Making Peace With Dread (The Personal Kind)

Recently, I said something snark,y and it got back to the person.
For the whole day, I dreaded what would happen.
When the worst did happen, I felt even worse:
a slow, painful remembering of how imperfect I am,
 despite all the striving.
 And of how perfection is not even a thing, 
no matter how much I strive.

Funnily, dread helped me. 
Dread was the most helpful thing.
 Without dread, I wonder if I’d even have noticed, let alone cared.
 But with dread, and after making peace with dread, which took a minute,
 self-compassion emerged, and then a plan. 
And self-compassion plus a plan feels like a decent idea for this moment.

Transcript

Hey everyone,

It's Judy Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 489,

Welcome.

So let's see,

I woke up yesterday,

Was it yesterday,

Gosh,

Yeah,

It was yesterday.

I woke up yesterday with this sense of dread and it felt like this hollowness inside,

Like my throat was constricted and there was a lot of tension in the body and yeah,

I took a few breaths and relaxed but the dread continued.

And so I noticed that I was immediately tempted to assign it a story,

Right,

Dread about the world,

Dread about work,

Dread about the consequences of something I said recently and that was in particular the thing that came up,

I lost my temper and it got back to the person I was upset with.

So I was tempted to assign one of those stories to my dread but then I noticed that there were other stories too and as I laid there ruminating,

There were so many stories that I could see that to jump to the story,

Any story,

Right,

Would be to immediately try to solve for the dread rather than practicing with it,

Maybe learning something from it.

So not assigning a story to the dread right in that moment.

On the other hand,

What that meant is that I had to look at the dread without a way to solve for it right then,

Right,

Meaning with curiosity and really with peace.

And not only look at the dread but look at the underlying causes for the dread with those same qualities,

Curiosity and peace,

Which meant that not only did I have to give up on not wanting the dread to have happened but I also had to give up on not wanting the causes for the dread to have happened and yet they had.

So instead of doing any of that right away,

I'll tell you where my mind went,

It went straight to irritation.

I was irritated with myself for feeling dread,

Right,

And then it went to singling myself out,

Right,

No one else probably has this.

My partner blissfully sleeping next to me doesn't have dread.

Why am I the only one who has dread,

Right?

So there was dread,

There was aversion to dread,

There was aversion to the underlying causes of dread,

There was negative self-talk for having dread and threaded through all of that a desire for dread to end.

And it all happened in the span of like two or three seconds.

In fact,

It happened so fast that I felt lucky to have even noticed,

In a way lucky,

And it also made me wonder how many times dread has been present and either I haven't noticed it or I've quickly ostensibly solved for it or I've avoided looking at it while also singling myself out for criticism for having it or for not solving for the underlying causes,

Right?

How many times?

Many is what I'm guessing,

Which isn't a good thing.

The not noticing isn't a good thing.

The aversion to the dread,

Not noticing the aversion,

Not noticing the dread,

Not noticing the aversion,

Not noticing the underlying causes,

Because then they turn into this kind of filter I don't even know is there,

Right?

And I'm speaking or I'm acting through dread or through anger or whatever.

And my words,

My actions,

Even my ideas are filtered or they're either filtered through or they're infused with dread or with anger,

Which is unfortunately,

Probably what happened all those times I didn't notice.

So not noticing is not a good thing,

But noticing is a good thing,

Even a lucky thing.

But what I also noticed is that in order for it to be good,

To be lucky,

Noticing requires another element,

A kind of secret sauce.

It requires friendliness,

That quality of peace that I mentioned earlier.

At least for me,

There has to be enough friendliness towards the moment and friendliness towards the state of mind and friendliness towards myself,

Right?

To remember that everything that I'm seeing is true,

Right?

Dread,

The past causes of dread,

And that I don't actually have a corner on dread or its underlying causes.

And that we're all,

All of us always just doing our best with the amount of wisdom and compassion and equanimity we have in the moment with dread,

With the causes of dread,

With the past events that gave rise to the dread.

So there are two Pali words that I really like for this,

Hiri and otapa.

Hiri is prospective,

Right?

It's the dread that if I say or do a certain thing,

It'll cause harm.

And if hiri arises and I'm paying attention,

I find it to be very instructive because it stops me from saying or doing the thing until I can check in either internally or with somebody else to see if what I'm about to say or do is going to cause harm.

And then I can pivot if it seems like it will.

