Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Intense emotions can be so enlivening, can’t they? I had a visit from an old nemesis today. It was maddening. And it brought along a familiar friend, rage!
I’m going to talk around that specific infraction, as it is mostly irrelevant. And I don’t want to feed the fire. As well justified as it may be. But I process it a little to mark the moment and maybe get through events like this a little more swiftly in the future.
How do we not get stuck in intense emotions?
I love four-step models, and today I saw this happen in real-time.
- Aware it has arisen. When an intense emotion shows up, it is a miracle you notice. Being able to acknowledge I’m really pissed right now is a gift. Even without knowing the storyline or if it justifies the anger. See it for what it is.
- What’s it like? Get in touch with the feeling of it in your body. Where are you holding it? Stay with it and seek to understand it. Hold it for a while and appreciate it for what it is.
- Choose to unhook from it. Do you want to leave the emotion where it arose or bring it into the future with you? Asking myself how committed to this do I want to be? It is usually enough to choose if I want my life to be more about this or less. Make a choice, carry it with me or leave it where it arose?
- Walk away free. Giving it some space, a different way to go will come about by stepping back. It will always be there if you will look for it. It is the path to freedom, and leading to less unnecessary hurt to yourself or others.
I quite enjoy hanging out in a hissy fit sometimes. It can be so energizing, especially when you can recruit others to join you in what you are against. But because it is fun and enlivening, you can be stuck there for longer.
By seeing intense emotions as something to be expressed or acted upon, we don’t use them for what they are. But in the Bible, Paul sees hardships as an essential part of the Gospel:
We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
2 Corinthians 4:7-12
Hardships that come along serve a purpose larger than we realize. Working with these emotions leads to wisdom. Not just thinking about things in a new way, but being in the world in a new way.
In the situation today, after I got past the madness, I could think clearer and engage the other person more effectively and with kindness.
__+__