Darkness can rush in at the most inopportune times. Crushing our momentum, for a new job, a new relationship, a new me. I am growing and expanding my horizons all the time. Within that process, I have setbacks, upsets, and redos. I am often able to navigate the sad feelings of my own, by engaging with my creative life, or visting with one of my tribes of people.
We need our tribes.
We also need our safe place. If you’re not in a safe place, no amount of safe love will fix you. The fix comes from within you. Your pain is your own. Own it. Process it.
What you need to understand about emotions: they are not real. The are chemical and biological triggers that signal warning, hope, and joy. Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are the typical responses to a negative emotion. What are the responses to positive triggers? Calling someone. Inviting a friend to take a walk or go to a live music venue? How do we learn to care for ourselves without becoming isolated and depressed as we roll through all the emotional baggage of a job loss or breakup. Different emotions, same process.
My mindfulness approach feelings is simple.
- Identify and label the emotion
- Observe that your mind is feeling something
- Decide if you want to give attention to the feeling
- If you don’t, make a decision to take action
Drop the obsessive internal hyper-vigilance and get on with what you need to get done today. We can get lost in feelings. Days and weeks can pass, as if we’re in a fog. We can give in to the emotional rollercoaster of our minds, or …
We can begin to tame these runaway feelings and keep them from derailing our plans.
A feeling is just that. No one *made* you have that feeling. Your friend might have said something upsetting (even if they didn’t know or understand what was upsetting to you) and now you’ve got to decide how to deal with it. If it’s not something your friend is intentially doing to bring up an issue for resolution, it’s likely the trigger was accidental. Also, the triggering person is not responsible for the triggered person’s feelings either.
Braving, by Brené Brown, gives a strong framework for containing and regrouping after a disagreement, or even after a bit of emotional upset, caused by a friend or simply a feeling we’re having within ourselves.
If the response to someone’s interaction is overblown and dramatic, it might be worthwhile to consider if they are triggered and reliving some PTSD-type experience. They heard your words, but it unleashed a torrent of emotions related to previous partnerships, or family of origin trauma. What the supportive partner cannot do is be sucked into the fight. The emotional upset is not yours to fix.
The triggered partner, once they begin to get a handle on how their upsets are upsetting everyone around them, they begin to make changes in their behavior.
When you are triggered, ask for a time-out. Give a specific return time, if you can, and take the time-out for yourself. You need to give your partner a break. They cannot decode your pain. The pain you are feeling is not theirs. You must develop a way to deal with your own pain. Reduce your own reactivity to others. And grow into a more contained and self-healing person.
Why is this novel more like a self-help book? Fuck.
back to the glitching index
