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“The same thing is true with our spirit. There may be a zone of pain in our body. There are also zones of pain in our spirit, in our consciousness. Our consciousness has the power of healing itself also. But we don’t allow it to heal. Every day, we bring into it a lot of toxins, a lot of worries, and a lot of anxiety. We force it to do so much. We don’t know how to allow our consciousness, and our spirit to rest. Because we seem to have lost our confidence, our trust in our spirit. Our spirit, our soul, it has the power of healing itself, if only we know how to allow it to rest.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
Sometimes I feel unmotivated, uninspired, unsettled, and a host of other uncomfortable feelings. At times it can feel like I am free falling into fear, worry, and anxiety. Then, there are moments when I am ambivalent about what to do. Even though there have been times in the past that I was unmotivated to do something like work out, make a dreaded contentious call, or address other dreaded professional details. I am experienced in accessing my left brain to take myself by the nape of the neck and accomplish what has to be done. I can teach classes on this and even do. I am a pro at doing what needs to be done when I don’t want to do it. Successful entrepreneurs and addicts in recovery must master this skill set.
All that said, I have lived long enough to have faced paralyzing and incapacitating feelings that stop you in your tracks. Feelings like depression, deprivation, emptiness, and gnarly anxiety eat away at your guts with an irrepressible grip. There have been times in my life when I needed to reach out for professional help when these feelings were so dominating that I could not function. It took a lot of courage to reach out, to say “uncle” and accept that help. I must say it was transformative.
When feelings of uncertainty, unfulfillment, or overwhelming insecurity permeate my being, automatically I want to do something to distract, avoid, or fix anything to escape these unwanted feelings.
As an addict, this is when I am vulnerable to acting out. People who are not addicts are not that much different. We all use a cocktail of behaviors to avoid unwanted feelings. We get controlling, complaining, irritable, demanding, eat, exercise, get busy, binge on Netflix TV series, and any or all of the above to escape discomfort.
Age and experience has taught me different. The lessons have not been easy to grasp nor easy to maintain. It’s not like I got this, now what’s next! The way to address emotional discomfort during times of transition is humbling, quieting, and difficult. It wasn’t fixed by joining another mastermind group with successful gurus telling me their success stories. They have a place but no fix for this dynamic. I didn’t find a way through these feelings that trigger cravings as an addict by simply doing 90 in 90 or sitting with my sponsor doing more step work. These have their place and meaning, too.
The only way I have found my way through the free fall into a myriad of unwanted feelings is to simply sit with it all, naked and unassisted. This reality was not and is not popular with me or others (like my therapy clients) who need to do the same.
I say give me a ketamine, Molly, psychedelic, or plant-based experience any day but don’t tell me to just sit. What the hell, I want to mood alter, don’t you see!
Me too! It’s just that even though these experiences can serve a great purpose, at some point I have to come back to myself and embrace the power in this present moment that comes to me by just sitting with the discomfort I want to avoid in the here and now. It requires that I practice doing nothing and just sit with myself. Some people call it coming home to myself. Others reference as being in the now. There are other descriptions.
I have even thought that though uncomfortable and painful, it is one thing to experience this free fall when you are surrounded by a swirl of activity and a swarm of people moving around you attempting to achieve your professional or family objectives. But someday the swirl will be gone, the family will have grown up and you will be faced with free falling into what seems like an abyss of unwanted feelings.
The fear then will be feeling invisible, that who you are and what you have done won’t matter to anybody anymore. Everyone must face the inevitability of being unseen. You may have not been seen as a child. Eventually, everyone must face this fear not once but throughout life.
What I learn to practice during these moments is to stop my body. There must be a season to stop doing things. It is important that in order to get my mind to stop racing to the next event, etc., I must stop my body. “Season” can mean taking a sabbatical from work responsibility, or it can mean scheduling a time within my endeavors to sit and just be, literally doing nothing. This is no easy task for an addict with racing thoughts! Nor is it less intimidating for an anxious entrepreneur!
When I do this for myself when inundated with feelings of overwhelm, I always discover that what I am inwardly seeking and desiring is right here in this moment of time. Some say, great, let’s do it and then I can get on with my ambition. But, it won’t work that way!
Thich Nhat Hanh told the story of the Buddha who was sitting with a group of monks when a farmer approached him in distress. He asked if the Buddha had seen his four cows who ran away from him and he could not find them. Also, a blight of disease had destroyed his crop and he thought he might kill himself. The Buddha listened to the farmer’s lament for an hour or so and then suggested that the farmer search in the opposite direction since there was no sign of his cows in this direction. When the farmer left, the Buddha said to the surrounding monks, “You are lucky that you have no cows to lose!” In order to sit with yourself, you will need to recognize the cows that you need to let go of. What is it that you feel bound to? Have the courage to let go of it. When you let go, you do not have to go and look for joy and happiness, it comes to you.
You can understand this intellectually but it can only be experienced through daily practice. You might say “But you do not experience my predicament in life” and I would say “Nor do you experience mine!” We will need to engage daily sitting with our feelings. Only by sitting with our feelings will we recognize the “cows” that we need to let go of. It’s the only way to find joy and happiness in the midst of discomfort.
