressed.

I choose a more powerful response that affirms my creativity to deal with challenges,

My courage to be vulnerable or authentic,

My self-efficacy and power,

My generosity of spirit and goodwill,

My forgiveness and compassion.

In other words,

I alchemize something base like a perceived insult,

An attack,

A criticism,

A setback,

And turn it into something valuable,

Inner strength,

Courage,

Growth,

Self-confidence,

Whatever.

With intention and skill,

We can cultivate a more peaceful inner state,

Change our perceptions and physiological imprints,

Rewrite implicit memories,

Change our biochemistry and improve our neuro-patterning,

Allowing us to live these states more often and building the resilience we need to confront future challenges.

Here's another variation of this practice.

We can bring peace to the mind from the vicissitudes themselves.

To do this,

Recognize how ego insists on imposing concepts upon experiences that are truly open.

Recognize how ego identifies in a clinging way with negative experience.

Recognize your true nature,

Your innate goodness.

Recognize the pain is a positive and inspiring opportunity to practice letting go of the self.

Recognize that your innately peaceful nature is obscured.

Recognize that even difficult problems can become a source of joy,

Of triumph,

That negative or positive are our perceptions created by our minds.

Recognize the past for what it is.

Forgive and let go.

In truth,

There is nothing to let go as the past no longer exists.

There is only this moment.

When our wounded or hurt parts are triggered,

We may say or do something we regret.

But we don't transmute.

To paraphrase Richard Rohr,

We transmit.

We'll make mistakes.

Our conditioning may get the best of us.

However strong the emotion,

We can apply the balm of forgiveness and dress the wound with self-compassion.

There are so many techniques that fall somewhere within one of these categories that I've likened to with metaphor.

There are therapeutic techniques like cognitive-based therapy,

Internal family systems,

Acceptance and commitment therapy,

Cognitive processing therapy,

Eye movement and desensitization reprocessing,

Prolonged exposure therapy.

So many techniques,

Many strategies,

Many approaches.

And they have their limitations.

When all else fails,

And many of these strategies will,

There's always self-compassion,

Self-forgiveness,

A little levity.

No one was born with a manual.

We're all struggling,

Trying,

Failing.

Sometimes we get it right,

Sometimes we don't.

And sometimes there's humor in that.

My favorite comedians make light of the human condition.

And many of the funniest comics make us laugh at the darkest parts of the self.

So as practice we can rewire the mind training to let go or to be with the many moments throughout the day to celebrate simply being or to be fully present and engaged in the moment.

Gradually,

Although sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly,

The intensity of the thoughts subsides.

The seemingly solid ego begins to dissolve,

Fading into the self as we return to a more natural state of being.

As you took form in your mother's womb,

There was no ego.

When you were born,

There was no identification with thought.

When you sleep,

The ego is dormant.

As you dissolve back into formlessness,

The ego again comes undone.

From birth to death,

You may have glimpses of the ego-less state.

Getting in touch with your life essence,

While conscious,

Requires the intensity of full presence.

The present moment being the entryway to peace.

You can feel this life energy dancing in you now.

But even when we're disconnected,

Even when we suffer,

We can learn to sit with it,

To embrace the suckiness of it,

To be as we are.

Meditation is not always a pleasant experience.

One of my students expressed it this way in an email.

She wrote,

The meditation practices are bringing up so much uncomfortable stuff.

I'm noticing how much I want to escape,

Deny,

Fantasize or resist.

But how my resistance is making this more painful.

I celebrate this insight.

Awareness is there.

It's prior to the resistance and the uncomfortable stuff.

It's like sitting in a theater in stillness,

Watching a sometimes frightening,

Sometimes disturbing drama unfold on the screen of mind.

But the you that witnesses is not the illusion that plays out on the screen.

The you that witnesses the play remains unharmed,

Untouched and safe.

Where that the images on the screen,

However devastating or destructive,

Are nothing more than the entertaining make believe of a creative mind.

If you observe your mind.

You see that the images and memories,

The thoughts and feelings that come and go are transient and illusory.

Formed out of wisps of nothingness.

Just observe for yourself.

You see forms no one else can see.

You engage in conversations no one else can hear.

Your imagination is peopled with characters that are not present.

Misty pictures of the past or vague forms of an imagined future arise and pass away.

We regard them as one in the same,

Regardless of their form or content.

Thoughts,

Just thoughts.

We observe,

Smile and let go.

So watch your mind throughout the day,

Moment by moment.

This is mindfulness.

Whenever you feel your confidence wane,

When a disturbing thought upsets the balance of your mind,

Practice letting go or simply sitting with it with compassion and respect.

But matter of factly,

And with detachment.

Our willingness to let go is the practice.

Wishing you peace.

Wishing you equanimity.

And balance.

No matter what arises.

Reviews

Amazing insight. Very helpful.