Crisis to Wellness
Meditations for a Philosophy of Living

Joseph Petulla
(e-mail: petullaj@usfca.edu)
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2. feelings

Nancy Mairs is a writer, wife, mother and has had multiple sclerosis for almost 20 years. She needs help walking, tying her shoes, caring for bodily needs and for hundreds of other things most of us never think about. She wrote a book entitled Carnal Acts which illustrates how her feelings, even her self-identity, is fixed into her body. She writes, "I call myself a cripple...because the word is the most accurate and precise I've found."
At the end of the book she describes a trip to visit her daughter, a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, despite self-doubts and a Luftansa agent reluctant to sell her a ticket. She struggled getting around, walking a little, using her wheelchair, and being carried by Zairians. But get around she did, to out-of-the-way outhouses, markets, and even to a harvest of locally grown fish. At the end of her essay, she tells of the bittersweet moment of exultation when, leaving the airport, she realized that would be her "last glimpse of Africa: the dilapidated airport, sunlight glancing from the fronds of feather palms, in the distance Kinshasa's few tall buildings against an opalescent sky, the whole view blurred by tears."
'What if I'd never come? I ask myself. How could I bear never to have seen this?' "


Happiness starts with how we look at ourselves. Feelings are our happiness gauge, how we handle insecure feelings, fear, anxiety, feelings of hurt, as well as good feelings of pleasure or satisfaction. These emotions most of all depend on how we accept and appreciate ourselves and our body/feelings. Self-rejection of any feeling is often the source of a deep personal crisis. It can lead to psychological insecurity and a hostility that often is projected onto others. Or it can cause a person to create a false personality in order to deal with people in everyday life.


It is not easy for us to look deeply into ourselves, to try to understand why we react the way we do. We're so used to protecting ourselves by defensive actions and remarks, or projecting feelings we deny onto other people that we sincerely see no need to examine ourselves. Sometimes it takes a great personal shock--a heart attack, cancer, a loss, an accident-to push us into examining our deeper feelings. If it takes a catastrophe to force us to look into ourselves, then that crisis is in part a lucky event.


Jesus said the kingdom of God is within ourselves. That is, God resides in every corner of our emotions, mind, and spirit. Human nature might not always show itself as good-it is aggressive, defensive, malicious and sometimes violent. Good and evil feelings within ourselves cause a tension that strives to be resolved. With calm acceptance of the stress, we have discovered the first clue we need to resolve the crises, i.e., looking within ourselves.


Jesus and many others have emphasized we have to love others as we love ourselves. We cannot love others unless we love ourselves first. We have to look into our own needs and satisfy them, not try to live a life of utter sacrifice as though we don't matter personally. Sometimes playing the role of a saint can cover up an insecure person who feels worthless and actually is self-centered and selfish. That is, we work for others more to solicit favorable comment rather than because we are challenged by a higher calling. Whatever we do should begin with a healthy sense of our own worth, interests, and good or bad points.


What should we do with unfriendly feelings-fear or fear of failure, anxiety, discouragement, depression, mood swings, feelings of hurt from insults, betrayal, anger? What can we do with them? Play them out? Go on an emotional binge? Root them out? Deny them? They hang on, despite our best efforts. However difficult, we have to experience them and let them pass-they always do, and not try to beat them down by act of the will. All feelings are the most explicit proof of our humanity, our physical and emotional conflicts, our limitations as well as our strengths and enjoyment. Most of us never adjust to the idea that bad feelings are a true part of our personalities and need to be accepted as such.


In the face of unfriendly feelings we need to conjure up some friendly feelings. This could be a positive thought about someone, cuddling a loved one, thinking of a happy moment, or remembering a religious feeling. Unfriendly feelings are not big events in the scheme of things. They might want to do a little damage, wake us up to something, and then flit away. Thus we need not be upset by them. A little love or friendship is just as much a part of us as sadness or anger, so we might be able to turn a bad feeling into a good one. One thing we know for sure is that feelings come and go, bad and good, even when in conflict with each other. We have to acknowledge their presence, but we don't have to be dragged into their emotional maelstrom.


