Sunday
Jan112009
Being with Powerful Emotions in the City
Sunday, January 11, 2009 at 09:37PM
By Rob Handelman, Ph.D.
This blog entry took me a while to write, as my mother died a month or so ago. This is not about grief (for a nice paper on mindfulness and grief, click HERE), but how to be with such pain while having to function in our real, urban world.
When my mother died, I was in the relative comfort of Massachusetts with family, where it felt safe to feel everything that was coming up for me. Then it was back to reality, the stimulation of our city, taking care of the business of life, my psychotherapy practice, family. The feelings, of course, did not magically go away, and while they have changed, they hit when they want.
Hmm, so what to do when I’m standing on a subway platform and a wave hits me and I tear up? Do I try to control the expression (assuming I can) of these feelings? As a man in this culture, there is a strong unspoken prohibition against the expression of these feelings in public (and private too) from which I am not immune. At times, it is the noise of the city, the visual stimulation, the smells, that make for the stress of urban life. When it comes to feelings like these, it is the awareness of other people that impacts me the most, bringing up feelings of self-consciousness. I would prefer to grieve in a quiet, private place, with people that I choose, but that’s not always possible.
So, while we have little control over these powerful feelings when they do present themselves to us, we do have control over our awareness of them. While we may feel the need at times to contain our behavior, we can still practice our awareness of these feelings in the present, especially where and how we feel them, in particular in our bodies. We can notice how we relate to our feelings, whether we judge them, or push them away, argue with them, or allow them. Often the best we can do is to let them move through us, without resistance or judgment, and to explore how we experience to them. With that, I let go of the struggle and allow a few tears to roll down my face, waiting to get home for the good sob.
This blog entry took me a while to write, as my mother died a month or so ago. This is not about grief (for a nice paper on mindfulness and grief, click HERE), but how to be with such pain while having to function in our real, urban world.
When my mother died, I was in the relative comfort of Massachusetts with family, where it felt safe to feel everything that was coming up for me. Then it was back to reality, the stimulation of our city, taking care of the business of life, my psychotherapy practice, family. The feelings, of course, did not magically go away, and while they have changed, they hit when they want.
Hmm, so what to do when I’m standing on a subway platform and a wave hits me and I tear up? Do I try to control the expression (assuming I can) of these feelings? As a man in this culture, there is a strong unspoken prohibition against the expression of these feelings in public (and private too) from which I am not immune. At times, it is the noise of the city, the visual stimulation, the smells, that make for the stress of urban life. When it comes to feelings like these, it is the awareness of other people that impacts me the most, bringing up feelings of self-consciousness. I would prefer to grieve in a quiet, private place, with people that I choose, but that’s not always possible.
So, while we have little control over these powerful feelings when they do present themselves to us, we do have control over our awareness of them. While we may feel the need at times to contain our behavior, we can still practice our awareness of these feelings in the present, especially where and how we feel them, in particular in our bodies. We can notice how we relate to our feelings, whether we judge them, or push them away, argue with them, or allow them. Often the best we can do is to let them move through us, without resistance or judgment, and to explore how we experience to them. With that, I let go of the struggle and allow a few tears to roll down my face, waiting to get home for the good sob.
tagged emotions, grief in Acceptance, Subway
emotions, grief in Acceptance, Subway 
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