dear friends,
In this increasingly chaotic world — with no apparent end in sight — it’s more important than ever to have reliable strategies for handling strong and often difficult emotional storms. All of us naturally have our individual patterns: times of day when we’re more likely to feel anxious; triggers that predictably send us into an angry spiral; and random moments that leave us feeling grouchy, sad or apathetic. And these personal proclivities are nestled within the emotional microclimate of the communities in which we live. Right now, many of us our finding that the foundation of trust, compassion and reasonableness we once relied is not there in the way we thought. That lack feeds back into our daily emotional lives, leaving us feeling even more uncertain and unmoored.
So, what to do? While it’s tempting to pull the covers over your head and spend the day in bed, that’s not a particularly skillful longterm strategy. Instead: Reconnect with your innate ability to transmute energy.
Really.
Every living creature has the natural skillset to process energy, including adult humans. It’s just that many of us have forgotten how to do so. If you have a dog, you’ve seen this transmuting skill up close and personal: On your daily walk in the park, you and Bingo happen upon a rival dog. After a few unpleasant moments of growling, you manage to pull Bingo away from his nemesis. What’s the first thing he does now? Shake it off. Literally. He may zoom around a field or wrangle with a stick. Then, having burnt off that energy, he’s back to his grounded state of calm and contentedness and trots along for the rest of your walk.
That is a master class in transmuting energy.
We humans, though, tend to complicate everything. Emotional storms included. So, we need a few more options in our repertoire than the average dog does. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of shaking it off, but it doesn’t work for everything. Admittedly, coming up with your own bespoke practices will take some effort, but it’s so worth it. When you become more skillful in turning bad energy into good — or, at the very least, neutral — your life naturally flows with a more ease, and you’ll develop the quiet confidence that comes from knowing that you’re able to handle all things that come your way.
Here are my energy-transmuting reminders :
(1) Check the obvious stuff. If you find that you’re caught up in bad emotional storms with some regularity, check to make sure that you have tended to all the basics: good sleep, nutritious food and regular exercise. We all know our bodies need to be cared for, but many of us don’t get around to it. Get curious about what you need in terms of sleeping, eating, and working out. Then do those things most of the time, and don’t beat yourself up when you don’t manage to do it all. Just come back to your skillful take-care-of-yourself routines. Again and again.
(2) Match your practice to your need. What works for anger may not work for sadness. What suits grumpiness won’t necessarily suit irritability. Get curious and get granular. How does emotional energy show up in your body? How does it show up in your head? What prolongs the storm? What eases it? This step is critical and the answers will be different for all of us. Spend some time and effort here.
When I started this practice, I focused on one of my toughest energies: anger. It tends to show up in my body as tight heat in the chest and jaw. I feel the urge for everything to speed up; I’ll start talking like an auctioneer. My thinking narrows to simple dichotomies; “I’m completely right! You’re completely wrong!” So, the challenge for me is to work off the anger in my body and to slow down and expand my thinking. My practice is simple, but not always easy: do some kind of exercise that will make me sweat, then spend a few quiet moments breathing. This practice works 100% of the time. Being human, I only manage to do it about 62.3% of the time.
If you’re like me, you’ll be surprised by how quickly you’re able to come up with reliable practices. Once you’ve figured what works for you, you just need to do them regularly enough that they come to you in moments when you’re anything but calm, cool and collected. It’ll take some time and effort, but there’s power in being able to respond to tough energy as your wise and grounded self.
(3) If all else fails, ask yourself how you can be gentle with what is here. Most of the time, we can reconnect with our bodies’ natural ability to process energy. You’ll discover that for you the best way to deal with the sadness of a friend’s terminal illness or a family member’s suicide is to go for a walk in the woods. You may find out that your secret weapon against early-morning anxiety is a cross-word puzzle. Or a run. Or a cup of tea.
But, occasionally, we find ourselves in a situation where we either don’t know exactly what to do or we don’t have the time to do the thing we usually do. When you find yourself here, simply ask these two questions: How can I be gentle with myself right now? How can I be gentle with the energy that is here right now? You may not get a clear answer, but you’ll gain some space and perspective. And that will naturally remind you that you are not this emotional storm. Even if you don’t find a way to entirely transmute the energy, loosening its grip goes a long way to helping you see more clearly.
And that’s it for this week!
warmly,
alison