Depressive feelings are like unstable molecules. They want to combine with something: an outburst, a recognition of their being, an action, or even be converted to a friendly feeling. It is sometimes possible to transfer a feeling of disappointment to a desire to do something positive. A feeling of stress can become a feeling of peace or tranquillity. Anger can be dissipated and transformed by strenuous physical activity like running, cycling or weightlifting. Most of all we should not blame ourselves for having "bad" feelings. We know the opposite happens-friendly feelings turning to unfriendly ones-so we might want to observe in ourselves how unfriendly can flip over into friendly feelings.


Thoreau noted mood swings in himself when he said, "No wonder that so many commit suicide, life is so barren and worthless; we only live on by an effort of the will. But our condition suddenly changes in a flash, and even the barking of a dog is a pleasure to us. So closely is our happiness bound up with our physical condition, one reacts on the other."


When we experience the death of a loved one or an unhappy incident that arouses tension or stress, we have to learn to accept the feelings as real. Then we can let go. We need to step away from the situation, not force the issue, and say to ourselves, "It's OK; I'm alright; no damage; we'll move on." Hopefully, our feelings will follow our thoughts. Happy or positive thoughts without inner feelings won't turn the tide, but it is our responsibility to try at least to conjure up the friendly thought. That is, we can act: call a friend, talk through the feelings, go for walks or a run, get a project we can throw ourselves into. Positive thinking in itself cannot change an uncomfortable situation but is a good start.


The practitioners of Ayurveda meditation say, "A silent mind is all you need." The mind quiets itself, letting all feelings come and go, and just watches what happens. The peaceful mind doesn't interpret what's going on, doesn't make harsh or friendly judgments about one's anger or greed or envy or love or compassion. It becomes only a silent witness of the life of the feelings and lets them come and go. In silent meditation we can simply observe feeling of tension in the body and the feelings themselves. By practicing this kind of meditation some people are freed of fear of their emotions, their conflicts, sometimes of bad health itself.


If we experience unfriendly feelings regularly, we may begin to fear them. Or worse, we develop a pattern of reacting, then hating ourselves for giving in to a "bad" habit. The habit, fed by fear, becomes more ingrained. The cycle continues to make matters worse. Aren't depressive feelings part of our nature; even more, aren't they completely within our character? We Westerners deny this reality and assume we can live without sad or hurtful feelings. Nobody exists with only 'heavenly' desires and emotions.


The challenges of growth bring on their own fears and anxiety. These include a new step in life, a new job, confronting demons in ourselves, like drinking or drugs. We are anxious and depressed because we lack the courage to make the step forward. If we do not, we fix ourselves in an immature state of growth. We need to face the causes of our fear in order to pass through the crisis.


Sometimes a public (or even private) outburst or irritability lead to feelings of sadness because we can't control our antisocial (impolite) feelings. We think we should be beyond this kind of behavior. Both sides of the syndrome are difficult. We can't seem to control our wayward impulses, which are usually completely uncalled for. Neither can we pull out of the guilt feelings of sadness afterward, which saps all the joy out of living. It helps to accept ourselves and other people. Since we know we act this way with no bad will (unless we indulge in justifying our outbursts), we can understand many other people who have the same problem. The more we accept the rocky part of our human nature, the less perfectionist we become, and the less we expect ourselves and others to be perfect in every way.


Many studies show that daily irritations are partial causes of heart and other problems. Hassles at work, fretting over injustices, real and imagined, conflicts at home and on the job and other worries like a death in the family are predictors of illness. We have to know there is a way out of minor and major irritations, that we can understand our own reactions and help ourselves out of them.


When we are in the middle of a funk, we tend to focus on troubles, problems, things or abilities we lack. We all possess many more abilities and gifts of life we never think about. Why is it so hard to remember how fortunate we really are? It's a good practice to try to figure out which of our abilities, friends and possessions are the best, then realize how much we would be deprived without these gifts of life. More than anything we have to remind ourselves to appreciate how much we have going for us. Physical and psychological wellness fills as much of our life as crisis.


