A Grateful Heart Pt. 2: Working with Painful Emotions

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." - Epictetus

  Gratefulness, forgiveness and love are positive and joyous emotions that help us to heal and to grow in mind, body and spirit.  The more that we can cultivate and experience these emotions the better off we are.  Most of us are just beginning to realize the emotions come first and the circumstances of our lives follow rather than the other way around.  Instead of being happy when we get what we want, we get what we want when we are happy.  Of course, when we are already aware of our intrinsic happiness “things” don’t matter so much.

Depression, like anxiety, is a negative feedback loop.  What we think and feel is based on the circumstances of our lives, and the circumstances are based on how we think and feel.  The way to change is to break the cycle.  Change the way you think to change your world.  Many of us don’t realize however that our thinking is deeply rooted in unconscious beliefs.  In fact they are rooted in a belief system that is as intricate as a forest ecosystem.  Scientists who are brave enough to investigate the field of parapsychology have developed a massive amount evidence to support the theory that we are all interconnected at the level of our collective unconscious mind. 

Changing our beliefs and our feelings is a conscious process, something that we must work at consistently over a period of time.  As the Yoga Sutras teach spiritual transformation requires both consistent practice and non-attachment.  The first step is accepting ourselves fully as we are in the moment.  This means accepting all of the feelings that we don’t want or have been told we shouldn’t have.  As Carl Rogers stated, "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."  This is the crux of psychotherapy and something that even many of us overlook in their zeal for transformation. 

We often increase our suffering due to our aversion to the thoughts and feelings we experience.  We try to deny the sadness, resentment, anxiety, envy or guilt that we feel.  When we suppress these feelings however they fester within us waiting to explode and overwhelm us at the right opportunity.  By refusing to accept, experience and examine them we make things worse.  Our personalities become warped and fragmented and our creative power is diminished. 

So the first step is to be aware and to experience.  On the other hand we must resist the tendency to justify, rationalize and defend beliefs and feelings that don’t serve us well.  Negative emotions affect our physical, mental and spiritual health and neither denying and suppressing nor rationalizing works to help us release them.  Mindful witnessing does.  As Pema Chödron writes, “To stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge—that is the path of true awakening.”  Let go of judgment and avoidance, rationalizing and defending.  Be aware of the underlying cognitions, the thoughts and beliefs upholding your emotional response.  Stay with them until you move into a deeper place within yourself where you realize that these thoughts and feelings are not you. 

“Spiritual realization,” writes Echhart Tolle, “is to see clearly that what I perceive, experience, think, or feel is ultimately not who I am.”  Our true nature is just basic awareness - however there is immense joy, freedom and empowerment in this recognition.  Once we are able to detach from our habitual thoughts and feelings we are free to choose new ones.  In the Yoga Sutras Patanjali recommends the practice of pratipaksha bhavana which is the yogic art of replacing negative thoughts and feelings with positive ones.  When we are able to do so we are exercising our own intrinsic freedom.  We are not the victims of circumstances, our past nor our passing moods and emotions.  We can choose our internal and external responses. 

The path to freedom begins with recognition of where we are stuck.  Negative emotions are like physical pain, they tell us that something is wrong.  Maybe something is wrong with our thoughts and attitudes, then again maybe something is wrong with the way we are being treated.  Awareness and objectivity allows us to discriminate between the two.  There is always a better approach to situations than guilt and resentment.  Again, once we recognize our inherent freedom we can choose our response.

Gratitude is a powerful healing attitude.  But for what and to what are we grateful?  If we are only grateful for the pleasant circumstances of our lives than we are open to resentment when things don’t go our way.  Our purpose here in this life is to awaken whether we realize it or not.  We are here to awaken from the dream of small-self-ego to the reality of Deep-Self.  Painful circumstances are helpful in our awakening, pleasant one often keep us dormant.  Great saints give thanks for their suffering because it helps them to purify themselves and enter more deeply into the freedom of their essential nature. 

