Have you ever done or said something you wish you hadn’t as a result of strong emotions? I certainly have. It is really hard to maintain productive communication when feelings are hurt. And productive communication becomes even more important when feelings are hurt.
Emotions are powerful and uncontrollable. There is no healthy way to stop emotional reactions. Emotions are like a surging flood, but recently I can (sometimes) keep my head above water even as I am carried along. I believe this change is a result of my meditation practice. I will try to explain to you why I believe meditation created this change in me and how you can replicate that change in yourself.
Two ways to direct attention
Sometimes I like to understand myself as having two ways that I can direct my attention. I will call one of the ways awareness and the other contemplation.
When you are taking a walk you are aware of your surroundings. You are looking around, listening, feeling, and experiencing your environment. Awareness is like a butterfly. It is light and fluttery. It might rest on a tree in one moment and immediately flick to a coin on the ground. When you are aware of something you are not evaluating it, you are just noticing it. Awareness allows us to absorb information.
When you are adding 537 + 384 you are contemplating. You are aggressively directing mental resources toward a task. Contemplation is like a power drill. It is heavy, cumbersome, and powerful. It takes time and effort to change what you are contemplating. Contemplation allows us to process complex information.
Emotions, contemplation, and awareness
Our emotional reactions have very different impacts on awareness and contemplation.
Emotions take over our ability to contemplate completely. Trying to contemplate during a strong emotional response will be chaotic and out of control. Emotions take control over the power drill and make it drill in a different direction. Unfortunately, our contemplation is rarely able to notice that emotions are changing which direction it is drilling in. We will think “This person is being so antagonizing, it seems like they want to fight with me” when the reality is that we are angry and our anger is distorting our view of the world.
Emotions disturb our awareness, but only very briefly. Imagine a gust of wind hitting a butterfly. The butterfly will move erratically briefly, but will quickly resume its activity without significant alteration.
Why do we lose our liberty from our emotions?
We lose our liberty from our emotions when we lose our ability to separate our contemplation from our awareness. Imagine gluing a butterfly to a power drill. When an emotional flood appears, they will be swept along together.
We lose our ability to separate our contemplation from our awareness because we get out of practice. For many of us, our lives demand heavy contemplation and very little awareness. We contemplate at work, we contemplate in social situations (when we should be practicing awareness), we contemplate what to eat for dinner. The only chances we may have to be aware are when we relax or play sports.
What liberation feels like
Imagine this: Someone you care about says something that belittles you. You feel a rush of blood to your head. You feel a swelling of energy in your body. You become aware that something they said created an emotional reaction inside of you. At that moment you are liberated from your emotions because you are aware of them. That awareness changes everything.
Remember that our contemplation does not understand emotions. It will not discover on its own that it is suddenly drilling in the wrong direction. However, when we use awareness to notice our emotions, that information becomes available to our contemplations. We can then reevaluate and see if our contemplations have gotten off track.
Meditation as solution
We need to return to the practice of separating our awareness from our contemplation. Meditation is one way to do this. When we meditate we are aware of our breathing, of our body, of our environment. We may have involuntary thoughts and that is fine. But we are actively not contemplating.
If you are meditating and your brow is furrowed you are contemplating. If you feel tension in your mind, that is a result of contemplating. Awareness is effortless. When you first start meditating you will find that you can feel a tightness in your mind similar to a tight muscle. That tightness is binding together your contemplation and your awareness. Try to relax it a little each time you meditate. Breath into it and release your awareness.
I do not have many opinions on the proper way to meditate. Any way that allows you to be consistent is great. Ideally, you will meditate for at least ten minutes a day. I have been enjoying this guided meditation: https://insighttimer.com/davidji/guided-meditations/deep-healing maybe you will too!
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