Paying attention to the flow of my emotional experience is quite a challenge. I attempt to practice mindfulness in my daily life. Satipatthana , or direct path to realization looks to the body and the experience within the body. Thoughts and feelings arise and with their coming into being there are feeling tones throughout the body. I do not know how many of these feeling tones are generated per minute, but I am sure that there are millions. This week it seemed as if I was experiencing the same feelings all week long, as if they were permanent and unchanging. These feelings and emotions were of sadness, anxiety and despair. However, I am sure I experienced many subtle feelings as well, everything from sadness to happiness and everything in between. What manifested the most this week was sadness, grief, frustration and anger. These feelings arose with thoughts about and fears of the unknown and financial stresses. I often walk around with these mind states. The emotions always have story connected to it and that story forms an illusion of permanence. I walk around in ignorance, and this we know causes suffering.
I find it curious that when I remembered to slow down during this week, I was able to experience emotions within my body. These feeling tones can be felt and investigated as objects of concentration. Emotions can lead to trigger mind states and mind states and thoughts can trigger or evoke emotions. Slowing down helps to stay embodied. All week I had to remind myself to come back home. I used the different techniques of yoga, breathing and meditation to come back. I have sat on a cushion and have done work around this. My states are often negative. Or let me reword that I notice my negative states more than I do the pleasant or neutral states, perhaps it is because I have so much aversion to what I perceive as unpleasant sensations that they become glaring. I believe I identify with the negative. The more I practice mindfulness, the more I am aware of my feeling tones within the body. I have to laugh sometimes when the same ones keep popping up over and over again, most of the time I ride the emotion or the story all the way to the end and I wonder how I got there. My ego and identity are embedded in to the story of my experience and I am so apart of my story that I find it difficult to change. I know intellectually that nothing is permanent, yet I forget all the time. I hold on to anger associated with a time and place in my life as if it were permanent. My ego holds onto anger, because it is looking for something to prove it is real or tangible and it is not. It is empty of its own being. I identify with cancer and childlessness. Cancer and hysterectomy at age 14 has left me such sadness that my heart could just burst. I am able to hold this space more these days, but I still see it ooze out into my relationships. The more I practice the more I can see the repeating thoughts, which generate feeling and body sensations. I often notice, and this week was no different, that I have a need to put on a happy, positive face.In general, I have no problem expressing my emotions. I wear my heart on my sleeve most of the time. However, I have learned that most people really do not want you to be authentic if what you feel and express is not “positive.” They only say they do, so it has been my experience that if I express more “negative” emotions people do not want to be around me. Therefore, I express happy thoughts. I am often guarded as not to offend. I monitor my thoughts; otherwise, I keep it to myself. That control only goes so far and I finally have to speak up or have “out bursts.”
I learned from a very early age that there is a distinction of what can be disclosed depends on the audience, and the emotion. So on top of experiencing a certain emotion, if I have an audience, I am also in the process of accessing the situation trying to figure what is all right to talk about. I find it quite tiring. So negative or darker thoughts are bad and happy positive thoughts are good and keep the peace. I do not walk around sad all the time. I have great moments of happiness and gratitude. The “good” thoughts are easy to disclose to others for me. It doesn’t matter who is around for that one. People like that.
I find that when I am around others who are really making an effort in mindfulness, I too become more mindful. If I am around people who are really scattered and not grounded, it takes more effort to stay grounded and centered. So for me I have noticed that sangha is very important. I need to be reminded that I walk around believing things are permanent, forming attachments and aversions. I find that this week when I was alone, I was more apt to be experiencing unpleasant emotions and feeling tones. Most of the time I could sit with these feelings with a holding and inquisitiveness, other times, I wanted to crumble up. The dialogue I have with myself often is unpleasant in nature. Like a mantra I will tell myself things that lead be to darker thoughts and emotions. This is why I sit and meditate every day, to learn to how to sit and move through these emotions without identifying myself as the emotions. They are passing clouds. I have to remember.