This body is not you

This world is not your sanctuary

Look beyond the bright lights and the lull of the senses

Look deeper than your inherited beliefs

It’s all in your mind

But then again “you” are in your mind

A Grateful Heart

Thankfulness brings you to the place where the Beloved lives. – Rumi

The importance of gratitude is being recognized these days for its impact on both psychological and physical health.  The fact of the matter is that psyche and soma are not so separate.  Our thoughts (beliefs) influence our emotions which are intimately connected to our bodies.  There is a growing body of research confirming that what we think and feel directly influences our physical wellbeing.  Thoughts which lead to positive emotions promote a healthy immune response, generate healing capacities and make us feel good.  As Candace Pert, Ph.D. writes in Molecules of Emotion, “Hugs not drugs.” 

There is another side to the story however.  This idea of gratitude can be misused.  Should we be grateful to an employer who methodically underpays us?  How does one feel grateful to God when a child dies unexpectedly?  How about when someone we loved and trusted betrays us?  Unfortunately the list of examples could go on and on.  As Buddha reminded us, suffering is inherent in existence.  Certainly many of us use means like drugs, sex, gambling, etc. to distract ourselves from suffering, these means of coping, however, simply delay and increase the eventual suffering we have to face. 

When I was around nine years old my parents were devolving into serious “domestic violence.”  I work with this population now and realize how easily parents seem to believe that their kids are somehow unaware of what is going on.  Children are tuned into everything, both through their senses and through their intuition.  I had witnessed some severe fighting in the weeks before Christmas.  In fact, for our family Christmas get-together my mother had to use extra makeup to hide her bruises.  Relatives arrived and pretended not to notice.  At some point in the evening I became upset and retreated to my bedroom to sulk.  Sometimes as a child we never really know why we are upset.  I don’t remember my reasoning.  I just remember that my aunt came in and told what an ungrateful kid I was.  After that I declared a secret war on gratitude. 

Today I am grateful for my ungratefulness; for my soul-recognition that my family hid behind a veneer of bullshit.  We can’t use this idea of gratitude to deny our reality.  We can make an effort to identify and appreciate what is good in our lives.  However, we can’t gloss over the things that are not.  As we look around our world today, there is much to appreciate and much to address.  Gratitude doesn’t mean taking shit from anyone.  It doesn’t mean pretending inequality doesn’t exist.  Be grateful that the evolutionary intelligence gave you the ability to discriminate just from unjust, real from unreal, right from wrong. 

Gratefulness, forgiveness, love, etc. are wonderful and powerful emotions that serve us on mind-body-spirit levels.  If you are depressed it helps to refocus on what is positive in your experience.  If you are anxious, it helps to focus on where you feel secure.  As a joke I heard puts it though, “Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”  Be grateful for what is real.  Don’t let it become some illusion.

Becoming as Little Children

Taming the mind is fraught with paradoxes. You have to give it all up to have it all. Turn off your mind. There is a place in you beyond thought that already knows— trust in that. Jesus tells us that unless we become like little children, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. That child mind, sometimes called beginner’s mind in Zen, is the innocence of pure being, of unconditional love.

Dass, Ram; Das, Rameshwar (2013-08-01). Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart (p. 6). Sounds True. Kindle Edition.

Childhood is a mixed bag.  Yes there is a basic innocence, openness and trust but there is also impulsive, ego-centric desire.  When Christ suggested that we become like little children I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean become self-centered little bastards.  Few of us can remember that we came into this world from a place of purity and innocence and that our true nature is unconditional love.  Our soul-essence becomes compromised by this world early on in life, in fact, almost immediately.

From the Yogic perspective we understand that we have entered this life – entered into these limited body-mind vehicles – because we were impelled by previous karma.  We come already loaded with the software of ego and attachment.  However, that ego-attachment is not who we are.  The deeper essence of our being, known as Atman, in Yogic terms, is never really contaminated by our conditioning.  We know it as the inner witnessing awareness.  It is the presence of God within us.

As little children we were in contact with this deeper aspect of our beings.  Because we are creatures of desire the world has easily seduced us out of it.  We have identified with our egos and have fallen into the world-dream.  When we start to awaken karma has less significance for us.  Karma only pertains to the ego. 

“Becoming as a little child” is a metaphor and can’t be taken too literally.  Otherwise as we reach old age and need diapers we might think we’re closer to the kingdom of heaven.  As Ken Wilber pointed out we have to distinguish between pre-rational and trans-rational modes of being.  Spiritual awakening requires self-discipline and the ability for mature reasoning.  It also requires that we transcend these at the appropriate stage.