Good morning beloved reader,
When I visited my 85-year-old mother in Sydney this last January she said to me, âI am responsible for my feelings.â
From my perspective, this is both refreshing and a revolutionary thing to say.
Because arenât we all conditioned to feel that we are responsible for someone elseâs feelings? (this is where INTENTION is so important â see below)
And if we reverse this binary perspective â donât we all want to blame someone else if we feel bad because of something that someone else has done or said?
So how can I stop my suffering if my feelings have been hurt? And if I believe itâs someone elseâs fault that my feelings are hurt.
Buddhismâs 4 Noble Truths dive into this topic. The Buddha said, I teach only four things: 1) the nature of suffering, 2) the origins of suffering, 3) the fact that suffering can be stopped (nirvana dukkha), and 4) the path to bring suffering to an end (the Eightfold Path).
And if you want more detail of the Eightfold Path: (1) correct view, an accurate understanding of the nature of things, specifically the Four Noble Truths, (2) correct intention, avoiding thoughts of attachment and harmful intent, (3) correct speech, refraining from verbal misdeeds such as lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, and senseless speech, (4) correct action, refraining from physical misdeeds such as killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct, (5) correct livelihood, avoiding trades that directly or indirectly harm others, such as selling slaves, weapons, animals for slaughter, intoxicants, or poisons, (6) correct effort, abandoning negative states of mind that have already arisen, preventing negative states that have yet to arise, and sustaining positive states that have already arisen, (7) correct mindfulness, awareness of body, feelings, thought, and phenomena (the constituents of the existing world), and (8) correct concentration, single-mindedness.
The Buddha used meditation to develop mindfulness, which is the practice of paying close attention to the body and its sensations. This practice helps people become aware of their emotional states and the patterns of human suffering. Meditation is a way to cultivate a state of liberation and see clearly. It also prepares the mind for developing wisdom.Â
When I studied world religions in interfaith seminary, Rev. Dr. Stephanie Rutt informed us that some kind of spiritual practice, which may include meditation, is the most important, perhaps even an indispensable part of any spiritual path.
But Iâve also heard my 85-year-old mother say that she lives her meditation in her day-to-day life (not just while meditating on the mat.) Sheâs read so many esoteric books and once told me she read that meditation is more of an Eastern concept, whereas in the West, some may resonate more with the idea of âincubation.â She says she wakes up in the morning and âincubates in Godâs love.â And of course, the word God means so many things to so many different people, but perhaps you can simply read it as a pointer in this context.
I simply adore this practice of âwaking up and incubating in Godâs love.â Itâs such a beautiful way to start a day.
And to come full circle back to âI am responsible for my feelings,â the more I practice simply observing each feeling as it arises, is present, and passes away â usually within 90 seconds per the neuro anatomist Jill Bolte Taylorâs book, My Stroke of Insight â the more Iâm able to find the calm in the storm and deal with any of my âhurt feelingsâ that may arise within my physical form.
This does not mean I donât still get triggered, but what Dr. Gabor MatĂ© says about triggers, also ties in to this idea that âI am responsible for my feelings.â
âŠremember that the trigger is a very small part of the mechanism. For the trigger to set something off, there has to be ammunition and an explosive charge. If I trigger you, whoâs carrying the explosive charge and ammunition?
The more you get to know yourself, the less likely you are to get triggered. I recommend using those incidents where you are triggered to learn about yourself and discover why this little trigger sets off this huge explosion.
Recently my older sister called me weird, which I later realized was a trigger. In reflection, I remembered an earlier incident when I was 20 (36 years ago!) when I had just moved back to Sydney after a year living and working in Tokyo. My sisters and I had been shopping at Target and were at the cash register together. The cashier gave me change including an Australian one dollar coin â which had only just come into circulation while I was in Japan. I paused and marveled at the dollar coin, turning it over in my hand. âWow, look at this,â I said to the cashier. My older sister immediately poked fun, âDonât mind her, sheâs an alien.â At the time I laughed. But perhaps because I idolized my big sister and so desperately wanted her approval, her acerbic wit often scarred me. Perhaps thatâs part of why it was healthy for me to move to New York City and become successful in my own right in the corporate setting of the publishing industry.
But now Life is giving me the opportunity where Iâm spending more time with my older sister, and old wounds are re-surfacing once again. Itâs wild how those childhood wounds can stick to you, and a present-day trigger can reveal a very old wound. If weâre open to it though, this kind of challenge then presents us with an opportunity to shine the light on that very old wound and heal any unhealed aspects we may not have even known existed.
After doing this kind of excavation, inner work and alchemical transformation, time and space can also help with healing. It was several months later that I recently read and enjoyed
âs fabulous post Fifteen guideposts for a flourishing writing life. I laughed with glee at #9:âKnow that people who donât live the writing life might think that you are weird. Thatâs OK. Weâre all weird really.â
I chuckled and emailed the post to my sister. She responded with giant laughing emojis. Maybe Iâd found a way that made it okay to be weird â okay for both of us. Perhaps Iâm still looking for her approval, or at least acceptance, or maybe just some common ground. (But as a side note, it also makes me think of Gabor MatĂ©âs brilliant book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture).
Thanks for reading and Iâd love to hear your stories about recognizing âI am responsible for my feelingsâ in the comments too. Every week I look forward to hearing what may have brightened the connections between us. Iâm so glad youâre here!
And I couldnât resist sharing this picture toođ„°
Great post, Camilla! Itâs taken me a long time to learn how not to feel this responsibility and as with most of these learnings, itâs a work in progress.
Iâve felt the diminishing over time of some triggers like an ice cube melting. đ« or an increase in the time between trigger and reaction.