Week #9: Habitual Reaction to Emotions

We’ve been talking about emotions and our relationship to them – how we react to them – and how it is possible to see that the emotion is one thing and our reaction to the emotion is something else. Our habitual reaction to an uncomfortable emotion is to take some action within ourselves in relationship to it, e.g.: disregard it, shut it down, cover it up, protect ourselves from it, judge it, even tell ourselves convincing stories of not-enoughness or wrongness because we’re feeling it. All of that is our relationship to the emotion. The relationship is between the emotion and a sense-of-self that is identified with/defined by the beliefs, meanings, etc. that are associated with feeling this particular emotion.

We talked about an alternative response to this habitual reaction: Acknowledge the emotion when it expresses, and honor its existence by allowing it (with equanimity) to be felt as is, rather than slipping immediately, from habit, into attaching a meaning to the feeling, interpreting it, telling ourselves a story about it. Just allowing, with equanimity, in awareness, whatever feeling/emotion is there, allowing its felt expression in the body – just for 90 seconds. 90 seconds of experiencing the emotion in focused awareness.

And paying attention to what the emotion itself is telling you, rather than listening to the stories that habitual reactions tell you, as if they were truth. This is a fresh perspective, one that is no longer defined by, identified with, a filter of beliefs, meanings and stories. With this fresh perspective in awareness, the habitual reactions are seen for what they are: a closed circuit of thought about us, defining who we are (scared, anxious, frustrated, angry, lonely, stupid, etc.) in relation to this emotion. But because the habitual reaction is habitual, it may well appear again. producing the same uncomfortable result over and over, leaving us with the impression that we are, essentially, victims of our emotions. And so goes the ongoing struggle to control them.

So it may become a process that is practiced over time (and that’s okay!): we practice recognizing an emotion and allowing a response that is different from the habitual reaction – a response of focused awareness, without judgment… even with non-assuming curiosity toward the emotion, feeling its energy in the body, allowing its existence within us by giving it the space it needs to express, realizing that in allowing it this space, we are ‘bigger’ than it and are no longer a victim to it.

And in the felt sense of awareness we come to not feeling victim to a conditioned behavior when we find ourselves exhibiting it. That conditioned response, that automatic reaction that apparently occurs without thinking because previous thinking has already burned into our brain pathways, that assumed truth of our identity, all those beliefs that make it all work together as a false sense-of-self… all of that not true. We are not a victim to that. And there is no longer a need to engage a false sense-of-self in opposition, because it seen that there is really no opponent, that the opponent is itself, just conditioned thought – thought that no longer defines who and what we are.

Week #8: Bridging the (apparent) Gap

When we first start off exploring our true nature, we take ourselves to be a person who is identified with her/his thoughts, sensations and experiences, i.e., we take ourselves to be the felt, mind-created, seemingly separate sense-of-self. Then, we experience the felt-sense of Awareness – the stillness, silence and peaceful expansion of awareness – and we begin to accept the reality of awareness as our sense-of-self. But it appears that awareness “comes and goes,” and our seemingly separate sense-of-self comes back into the foreground of our life, and the sense-of-self-as-awareness recedes into the background, and there appears to be a gap.

The gap can produce conflict, e.g., when a person dumps on you with an inconsiderate or rude comment, you blow up at them and then say to yourself: “Why did I just blow up in anger at that person? I should have been able to deal with his inconsiderate comments with equanimity!” Can you see that, in this statement to yourself, you are sustaining an identity – a pre-defined sense-of-self? That sense-of-self takes the inconsiderate comment personally. This can only happen if thought produces a story of how ‘you’ are being hurt (insulted, demeaned, etc.) by these words, and that this person should not have made these comments to you (you didn’t deserve it, etc.). Then comes your reaction, which is based on another story of ‘you,’ and you may retaliate with anger or slink off into a corner and hide.

This whole scenario played out according to conditioned thought structures of perception, interpretation and reaction; there was a habitual identification with (belief in) these thought structures as ‘you.’ Examine these thought structures and the feelings they produce. They are there now only because of habit and, most likely, were created to protect a story-based sense-of-self of the past. Acknowledge that you are still identifying with that sense-of-self who feels she needs to protect herself, or still feels not-enough. Why acknowledge it? Because it’s obviously already there, and it’s still wreaking havoc in your life! Acknowledge that there are story-based thought structures that produce a sense-of-self that feels not-enough, or incomplete, or separate, or isolated, or mad at the world, or a victim, or a know-it-all, or who is ‘different’ – whatever the conditioned story is. Acknowledge with gratitude of clear-seeing that each story-based sense-of-self came into existence as thought’s (mind’s, ego’s) way of helping you to survive in the world! And acknowledge that, when seen from the perspective of awareness, of Presence, these apparently real and solid senses-of-self are, in fact, only thought structures, without any substance of their own apart from what you feed them when you identify with them as ‘you.’

Acknowledge them, and in the spaciousness of awareness (with equanimity), allow them to dissipate and dissolve. Or, you could take this thought-created self into you with compassion, absorbing it completely with your acceptance, thus neutralizing its energetic need for an apparently separate existence. Allow the felt-sense of awareness to be more and more your identified-with sense-of-self – a sense-of-self that is here and now, not pre-defined and conditioned by past stories. And the next time someone dumps on you with inconsiderate or demeaning comments and you feel the conditioned reaction rising up, shift your focus immediately into awareness and see the lie of the stories of ‘you’ of the past and feel the Truth of you, now. And watch the supposed ‘gap’ gradually dissolve!

"A person's true life is the way in which she puts off the lie imposed by others on her. This is a matter of being, and not of becoming. The lie can not become the truth; the personality cannot become your soul. And striving towards the truth is nothing but creating more confusion. The truth has not to be achieved. It cannot be achieved, it is already the case. Only the lie has to be dropped. Recognize the fact that, as you are, you are a lie. Manipulated, cultivated by others. Striving after truth is a distraction and a postponement. It is the lie’s way to hide. See the lie, look deep into the lie of your personality. Because to see the lie is to cease the lie. No longer to lie is to seek no more for any truth – there is no need. The moment the lie disappears, truth is there in all its beauty and radiance. In the seeing of the lie it disappears, and what is left is the truth."
–  Osho Zen Tarot

Week #7 Reminder!

Disruption comes in many forms. The tendency is to fall back on old patterns of survival to cope with unsettling events. DON'T JUMP SHIP JUST BECAUSE THE WATER HAS GOTTEN TURBULENT! You know how to get still. You know how to get quiet. You know how to focus on the sensation of just this breath. Instead of falling back on old, conditioned thought patterns, USE WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW - FOCUS IN AWARENESS. When you focus on just the sensation of this breath, there a felt sense of awareness. Stay with that. Focus into that. Allow all to be as it already is, and surrender any thought-motivated desire to change what is in any way. If you need to take action, let it come from awareness, not from outmoded, conditioned thought. You have the 'tool' of focusing in awareness. USE IT!