A short transcript of a reflective dialogue between two speakers about managing difficult emotional states. They discuss noticing recurring patterns of reactivity, the role of self-criticism, and practical responses such as seeking acceptance from others, inward prayers for gentleness, and staying with honest awareness rather than adding further self-blame.
So many times in my life, I see what's coming. I see the pattern coming. I see the likely reaction might be in relationship to my kids or my wife. And I find myself unable to always be gentle with myself, that I'm hard on myself as I see myself get caught or inevitably do the same thing that I do repeatedly and repeatedly. How do you handle when you're in a space and you find you can't. It just feels like you can't get out of it?
Well, my first response was join the club. You know, big club of us that are in and out of challenged emotional states where we can't get out of it. And just having the awareness that you're upset with yourself for not being able to get out of it is the critical starting point. And clearly recognizing that we need help to be able to get out of it is the beginning of either asking a friend for a certain quality of acceptance or kindness that could relate to us. Like right now, I'm agitated or frustrated or empty, and could you be with me and send me some of the kindness, some of the warmth that I can't feel for myself, some of the acceptance. The other place, when we're not with somebody else is while we're there, being able to access a certain kind of prayer where you go inside and you recognize I'm being critical towards myself. And I want to be tender, I want to be gentle. And you spend some real moments or minutes where you go into silence and you ask, may I be as tender and gentle as possible? And just by changing the cognitive orientation, just by changing the mindset from being in a reactive state of criticism and turning it on its head, to be able to be in it, asking for the gentleness, asking for the warmth, the peace, is a way of coexisting because at one level we're in this despondency or this agitation or withdrawal, and at another level, we're not feeding it with our mind.
It's interesting you say coexisting, because one of the things that occurs to me, having tried to do different things, it's not always the case that I'm criticizing myself. Sometimes I do get to the point where, okay, I'm soft, I'm accepting myself, and I expect things to change. I expect to feel good, and I don't feel good. And it's not simply. And sometimes I wonder, okay, well, does that mean I'm missing something, or is it just I just don't feel good and that just is a state I'm in, and it's not even that I'm blaming myself. It's just a fact I don't feel good.
Again, that's such a beautiful naked awareness and snapshot of ordinary life where it might be for most of us half the time, where we can have somewhat of a kind thought towards ourselves, but it has no potency, and we just simply are left not feeling good. And the key thing is to not add additional harm to it and to be able to accept the fact, you know what? I'm in a state where I just don't feel good, and I don't want it to be a catalyst to a bunch of reactivity in the outer world. And so it does require us to be willing to stay naked in that awareness that we don't feel good and to share it with those close to us. And that's what usually doesn't happen, is that not feeling good is left in solitary confinement. And that solitary confinement is where it starts to fester and it starts to become a dangerous potential chain reaction where it can lead to getting angry or frustrated and ultimately to judgment. But if we have a little bit of a kind thought that doesn't have much potency and we don't feel good, that's actually a very healthy state to be in. But we're in a generation where we always want to feel good. And because of that, that becomes the.
