Anger and Compassion

A couple of years ago I took a hiatus from Facebook and also stopped actively reading / watching the news. I kept finding myself feeling overwhelmed with anger, frustration and hopelessness each time I’d scroll through the day’s news. I was grateful to my husband who would fill me in each day on anything important that I’d missed, and was glad to be free from so much media content. As the pandemic approached and eventually came, I decided to flip the switch and rejoin the world of media consumption. It hasn’t been easy. I don’t know about you, but I find it is realllllly challenging to hear a certain leader speak without getting consumed with anger. Like, every time I see him, I just want to reach through the screen and smack him! When I have the presence of mind to breathe with my anger, I often think to myself, ‘I’ve been practicing mindfulness and compassion for over 15 years, how is he triggering me so much?!’

As things have continued to heat up, and this person has continued to make statements and choices that I see has harmful and deleterious to human existence, I’ve had a lot of opportunity to reflect on my own reactivity to him. I had a big ‘a-ha!’ recently when I was able to acknowledge to myself how very painful it felt to harbor so much anger towards him. It wasn’t like he was feeling the angry eyes or hearing the comments I was flinging at the TV. No, those were all going right back towards me! And they hurt. My stomach was in knots, my shoulders were tight, and my face was red. I was fully in fight or flight mode because of a news clip.

So, I took my anger and paused to think about why this guy might be behaving the way he was. In all likelihood, he was hurting too. What ache was he trying to fix, where in his life was he not feeling loved and secure, that he felt moved to act as he did? Just like me, he wishes to be happy. Just like me, he wishes to not suffer. Almost instantly the tension began to melt, my stomach eased, and I returned to a more natural pallor. My pause for empathy and compassion didn’t change the justified frustration I felt with this guy’s choices, but it did free up some space in me to rest in love again instead of the fear I’d been wrapped up in to that point.

I’m not always able to get to that point of empathy for someone who seems to be so damaging and disastrous to others, and during those times, I find the best remedy is to stop and give myself compassion. Can I recognize the pain I’m in and be with it long enough to see it fully without needing to fix it or immediately blame or change someone or something outside of me? There’s no way I’m going to feel empathy and compassion for someone else if I don’t first know how to have compassion for myself.

These days in the US there is a lot of outrage coming from all over. Everyone is so certain in their certainty. I think a lot of this comes from the very uncertainness of these times. It’s all the more obvious that no one can really predict what tomorrow will bring, and that’s pretty uncomfortable, even scary. Anger often feels like an easier emotion to launch into than pausing to embody and experience the fear and ickiness of uncertainty — especially when it feels like someone who could do something to make things better isn’t doing it! But a lot of times that anger ends up blocking us from metabolizing the difficult emotions that brought it about. And without doing that, there is no space for growth or moving forward.

This is in no way meant to bash or downplay the importance of anger. As an emotion, it’s just as much welcome in our experience as any other emotion. However, without really getting to know the ins and outs of our anger, just like any other emotion, it can run wild and wreak havoc. Anger though, because it is such a potent and energetically charged emotion, seems to run amuck more easily than other emotions, often giving it a bad rap. In mindfulness practice our work is to really know the anger. What does it feel like in the body? How does the breath feel with anger? How does the heart feel? What other emotions accompany it?

For me, this exploration of anger often yields surprising results. Namely in the awareness of what other emotions are there too. Anger feels like a painfully explosive mixture of fear, sadness, disappointment, impatience, frustration, disbelief, aversion, repulsion, unfairness, and plenty of other unpleasant feelings depending on the day. It’s not surprising that I’d rather not feel those feelings, and would instead like to get on my high horse and be pissed off. But when I can see the emotional load for what it is, I’m more able to tend to it and care for myself. After some lovingkindness and self-compassion practices the justified anger remains, but now I have a chance to use it as a force of love instead of one of fear. Without first caring for myself though, the anger just grows and all of those emotions get expressed less skillfully.

At times justified anger can be fuel for big changes, but without first getting to know it, what feels like justified anger is often unacknowledged fear and aversion in disguise, and is no more a tool for positive change than a weapon for self-inflicted pain.

