Feeling Tone

Yesterday at naptime I started out the process with my “enjoy the moment” glasses on. Meaning, when my little guy started attempting to do head stands as I read his naptime story I was able to smile and soak in his sheer enthusiasm for life. He eventually laid down next to me and whispered an “I love you,” that made it so worth it. :)

I kept those full enjoyment glasses on until about 20 minutes later, when well into our calm down songs and after his being perfectly still to the point I thought he may have dozed off, he turned to me and expressed his wish that we had a rooster for a wake up alarm. Admittedly, I found this kind of cute. But what followed was an all out wiggle session with a seemingly inexhaustible source of energy. Instead of being tickled by his humor and innocence I started to unconsciously resent each new repositioning and adjustment. When he stopped long enough to ask, “Are you not mad at me?” I got my jolt of reality. I had been unable to recognize how my impatience and worry that he’d never nap had slowly shifted my happy-go-lucky lenses to my more stressed out “Foot-tapping” glasses. I apologized for being short with him and explained I needed to take a few breaths to help ease me through my feelings of stress. I reminded him he could help by getting still and quiet. And sure enough, after another song, he was peacefully snoozing in my lap and I was able to put on my “ahh, sweet cuddles” glasses to soak in these last moments of him being small enough to fit in my arms.

I share this snapshot because my experience is not unique to me, but rather a universal part of the human condition — not the naptime per-say, but rather the subtle shifts in perception that change a moment of pleasure into one of frustration. Every single thing we experience will be affected by our past, present, and future — whatever stories and associations we have in our mind about the present experience will directly impact our interpretation of said experience. Had I had more office work to do yesterday, chances are I’d have perceived his early head stands as an obnoxious stalling tactic. Or had I not been a little worried about him taking a late nap, I might not have gotten so frustrated at his sweet wish for a rooster wake up call.

The head stands and the rooster wish were neither pleasant, unpleasant or neutral experiences; but the lenses of perception I wear can cause me to perceive them differently depending on my unique circumstances.

When we first taste an experience, in the first milliseconds of it happening, we categorize it - almost unconsciously - into being either a pleasant, unpleasant or neutral occurrence based partly on the experience itself, but mostly on our own history and stories surrounding it. The same experience I view as pleasant may be unpleasant to you; or even to me on another day. I hear avocado is universally incredible - but my allergy to it impacts my perception and so eating a bite of avocado is typically an unpleasant experience for me.

On its face, there’s nothing really problematic about these subtle categorizations. It’s helpful for me to recall the unpleasant throat tightening and stomach ache that I get from avocado so I can choose not to eat it! Just like it’s a good call to note the unpleasant sensation of touching a hot stove so we can move our hand quickly!

But because most of the time these categorizations happen without us noticing, things can get a little sticky and cause us extra suffering before we recognize what’s even happened. Had my son not asked me about my mood, I could have easily fallen into a grumpy, annoyed afternoon, fully missing the yummy cuddles I got at the end.

Our reactivity to these categorizations are at the root of our pain and suffering.

If something is unpleasant we’ll typically tense up against it, bracing ourselves to push it away. If it’s physical pain this type of reactivity can really exacerbate things! If something is pleasant though, we tend to want to hoard it, save it all for ourselves forever. That’s fine until we face the disappointing fact that everything is always changing, and that which we’re grasping onto will eventually slip away. And if something is neutral, do we even notice it? The tendency with neutral experiences is to ignore or doze off. Ever notice yourself falling asleep during a “boring” meditation?

This isn’t to suggest we should attempt to do away with this automatic process of categorization. Rather, it’s about bringing awareness to what we’re doing with it. When I recognize that I’m seeing through the lens of unpleasantness, I can respond differently than if I just take it as inherently unpleasant and then react with aversion and fear. Maybe this awareness is enough to help me ride out the discomfort instead of immediately pushing it away. (This is a matter of wise discernment, as I would not suggest you “ride out the discomfort” of burning your hand on a stovetop!) In the midst of a pleasant experience, perhaps I can have a bit more spaciousness to enjoy it for what it is, without needing it to stay forever. And what happens when we start paying attention to those millions of neutral experiences we have each day? For me, the attention often leads to an internal shift that moves the experience from neutral to mildly pleasant.

In mindfulness practice, these three lenses - pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral - are called feeling tone. When we are aware of the feeling tone of an experience for us, we then have the power to choose our response. The following guided practice offers a couple of different exercises to help you begin to recognize the feeling tone of your experience. But if you don’t have time to do the guided meditation, you can try noticing feeling tone in your day-to-day experiences by giving a gentle mental note about your experience - is it pleasant? unpleasant? neutral? And after noting this, take a second to notice how you are reacting or responding to the experience. Am I tensing, grasping, ignoring?

What lenses are you wearing in this moment?