Intense!

I don't know about you, but in the last week or so, I have been experiencing some intense feelings. My inner critic has been yelling and my inner child has been crying. Their combined voices urging me, sometimes simultaneously, to hide away from everyone and to pick fights with everyone have worn me out.

Thankfully, the voice of my inner wise woman has also been present, quietly waiting for the other two to scream or cry themselves out. When they settle down, she offers guidance. She accompanies them in exploring the rough terrain they are wandering through to see what might be prompting the anger, fear, and grief. She assures the critic and child that they're allowed to express their feelings and also suggests there may be ways to move through the feelings instead of getting stuck in them. When I- in my mosaic of parts and beings- trust her, she encourages me both to care for myself in simple ways- taking a walk, working in my garden, cooking, making art, loving on my cat, Frida- and to reach out to friends who may be able to offer care that amplifies the self-care. I have been trying to heed her wisdom. 

Earlier I was listening to today's 1A broadcast on How a Nation Grieves at Home. I found that program and this article on 10 Sneaky Ways Your Coronavirus Anxiety is Coming Out  to be helpful reminders of the many ways we are experiencing and responding to living through the coronavirus pandemic. Perhaps they will also offer you comfort in knowing that your experience of these strange times is both common and normal. I leave them for you to peruse without further comment. 

If a more humorous recognition of common ways we've responded to the pandemic would delight you, I offer this video: 
"Different People in Quarantine" by Tova Leigh

And if you're looking for something to soothe your soul, I offer these two timeless poems read by the authors: 
"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver
"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry
and this song: 
"Mercy Now" by Mary Gauthier



In the midst of all the feelings, I continue to offer workshops and classes, Reiki sessions, and heart portrait readings via Zoom. Each is a way of sharing practices that bring out my inner wise woman and encourage those I work with to call on and trust their own inner wisdom. I am particularly excited to offer my Communicating Across Divides workshop in early June. I hope you'll join me for one or many of these!

Blessings.  

My Teacher, Resentment

Thanks to Compassionate Communication, I have a greater awareness that my feelings, and yours, and everybody else’s, are our teachers. When I pay attention to them, look at what’s stimulating them, and go deeper to what’s beneath them, I can learn a lot.

One of my greatest teachers is Resentment. I don’t love to admit that I have a robust relationship with Resentment. I can happily say that I have a much healthier relationship than I used to have with him. I used to let Resentment inhabit a whole lot of my physical and mental space, tensing up my back, neck, shoulders, quickening my heart, making my head hurt. I used to let Resentment into my mind. He’d stuff my head with ideas about how one person or another had wronged me. No wonder I got headaches.

I’m now learning to notice Resentment when he comes to call, but instead of flinging the door open and letting him take over, I now greet him at the door and ask him what he wants. Most of the time, anyway.  

He tells me about how this or that person is taking advantage of me or taking me for granted or treating me unfairly. Sometimes old habits get the best of me and those stories sneak past the door into my head.

When I'm practicing my new ways, I listen politely. I thank Resentment for visiting to alert me that something’s not quite right in my house. I close the door without letting him take full possession of my physical space, because both his visits and cleaning up after he’s wreaked havoc can be exhausting. I assess my state of internal affairs. I’ve now done this enough times to know what to look for when Resentment appears at my door.

Have I been giving so much of my time and energy that I have depleted my reserves? Can I find ways to both give and receive in particular interactions, so that I experience a greater sense of reciprocity? Can I look for support from people other than who I am giving to? 

Has Resentment come to remind me to clearly ask for what I need so that others can respond with a similar clarity? I used to do a lot of hoping that people would fill needs I’d never articulated. Then Resentment would come to call when people didn’t read my mind and fill my needs. He’s great at making up nasty stories about how uncaring other people are. He’s also good at turning those nasty judgments on me. I now recognize his tricks.

Is Resentment trying to tell me to state my boundaries and to respect them? Other people are more likely to respect them if I do. Sometimes I notice Resentment approaching when I am about to say “yes” to something that really feels more like a “no.” I’m getting better at saying “no” before Resentment knocks. The world hasn’t ended because I’ve said “no.”   