So how do we alchemize that anger into empathy and compassion for others who don’t share our views? Like I always say, the best thing we can do with any emotion or experience is love it. Get to know it. Welcome it. Let down our guard long enough to befriend it, or at least make its acquaintance. Empathy and compassion for others arises most easily when we have first taken care of ourselves. And to take care of ourselves, we have to know what we’re experiencing. How do we recognize and respond to pain and suffering in someone else if we can’t first recognize and respond to it in ourselves?

I’ve shared other practices in the past about getting to know our pain, and I encourage you to try that practice. And today, I’ve got a guided meditation about self-compassion for you. I find this practice can be helpful in recognizing the pain I’m in and learning from it how best to care for myself. I hope that the practice is beneficial to you and that you’re able to use it the next time you watch the news, or feel angry or upset about anything else.

May we all find peace. May we all find freedom from our suffering.

Turning Towards Pain

I didn’t post last week because it was my birthday week and I wanted to give myself some time off. But that was just part of it. At the heart of it was that I was feeling grumpy and down for a couple of days, and when it was time to write a new post I felt like I needed to have digested that grumpiness into a nice little piece of learning for you all. Once I made the decision to take the week off from writing I was able to just let my grumpiness be without needing to end it in order to gain some insight about myself. That time off ended up feeling pretty nice and within a day or two much of the veil of grumpiness had lifted enough for me to see that without realizing it, I had been shunning my pain and working hard to “fix” it instead of just letting myself feel it.

It’s interesting to see how fear and pressure mount, telling us a story that’s not based in reality. I was going on believing my stories until I paused long enough to turn towards the pain I felt and see it for what it was. I felt disappointment and sadness at not getting to be with my extended family on my birthday. I felt shame and guilt for those feelings, knowing that our situation is so privileged compared to that of many others. I felt a sense of unsatisfactoriness and frustration with the stuff of life, “Is this it?”. And with all of these thoughts and feelings I felt worried and nervous that they’d stick around forever. But as soon as I paused to honor them and allow them into my heart, everything softened.

Then this week came along and has been tearing at my heart with relentless intensity. My news feed scrolls through a troubling list of headlines detailing the unfathomable loss of lives from this pandemic, the staggering jobless numbers in the US, and the deadly cost of racism in our country - be it structural racism that has made this pandemic far deadlier and costlier for communities of color or the reprehensible actions of a growing handful of murderers who only see skin color instead of their own fear. Just writing that sentence calls for a pause to stop and let the pain be for a minute. Please, if you’re reading this, take a moment with me and just feel your breath, your heartbeat, your heart center, then notice your limbs, your contact with the ground or seat beneath you. Breathe.

Sometimes it all just feels so heavy. After I’ve cried what tears I have and talked through my anger and frustrations all that’s left is to love it. As was the case last week, this isn’t always my first inclination, nor is it the easiest thing to do. But, all it takes is one breath of attention, a moment of turning towards instead of away, to remind me of the strength and potency that awareness can have on my pain.

I don’t always think I know how to love these terrifying parts of myself and the world, and at first it can feel kind of awkward and intimidating to switch from my stance of resistance to one of open heartedness (especially when it feels like the pain will be too much to bear). But I’ve done it enough times to trust my heart’s capacity to handle it — even when it’s cracked or ripped open from some new injustice or great loss. In fact, it usually ends up being those times that have most opened my heart to the world.

In mindfulness practice this can be as simple as pausing to notice the pain that’s calling out to be seen or felt. It may feel intimidating to acknowledge and allow such an immense pain into our awareness, but that’s the magical thing about awareness, there’s no end to what it can hold with equanimity and grace. Even when I don’t feel equipped to handle something, my awareness can make space for it. I just have to be brave enough to give it a chance.

As we notice the pain we feel, can we notice our reactivity to it? How often do I brace myself against the idea of the pain, steeling myself to stand up to my story about the pain? The story running in my mind is generally far worse than the actual sensations making up the experience. When I’m able to just explore the sensations of the pain, noticing the pulsing, throbbing, heat, tingling, shifting experience, a couple of things happen. For one, I can see that it’s not constant, but rather, it’s constantly shifting and changing with each breath, each heartbeat. And I can also notice that it’s often not as intense as I’d thought, without the additional story and my tensing in resistance to an imagined future pain, there is more space for the pain to dissolve into. Granted, the pain doesn’t always go away or diminish, but as my reactivity does, the experience of it all is more tolerable.