It's possible that we will begin to feel the way we are acting. So if we feel sad or irritable, we can play the role of a comic. We can try to smile, i.e., smile at our own poor jokes, silliness, at the faces and frolicking of children, and tapping into our memories of favorite funny stories. When we are in the middle of a funk, this may be the hardest antidote of all. Feeling good often follows acting good, so our well-being might be restored with a wide, wide smile. The point is we can decide to adopt another posture or feeling. We can interrupt the negative flow of energy within ourselves and begin to replace it with a positive flow. Some people get the flow going at the start of the day by paying bridge tolls for the cars behind them, or buying donuts for coworkers. They look for ways to enhance their own spirit as well as other people's.


Hard (as opposed to soft) feelings are a part of life. We cannot escape them. We cannot insulate ourselves from them. We cannot run from them or close our eyes to them, any more than we can escape or run from the difficulties that accompany everything else in life. By facing them calmly and with courage, we nurture confidence and growth. We develop a resilience, both a soft and a hard side, Yin and Yang, according to the ancient Eastern thinkers.


Calming down in the middle of an emotional storm can be the most difficult process in life. We need not become upset when we are not successful in a small task. At any time in the cycle of an unfriendly feeling, we simply can choose not to be upset. We are easily caught up in an explosion of feelings that carry us away. Sooner or later, with or without our cooperation, the emotion passes and we can think and act more clearly. We should realize it takes a lifetime of practice to achieve a semblance of imperturbability under stress, "to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed," and to develop "the courage to change the things that can be changed."


Why do we expect to control all difficulties or evils or hard feelings? Whatever gave us the idea that this is possible even part of the time? Maybe it's built into western culture, or western religion. Maybe we hold to the Christian idea that the cross (accepting pain or difficulty) is supposed to be over quickly. Our true Christian situation is always to be with the joyous, triumphant, resurrected Christ. Eastern religions seem to hold a deeper truth: that evil is always with us, just as good is. The question of why God allows evil to afflict good people would never occur to a Buddhist. Taoists affirm we have to learn to balance the good and the evil in life. Maybe we should look for other views of the Christ experience on earth. Or understand that Christianity has been changed from the traditional understanding of the need to accept pain with our joy. The modern view blinks at evil and accepts only a vision of the comfortable life.


Maybe emotional volatility is strictly physical, located at the base of the brain, the R-complex, which evolved hundreds of millions of years ago and which we share with reptiles. Or with the limbic system, the seat of emotions which surrounds the R-complex, which we share with other mammals. When we perceive a threat, we often react as our ancestral reptiles would react: fight or flight without pause. The backwash of the reaction stays with us, and we try to justify what we did, or are ashamed of it. No need to panic. We only need to use the thinking part, the neocortex, (which we share with other advanced mammals) to calm ourselves down and try to repair the damage to ourselves or others. Life is sometimes messy.


If we nurture the angry or panicky 'fight or flight' response, it can stay with us in our memory indefinitely and we continue to suffer its torments. The feeling of anger or hurt then begins to control other sides of our life. It pushes out love, compassion, joy. It's far better to come to terms with our behavior, forgive a slight, change the emotional pattern into opposite feelings.


The Tao Te Ching speaks about the wise man who knows enough to let himself calm down when he is upset. Stirred-up, muddy waters will eventually settle and clear up after a while. When we are stirred up, maybe perturbed because of the way we are acting or feeling, we should think: calm, calm, calm. Wait for the waters to clear.


"That was hard to digest, hard to swallow." This is how we say our feelings have difficulty adjusting to an everyday hurt, insult, trauma, loss. Many things are hard to swallow but can be taken with a little buffering agent, i.e., a calm reckoning of the situation. Maybe things will change for the better. They usually do, don't they?


Whenever we become upset from any source-freeway congestion, unfair traffic ticket, insulting coworker, unaffectionate spouse-it is helpful to examine the source of the feeling and understand it. Sometimes we can help ourselves just by deciding to do or feel something else. Just because freeway traffic is unpleasant does not mean we have to be upset every time we go out in it.


