Being with Powerful Emotions in the City

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.

'Tis the Season: Mindful Touring NYC with a Friend

By Irene Javors, LMHC

For the last two weeks, a very dear friend has been staying with me. She recently lost her beloved partner of some forty years and she has come to visit. She is immersing herself in the city's cultural riches In all my spare moments, I have been going with her to various NY attractions. Usually, with work and family obligations, I have so little time to take in Gotham's great abundance of just about everything. During one of our meanderings, we found ourselves in the area of Fifth Avenue and 56th Street. I looked down the avenue and I was suddenly struck with how beautiful everything looked. With all the holiday lights and the store windows ablaze with the colors of the season, I felt myself awash with a childlike glee.

My friend tells me that, "NY is incredible!" She wants to absorb as much of it as she can. At times, I want to tell her that the terrific energy that she experiences is really the collective auras of frantic, anxious people who are lost in their individual bubbles. But I refrain from saying anything and I try to enter into the mind of someone who does not have the sometimes jaded eyes of a native New Yorker.

Her observations of the city are quite refreshing. She sees the diversity as "amazing". The subways are a challenge but," wow, you don't need to take your car." What is 'old hat' to me is brand new to my friend. My frustrations with Gotham melt away each time she makes one of these comments. I become more mindful of the uniqueness of this city.

I am also quite aware that Gotham is helping my friend cope with her terrible loss. The city is a setting wherein she is working through her grief. New York has lived through so much loss itself, that it has the compassionate openness to absorb the enormity of my friend's loss. This place, awash with so much life. offers the hope of renewal.

For my dear friend, New York is a light in the darkness of her loss. That is really something to celebrate!