In my experience, my pain, both emotional and physical, is usually just wanting to be given space and attention. Once I pause to feel and honor my pain, I’m better able to respond to it with compassion and love. I can tend to its needs, my needs, with care and a better understanding of what’s needed - a bath, some aspirin, or a good cry. The energy I spend actively, and sometimes passively, pushing down my pain is far greater than the energy it takes me to face it and care for it. Bringing our awareness to these uncomfortable areas of our bodies can serve as a practical experience to open our hearts and better prepare us to wake up to uncomfortable areas in our society.

As I write, I’m watching live helicopter footage of looting and buildings burning in Los Angeles. The reporter on the ground interviewed a young black woman and asked her why there was so much property damage being done and what her primary message was as a protestor. She responded that as a black person she is suffering, as a law abiding citizen she is in constant fear of the police, as an older sister she is constantly afraid that her little brother will be killed by police officers anytime he leaves the house. She was not participating in the looting, but did not condemn the looters’ actions, explaining that black people are all suffering, and that their pain is rarely acknowledged or seen as valid. She said that the first step to responding to everyone’s pain was awareness. For white people to acknowledge and learn about the pain and stress black people are feeling and feel every day would be a move in the right direction.

Just as the pain I ignore in my body will not go away and will only be exacerbated by my resistance and willful ignorance, the collective pain felt by non-white people in America will only continue to worsen and grow if we as a society continue to fail to acknowledge and get to know it. Once we can stop ignoring, invalidating, and denying this pain, maybe then we can all begin to move towards some sort of compassionate response.

There is space in awareness for anything and everything we can throw at it. Are we brave enough to stand witness with kindness and compassion?

Death

The other night my toddler put his on jammies by himself for the first time. And the next evening he read me a book all on his own. Who is this kid, some sort of teenager?! Throughout this time of intense togetherness I feel like I’ve watched him transform from toddler to little boy. There’s a part of me that longs for the days when he’d cuddle into my arms, the little squidge of a baby. And at the same time, I’m so happy for each of us to have some independence from each other.

You may be wondering why I’m starting a piece entitled “Death” with a story about my toddler. I share it mostly because it feels like a much more palatable way to explore our relationship to death. The helpless infant, the babbling baby, and the cheeky toddler have all died in a sense, in order to give way, make space and make possible the child I see before me today. While I may always catch glimpses of my little baby depending on his mood or the angle of light, I’ll never get to experience those beautifully tortuous first weeks and months of our lives together when none of us slept and we were always covered in spit up. For better or worse, those moments are done, the baby I knew like my own heart beat is now a mysterious, independent child, living free of the weight of his past and without a concern about the future.

Not only is a four year old a perfect teacher for me about death, he’s also showing me how best to live.

While we’ve been staying at home, countless fears and worries bounce around my thoughts throughout the day. Most of them have something to do with the thought of someone I know getting sick and dying. Death feels so much more in my face, and if I hadn’t spent the last 15 years of my meditation practice preparing for it in some way, I think my own death would feel so much scarier. It certainly still has an anxiety producing quality about it, but with practice, it’s become far less unfathomable. What is it about life that makes us think we’ll be here forever, or that we’ll at least live to see our grandchildren? The only guarantee we have is that one day we’ll die. And while the death of someone before their time feels so painful and incomprehensible, it doesn’t make it any less natural a phenomenon. Phenomena arise, exist, and pass on. That is the nature of existence. Even when someone dies ‘unnaturally’ their deaths are still very much part of the fabric of life.

In meditation we’re constantly practicing letting our past be in the past and our future be in the future. When we come back to fully experience THIS BREATH, we are invariably setting down any illusions of how the last breath was or how the next one should be. And this type of letting be, of resting in the moment, this is an ideal way to practice and prepare for our own deaths. Resisting the inevitability of our next breath won’t stop it from coming, just like death will meet all of us eventually - no matter how much we may resist it. Similarly, clinging to the previous inhale or exhale is a fool’s errand, just as is the longing for our younger days or times when we had more vitality.