Changing my relationship with Resentment is an ongoing process, a practice. I’m learning to not take his stories so seriously. I’m learning to thank him for his warnings, so I can get my house in better order.

When I get curious about Resentment or any other feelings, I can get clearer about my needs and values. When I know my needs and values, I can take action to meet them. When I take action to meet my needs, I feel empowered. When my needs are met and I feel empowered, I want everybody else to feel as good as I do and I try to contribute to make that happen. These are the kinds of ripples I want to make in the world. 

What about you?

What emotions are your greatest teachers?

What do you want to ripple out into the world? 

Allowed to Feel It All

About a week ago I was feeling all the grief, not about COVID-19 (for once), but about having to create a strong boundary with a person I care about. I shared my situation with a couple of people who listened compassionately, but even with their attentiveness, I couldn’t shake it. The grief still wanted to be heard. In the evening I was texting with another friend about it, who told me that I shouldn’t take on someone else’s grief, especially now, that it was even unhealthy to do so. My friend used the analogy that you may have seen by now- we’re all in the same storm, but in different boats. The point my friend was trying to make was that because I wasn’t in the same boat as the person with whom I needed to create the boundary, I shouldn’t have feelings about the other boat.

At that suggestion my grief turned to rage. Rage at the idea that being in the different boats meant I shouldn’t have feelings about the other boats. Rage that the person was telling me that feeling these emotions was unhealthy. Rage that my friend didn’t get that the point of the boat analogy was actually encouraging empathy, connection, and understanding rather than squelching them.

Rage feels a lot more powerful than grief and I was grateful for the energetic change. The conversation  ended shortly after that and I opened Untamed, Glennon Doyle’s latest memoir. I happened to be at the chapter in which Glennon wrote about her heartbreak at learning of immigrant family separations happening at the U.S.-Mexico border and the ways that she responded to that situation. As I read, my rage turned back to grief and then to relief. She understood. I felt heard by a stranger who hadn't actually even heard me. 

Being in different boats doesn’t mean we don’t get to have feelings about the other boats. It also doesn’t mean that if we’ve got a good sturdy boat with room for more people, we just wave at the folks in the leaky canoe. “Sorry about your luck! See ya later!” If we see and can do something, hopefully, we'll do something. That's a topic to explore another day. 

I kept reading. I allowed myself to feel whatever feelings arose.

I am allowed to feel it all. You are allowed to feel it all. 

That night I shed a few tears. I put down my book and I slept well. I woke up feeling lighter because the grief was no longer stuck in me. It had moved through.

Many of us have been taught that some emotions are good (joy, gratitude, relief, hope) and others are bad (loneliness, disgust, anxiety, confusion). Some of the “bad” emotions are even gendered by societal norms. Men can feel angry and express it, but women can’t. Women can feel grief and express it, but men can’t. Then there’s shame. Most of us have been told to feel shame at one time or another (“You should be ashamed of yourself!”), but few of us want to admit to feeling it. It’s too scary. Fear and shame, shame and fear, both are adept at disguising themselves as something else. Often it’s anger. And so we allow some emotions to surface and try to keep others from seeing the light of day. We feel the stress of holding them in our bodies, then we disconnect from both the emotions and our bodies because the accumulation becomes too painful. And...or...at the moment we least expect, all the emotions erupt out of us; we become the storm leaving wreckage behind us.

What if we allowed ourselves to feel more instead of stuffing, denying, numbing? What if we could name the feelings in all their nuance and even recognize when we were experiencing a whole slew of feelings all at once? What if, when someone else told us how they were feeling and it made us uncomfortable, we could both live with our own discomfort and also honor the feelings the other person was having?  

Since I’ve been practicing Compassionate Communication, I’ve gotten in much better touch with my feelings. I notice that they’re happening in the first place. I give myself space to explore them. I allow myself to be with them without judging whether they’re good or bad.

Noticing, honoring, and tending to emotions are practices. They are practices of connecting- to ourselves and each other. I believe these are lifelong practices. May we lean into the spectrum of emotions. May we lean into each other as we tend to them.