And otapa is retrospective.

So it's not as good of news as hiri,

It's the dread of the harm that may arise or is arising and I've already said or done the thing,

Right?

So it's that forehead slapping moment,

Right?

So hiri didn't happen or I didn't catch it when I lost my temper last week.

Lawyering is what happened.

The story is that there was a contractor who did this beyond amazing job at our Tahoe cabin,

But since it was done,

He's really consistently ghosted me,

Which has sometimes just been annoying,

But which last week wasn't going to work because a plumbing issue came up and the water shut off and there was no reply to texts or to calls.

And what I didn't do was stop,

Right?

Stop,

Take a breath,

Observe that I was hopping mad and then let hiri guide me as I proceeded the P of stop,

Right?

Instead,

I just proceeded and I proceeded to because I couldn't reach the contractor.

I called the condo manager and said something like,

Fine,

I'll just hire an outside plumber and then I'll go after the contractor's state bond for reimbursement,

Right?

That's what I mean by head slapping moment.

So lawyering happened.

It's such deep conditioning,

Right?

And I only said it to the property manager only and she thinking,

She later told me that it would be helpful,

Told the contractor.

So not hiri,

The words were out of my mouth,

But otopa alive and well,

Because even though I wrote the contractor an apology,

I still feel so much dread,

You know,

Dread that I've caused harm and maybe even irreparable harm,

Probably not irreparable harm to him since I'm not going to do it anyway.

And he knows that,

But at least to the relationship,

You know,

And so what a powerful practice moment,

Waking up literally and figuratively,

You know,

Feeling dread,

Believing it's only me who has this,

Being upset with myself,

Trying to squirm away from the whole thing.

I mean,

I sent an apology,

Right?

And finally letting go and just being dreadful,

You know,

Being full of dread and knowing why,

You know,

My flash of temper,

Of anger,

Of lawyerliness,

That moment that Penn Children talks about of just being nailed.

When I allowed dreadfulness to be what was happening,

I just felt nailed in a good way though,

Right?

Nailed to the present to a moment of having to,

And eventually being able to say,

Oh,

Dread is like this and a flash of temper lands like this,

Which for me is very different from dread is theoretically like this or philosophically might arise in that situation.

But dread is right here,

Right now,

Unavoidable and its underlying cause did happen clear as a bell and it's okay.

Not because it's okay to have harmed this person,

But because there's no other choice.

This moment is okay because it's the truth.

It happened and I can do better.

So in a way,

I guess I feel like it's a good,

Big,

Bigger strategy for life right now too,

Right?

The moment is like this.

And for me,

There's so much dread and the underlying causes are taking my breath away.

And of course I have the privilege at least for now to step back and say that I'm not the one being shoved onto a flight yet,

But it feels like a good strategy.

And even a kind of self-care strategy,

Being able to say this moment is like this.

Dread is like this.

A flash of anger feels like this causes that leaves a residue.

Unfortunately also happened,

Happens to the best of us and is okay.

Or is imperfect or I'm imperfect is another way of saying it.

The moment,

The emotion,

Me,

You,

All of us on both sides of the aisle.

Which isn't any way of thinking about letting anyone off the hook,

Myself or anyone else.

There's work to be done.

There are apologies that need to happen.

But at least the strategy feels to me like it places us all squarely in the very same boat on this same small planet we call home.

Or as Ram Dass said,

Walking each other home.

So,

Let's sit.

Okay.

So,

Finding your seat,

Your seat and checking in with the body,

Just settling in.

How is,

How is your body this morning?

Connecting with the earth.

Maybe gathering some strength from her.

Moving the attention to the breath.

And just beginning to follow the breath just as a,

As an anchor for the attention.

As you're sitting and if anything arises,

Might be dread,

Might be anything arises.

You know,

The invitation to just meet whatever is arising with,

With curiosity and just with a kind of,

Of peacefulness.

Oh,

You know,

This is what's up right now.

And not changing anything or solving for anything,

Just observing.

What's present,

Welcoming what's present.

And in,

In that welcoming,

In that maybe field of,

Of peace that we can create for whatever is present,

You know,

Seeing if there's some softening,

Seeing if there's some,

Some wisdom that arises.

This amazing thing that happens when we come to the present moment with kindness.

And when we meet ourselves with kindness.

Thanks everyone for coming to the wake up call.

Take good care.

Be safe out there.

I'll see you next week.