Coming to terms with the inescapability of death’s grip helps to keep us from trying to escape it.

When I see that the world around me is in a constant state of dying and rebirth, the death part feels less scary to me. Becoming less afraid of death doesn’t mean I’m going to take a bunch of ridiculous risks, but rather I can remember and recognize the preciousness of this opportunity to be alive. Instead of spending my days worrying about when or how I’ll die, I can spend my days fully living my life.

How much avoidable suffering do we cause ourselves trying to ignore and escape the inevitable? How much money do we spend to eke out a few more moments of youthful glow? What would happen if we fully embraced the reality of our impending deaths? Maybe instead of living in fear, we could begin to truly live.

Remembering and recognizing that each moment represents another death of what WAS, allows me the space to welcome what IS. When I cling to the memories of the two year-old, I lose sight of the four year-old in front of me. The two year old is still there inside of him, it’s what made him possible. When I lament the fact that one day he’ll die, I miss out on the magical unfolding of his life. One day neither of us will be on this physical plane. What comes next I do not claim to know; but I am certain that our imprint and memory will persist in the present moment experiences of those who come after us. The love we create today will continue to ripple out long after we are gone.

The pandemic has offered us all the opportunity to get a little comfier with the reality of our deaths. The world we knew before, full of carefree, large, mask-less gatherings is dead. What awaits us is a mystery with the potential to be something glorious — so long as we are present enough to face it.

If the video does not automatically load, you can view it here: https://youtu.be/ezz4jqPamVA

Desire

As these months have passed by and the initial uncertainty and fear about how this would play out has dissipated, things around our home have settled into a relatively pleasant routine of cuddles, dance parties, and evening runs around the “trails” we’ve cut into our overgrown backyard. Daily video calls with each set of grandparents, while not really as good as our once regular visits, are better than nothing. Just as on retreat how there’s fewer choice of activity and meals, during this most recent stage of quarantine we’ve been living fairly simply with our basic needs met and routine in place. With the options for most external activities off the table we’ve adapted to the alternative — ordering groceries online, going without various products, forgoing activities like trips to the park, and FaceTime instead of a real visit to my parents.

But two weeks ago my husband and I started thinking about how we might expand our social circle to include my parents. Just planting that seed invited in so many new questions and worries. How would we keep everyone safe? Was it safe? Would our four year old be ok with a long car ride that culminated in a socially distanced, no-contact visit? Were we just being antsy and impatient, and would this hypothetical visit end up exacerbating things?

We came up with so many different scenarios — maybe we’d meet up for a socially distanced picnic, maybe we’d camp in their backyard, maybe this idea is ridiculous and we shouldn’t do it! Throughout the week we talked in circles and felt generally bummed about this whole stay at home order. Keep in mind, that before all of this we were feeling relatively even keeled and without much emotional turmoil.

We’d walked down the road of desire and wound up full of wanting, longing, worry, fear, and uncertainty. We’d been feeling none of those emotions prior to starting down this path two weeks ago! Recognizing how much suffering we’d brought upon ourselves, and respecting the state’s stay at home order, we decided to wait just a little longer before expanding our circle. As soon as I got off the phone with my parents, who agreed and totally understood, I felt as light as a feather. All of the tension and discomfort of desire drained out of my body. The physical contraction I’d been feeling eased and tensions within our household dissipated. Just by planting the seed of desire I’d unconsciously brought to life so much drama and internal struggle. That evening I actually laughed with my husband as we recounted how we’d convinced ourselves to be unhappy for a week.

When we’re stripped of many of our regular choices, activities, and options for distraction, the hamster wheel of the human condition is often laid bare. I remember once on retreat I noticed a posting on a bulletin board that mentioned a teacher I liked was coming to town after the retreat. With not much else to think about, my mind latched on with force, and within a couple of hours I had planned what I’d wear and how I’d invite her to dinner. This incessant planning continued for at least a full day until I began to notice what it was doing to me. I was so fixated on this imagined future that I was missing what was truly happening in the moment — my body was tense with desire and the anxiety of things not turning out as I was imagining them. It was actually pretty uncomfortable to live in that fantasy, just as it had grown so uncomfortable in the fantasy of seeing my parents.

