Tempering Our Temper

Tempering Our Temper

I’m lying in my cozy bed. I’ve just woken up, and am starting to feel alert. The sky is grey for the umptee-seventh day in a row, the birds are singing, and the kitties, are snuggled. I can attend to the grey sky and feel blue and heavy. I can attend to the birdsong and affectionate felines and feel loved and light.

How we start our day can make a huge difference in how our day goes. Are you in the habit of waking up sunny or cloudy? Are you looking for cheery things to make you smile, or crummy things to justify your crabbiness?

When I was learning how to do this, it took a lot of choosing. It took a lot of noticing just how negative my thoughts were. All I can say is, thank goodness for Creative Questions! (And Arne!) Every time I noticed a negative thought, I would swap it for a good Creative Question. Why am I happy? What makes me feel cheery? How am I positive?

If I really want to make an emotional shift quickly, I hunker down and ask, How do I feel when I feel sunny? I notice my posture. Am I sitting or standing upright, and uplifted? Am I frowning or smiling? Am I breathing well, or is it short and shallow?

Noticing how we feel sounds really obvious, but, surprisingly, we’re not always there. We are distracted by tons of stuff; work, family, hunger, errands, news, and so on. Our feelings help us know where we are, but we need to have some awareness.

Feelings are complicated, lavishly full of thoughts, often unconscious, and a spectrum of emotions. When I have stuff going on, I like to boil it down to one of the seven universal emotions; happy, sad, angry, scared, surprised, disgusted, contempt. I find it way easier to address feeling angry and scared than I do free-floating anxiety, easier to see what I’m angry about, easier to see what I am scared of.

Then I can remember that anger is the belief that something I care about will be taken away, like security or comfort, and fear is that I won’t get something I need, being loved by someone, for example. Feeling my emotions is the way to let them move through. And feeling them is very different from expressing them.

What’s that you say? Experiencing my feelings is different from expressing them?

Oh, yeah. When I respond to feeling angry by yelling, or pounding, or throwing, I’m not feeling the emotion, I’m not having the experience of anger, the feeling is having me. It’s often behavior we learn as little ones when we feel almost powerless, and are trying to manipulate our environment. Sometimes, we grow out of it, but sometimes we don’t.

When I experience my emotions, I’m pretty internal. I notice that when I feel angry, my neck and cheeks may get hot. I get a lifted, tight feeling in my chest, my fists want to clench, as may my jaw. My blood flows a bit faster as my heartbeat gets faster, I flush. My respiration increases. Noticing, experiencing, and often, just that will let the emotion move on through.

Experiencing my emotions is a choice. It means that I am taking responsibility for me. I’m not blaming you for my stuff. I take responsibility for my behavior, and I’m not reacting with ancient habits. Oh, boy, is that liberating.

How have I changed from acting like a toddler to experiencing my life?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 06112013