Untangling Emotions
Our homework this past week was to do mindfulness exercises for practice as it is really a base concept for slowing down and centering ones self. Although I understand the principle I do struggle with the practice. This is my "want to run before I walk" shortcoming. The stubborn part of me thinks it has it figured out:
- Take the pencil
- What does the pencil feel like
- Is it round or sided
- What color is the pencil
- What shade is that color
- Is it sharp or blunt
- What does it smell lime
- Does it have an eraser
Toss me an object, I can do this. Need challenge.
The next level as we learned in class is to take the focus from external to internal. Ah, not running but possibly a slow jog. Challenge accepted.
In my attempts to practice this week, I found myself pulled off focus several times. The fact of this was not so much I could not do the exercise as I was still struggling with some left over emotions in my mind that I was trying to work out.
Although a little quieter, my mind continued to take the sadness and anger that I was struggling with and intertwine them so much that I really wasn't sure when I was feeling which emotion and who the emotions were even directed at. And, after four days of this, I was pretty much over it.
I decided to give something a try. I really had no clue whether this was the "right way to do it" or not but I decided to try to use some sense of mindfulness to take these two emotions and try to separate them from each other - kind of give each one a time out on its own side of the room.
As I sat and concentrated my breathing in and out I tried to envision watching the two emotions going from entangled in fighting with each other to slowing down to separating one from the other.
As the day would go on I would feel the two emotions start to fight with each other again I would just stop what I was doing and take a deep breath and in a sense tell them to go back to their sides of the room.
My next opportunity to practice, I decided that I would try to take a look at each one of the emotions separately. As if to step into the middle of the room turn my back to one of them and look at the other from a distance.
I had a few questions that really needed to be answered in regards to each one. I figured as I sat there and studied each emotion I would be able to come to the conclusion what was causing it and especially, who was it being directed towards. My mindfulness practice was starting to mix in some wise mind practicing along with some pros/cons practicing.
In the end, I was able to get most of my questions resolved. It didn't make the emotions go away, it just gave me a very different way of looking at them and dealing with them. It also brought up a completely separate question.
In the use of these techniques that we are learning in class, is it really just "use one at a time" or is it normal to use several at a time to meet the goal you're trying to achieve? I feel like with working through what I was doing it was like having a whiteboard, a piece of paper and a pen, and talking to myself all in conjunction with one another. Each was a separate tool but being used together to meet a certain goal. And, it worked. I find myself with the question of "can it work that way?" I am going to go with "yes" and hopefully that gets answered as class goes along.
Oh, and just for your information, the pencil was yellow, kind of the shade of goldenrod copy paper. It was octagon. It was a freshly sharpened pointed pencil. It smelled like wood, kind of like the sawdust smell that was always in my grandpa's workshop. It had a partial eraser like somebody had bit it off. And, since it was a pencil, what else was I supposed to do with it other than to stick it in my mouth and put my teeth marks in it!