If it’s so uncomfortable, then what is it about desire that makes it so, so, desirable?

I think for me it’s often a reaction to a deeper sense of unsatisfactoriness, a resistance to what is already here. At times the fuel for my desire arises from a sense of boredom, feeling as though this moment isn’t quite good enough, that this moment would be perfect if only it were a little different. Other times the fuel for my desire is ego-based — I’d really be something if only I had X.

Both of these point to a very subtle internal resistance to what is here. Because if I’m willing to pause and really look at what’s beneath the boredom or ego boosting it’s fear, a sense of unworthiness, confusion, and uncertainty; all feelings that are rather uncomfortable to face. It seems like dropping into a fantasy of desire would be far more comfortable than actually feeling those seemingly unpleasant emotions. Right?

Well, maybe for a while it can be nice to get wrapped up in a fantasy of what could be. But as I’ve seen over and over again, that sort of wanting just leaves me, well, wanting.

So what are we to do? How does one live without desire, especially when on some level it seems like there is a need for desire to propel us forward in life? Despite how this post has gone so far, I’m not actually knocking desire or goals or even future thinking and planning. Rather, my issues with desire are all wrapped up in the unquenchable thirst they get started in me, in the shift from a simple ‘want’ to an imagined ‘need’. When the mental story goes from one of, ‘Yes, a visit to my parents could be great!,’ to, ‘How can we make this work? Because without it I don’t think we’re going to make it another day of this stay at home order!’

When my current condition is determined by a future fantasy I know I’ve made an unskillful choice.

I get into trouble when my mental projections of desire are based in a resistance to how things are right now. If I can’t accept and get comfortable with this moment, no amount of wishing it away, wishing it could be different, wishing for something else is going to make me feel better. As I become comfortable with whatever is here, be it unpleasant, undesirable, or even desire itself, it’s easier for me to hold my desires lightly. I can now let them rest on the palm of my hand instead of gripping them tightly in my fist. Desire’s unpleasant effects go away when my comfort and my general ‘ok-ness’ as a person are not predicated on fulfilling them. Now I’m able to respond compassionately to my heart’s wishes and needs instead of reacting blindly to my fears.

Our culture is driven by desire. Companies spend millions of dollars on marketing schemes to plant the seed in your mind that you’ll be happier with their product. In many ways it feels like desire is an unavoidable part of life. And while it’s true that desire and objects of desire will always be there — just as they were on retreat for me and now during our stay at home order — it’s also true that we have a say in how we respond to these desires. When we can respond to desire with awareness and a trust that what and how we are is already enough, no amount of marketing money will have an effect on us. When we can release our grip on the object of our desire, suddenly, desire can no longer grip us.

Gratitude

As we continue to stay here, suspended in the jelly of uncertainty, unsure of when our lives can start back up again, when we’ll be able to hug our friends and family again, what things will look like when we can peek our heads outside, it’s easy for me to become overwhelmed with the enormity of it all. Things won’t look the same as they did just last month and it feels like we’re collectively faced with an impossible choice, deciding how much and what kind of human suffering we can stomach — our loved ones getting sick, overwhelming hospital systems, and eventually dying, or our loved ones going hungry, overwhelmed by mounting debt and unpaid bills, also eventually dying. There is no easy answer, but the suffering we’re feeling as a global society as we face this together, apart, is revealing some important lessons for those willing to listen.

At the same time that we’re facing this vast uncertainty and the often fearful reality of our fragile existence, we’re also seeing so many beautiful expressions of joy, compassion, and community. The very act of social distancing is one of love, supporting the health of countless nameless faces we’ll never meet. We’re finding joy in the silly little parts of the day we would have otherwise missed, like when my son asks my husband to take a break from the dishes for “a little tickle” (that’s actually happening right now as I type). :) And we’re seeing firsthand how interconnected we are as a human family. Just as a virus can spread easily among us, ignoring borders and class, so too can this renewed sense of love, compassion and joy. We can band together to offer food to those who are hungry, recognize the social inequality that is exacerbating this crisis for so many, and work hard today to prepare ourselves to create a better, more loving, more inclusive future for all of us.