The deeper we probe into our consciousness, the more we will learn about ourselves and why we react in certain ways. We should not be too proud to examine our values and beliefs, even our religious beliefs, as well as defensive reactions to other people. What do we think is important, what is our place in the world, why do we usually become angry in a certain situation, why do feelings of depression arise in certain situations? We need to get to the bottom of our feelings, with or without the help of other people. Moreover, we need to be utterly honest with ourselves.


The French expression, le petit bonheur, "the little happiness" or "little pleasures," expresses what all of us experience every day-little feelings of joy found in commonplace things. We should learn to recognize them quickly, freeze them, and put them into our memories, maybe onto our calendars for future enjoyment. Enjoy every act of generosity or love: a loved one's expression, an accomplishment, completing a task, fun at a wedding, a friend's gratitude, savoring a spring day. There are thousands of feelings of pleasure etched in our memories but rarely visited. One does not need to be a king, millionaire or president to be rich in the small pleasures of life.


We savor the little pleasure after something happens or when we notice something beautiful for the first time. The joy often comes because it is completely unexpected, an act of grace, coming out of nowhere: an empty parking place, a pat on the back, a great meal. These moments can more than make up for problems, defeats or setbacks we suffer. We simply need to catch the little piece of joy, in midair, as it were, or even reflect on the moment much later. We have to get in the habit of seeing pleasures and defeats as intertwined with the good of living.


For Nancy Mairs, the extraordinary difficulty of coping with life in Zaire was balanced by the split-second joy of seeing Africa for the last time and feeling the experience of being there. Stress and difficulty became near-ecstasy mixed with a realization that she almost missed a great event in her life.


One of the deepest joys of life is intimacy, the closeness we feel toward a loved one, the feeling of being loved. It brings the mutual trust and personal security that comes from a lifetime of sharing and openness. We need to share and acknowledge the joy of intimacy so we don't take it for granted.


There are so many things we have done in our lives that have brought us pleasure. There are experiences with family and friends, foods we ate as children, ethnic history, music we have played and loved. We have within ourselves billions of bits of memory that could cheer any day. We need to get out old pictures and look at them from time to time to revive these memories.


Nature is a wonderful source of pleasure when we notice it. How happy our dog is to see us when we come home, yelping, dancing, wagging its tail; or a cat purring on our lap. It is hard not to enjoy these moments of animal encounter. Or simply the majestic sight of a wilderness spread out before us on a drive or a hike; a full moon; a spectacular sunset. We need a moment to let the experience sink in, to concentrate on a wonderful field of pleasure.


As we grow up we find places of relaxation and enjoyment, a place we go to avoid the stresses of life. Or a place we once shared with a friend; a place we gained an insight; the place we met our beloved or grew in love together. When we think of or return to these places, the heart stirs in appreciation.


Music is a source of joy to us. When we hear a record of a favorite tune, or a sound that represented an age we relished, we can enjoy the period. When recollections of embarrassment or hurt return to us, we need to return these happy memories of sound for emotional revival. Ayurveda medicine teaches that certain kinds of music and smells resonate with patterns within ourselves to enhance well-being. We know that experiencing sound, taste, and touch can cheer us up. We should open ourselves to experiences in the real world which provide the possibility of real joy.


Experiences with old friends and family are a lifeline of support and joy. They are innumerable, a treasure trove of bonheur. Death and separation may remove them from us, but their love and our lives together can remain with us as a source of joy, even with the pain of separation.


We enjoy waiting for a friend, seeing him or her approach. Or as we watch children at play, when they are growing up, responding to our interest and attention. The amazing variety of people, their faces, cultural heritage and expressiveness can draw awe and pleasure from us.


Fun, dancing, subtle jokes, slapstick, games bring pleasure when we are engaged with other people, and smiles when we think or talk about them afterward. It's a good idea to remember happy times, when fun is turned into a moment of pleasure.


Falling in love is a wonderful feeling to remember. With people, cities, children, cats, dogs, cuddly critters, the mountains, redwood trees. It's always a sweet feeling, one of life's most precious. But these feelings come and go. We're sad when they go but they always leave a warm and wonderful memory. We're not just falling in love with love. There is a treasure of memory beneath the emotion, which can stay with us throughout our whole lives.