And if all of that feels like too much right now, we can practice gratitude.

Gratitude has been a major source of stability for me during these seemingly endless stay at home days, and well before this crisis. As this lockdown began I wasn’t really remembering this essential tool, and it was easy to only see the negative side of things. But after the first week or so, I remembered how transformative purposefully orienting my thinking to gratitude is for me. So I reached out to a friend to see if she’d be my gratitude buddy. She agreed, and since then, I’ve been lucky enough to have a dear friend to share my gratitude with each day.

Each night before bed we text each other a couple sentences about one thing in the day we feel grateful for. Some days the gratitude flows easily and I have to choose among a handful of lovely memories from my day. Other days the exercise really does feel like exercise, as I search my memories of the day for even one thing to share. Often on those days when I’m feeling at my lowest, the very act of reviewing my day to share a moment of gratitude gives me a few minutes of respite from the negative thinking I’d not even realized was there. The added bonus of this exercise for me is that I also get to hear what my friend is grateful for, which brings a smile to my face as well. It’s a positive feedback loop that has been sustaining me for the last six weeks.

Even if you don’t have a gratitude buddy with whom to share your daily highlights, you can still make it a point to stop and recognize the various reasons for gratitude each day, either by pausing to acknowledge things you’re grateful for as they happen, soaking in the sensation of gratitude, or taking a few minutes at the end of the night to reflect and journal about the parts of your day for which you’re grateful.

Death’s shadow is always looming over our existence here on earth, and expressing  gratitude for this human life is an excellent way to honor our present vitality while also recognizing this inexorable condition of life. What is there to fear in death if we can practice living each day fully aware of the gift it is to be alive? Since this all began, and we have been continually reminded of the preciousness of each day, my husband and I have shared a moment of gratitude each morning when we wake up -- we’re here, we’re breathing. 

This isn’t to say that gratitude is a cure all, and that if we practice gratitude all of our struggles and suffering will disappear with a snap. But working to continually shift our perspective to orient toward gratitude does help us to stop being victims of our own lives and circumstances. Instead of experiencing these disastrous and scary moments of life as reason to cower in a “poor me, poor us” mindset, (which speaking from personal experience, is an easy place to go these days!), we can instead see these waves of challenge and suffering as an opportunity for our souls to grow and mature, an opportunity for us to learn how to live fully, an opportunity for us to let down our constant resistance to life and live fearlessly, fully trusting our heart’s capacity for love. 

Gratitude’s magic lies in its ability to get us to drop our resistance in exchange for an embrace. 

It seems like all of my musings here end up in a similar place -- one of allowing our awareness to aid us in giving up the constant fight against what is, to embracing it all instead. Even when it’s hard, especially when it’s hard, our awareness and mindfulness practice teaches us how to be with it, loving (not necessarily liking!) each moment for the gift that it truly is -- another moment to wake up to the reality that we are surrounded by love, swimming in it really. 

I have a choice. I can spend my energy and focus fearing and dreading the suffering that is coming out of this moment in time. Or I can spend my energy and place my awareness on expanding the love and compassion coming out of this moment in time, even if it starts with just being grateful for the breath I’m breathing right now. 

Even when I spend my energy and focus on the fearful dreading side of things gratitude and awareness can still lift me up to my best self. The more I practice, the more I see and can remember that it was during all of the “worst” times in my life when I’ve experienced the most growth. Keeping this in mind makes it easier to trust in the moment and the love that holds us all. From this trust I’m better equipped to see moments to be grateful for on even my worst days.

We’ve got just this one life, these few years to walk this earth. What better way to spend this time than experiencing gratitude as witness to all of the little miracles that make up each day? One of my teachers would end each evening on retreat with the reminder to really pay attention as we tucked ourselves into bed at night. That juicy feeling of laying down, getting under the covers and coming to rest - “don’t miss it!” he would say. Echoing his sentiments, I encourage you to find the juicy moments in your day today, savor the beauty surrounding you and the love holding you. Don’t miss it!