You may not know it from reading my venty ass crankyboots blogs, but I’m a happy person. I get up every day pleased to be alive and having an open mind about how my day will go. I’m not a positive aspiration “smile when I brush my teeth” kind of gal but generally, I’m pretty content. I’ve learned not to force myself to be happy. I get that whole”think yourself happy” theory. I have friends and family who do their damnedest to never dwell in negative thoughts. They are happy by sheer force of emotional will. That used to be me or at least I tried to be.
From my father, I inherited what he calls a “sunny disposition”. I am definitely a half full person, There’s always a silver lining if you look hard enough for it. I never really have dwelled too too much in negativity. This is my natural state. Yay for me, right? Well, sort of. I got my happy go lucky nature from my Dad but I also inherited from my parents a deep aversion to talking about or dealing with so-called negative emotions. There were things we didn’t talk about. If we did talk about them it was with obvious discomfort for the parent involved. Usually, there was a rush to end the conversation as quickly as possible. Did my parents not care? I think they did. But, neither of them were raised with an emotional vocabulary nor were either of them in touch with themselves emotionally.
Yeah so? This means you’re happy and didn’t deal with negative emotions. That’s good, isn’t it? Not so much. You cannot be happy all the time, no matter how hard you try. Now, add to this the fact that I wasn’t given emotional tools to deal with this. So, you deny your “bad” thoughts and push them away. Grin through that Colgate, baby! This can work depending on the emotion and severity. Sometimes it can’t. There are things you can push away just to have them come back again. Not only do they come back, but they come back bigger and stronger. Your negative emotions will keep trying to get your attention and ignoring them will only work for so long.
So I did what so many other Americans do. I drank. I drank a lot for a long time. Close to 20 years of near daily drinking. I could stop from time to time, but I always went back. There was never a physical addiction to alcohol, but man oh man was there a psychological one. It was my emotional crutch. It removed those pesky bad thoughts like toothpaste never could. It worked. It worked great…until it didn’t. I don’t have any rock bottom story. I didn’t wake up in a YWCA shower drunk wearing a chicken outfit or anything like that. (That would be a great story though!) One day, I just stopped drinking.
I was in a new relationship, so it was easy. I had another person to focus all my energy and attention on. I was happy. Again, no one is happy forever and eventually, I had negative emotions creeping in. Drinking wasn’t an option anymore. A very dear friend of mine introduced me to a therapist she’d worked with in couple’s counseling. I have been seeing her for years. With her help and guidance, I’ve been slowly packing my toolbox with the missing emotional tools I’ve needed and never had. The Buddhist teaching and training I’ve had have only helped me in that regard. So, what’s my damn point?
Negative emotions and experiences are a natural and normal part of life. The sun doesn’t shine all the time, neither will you. People spend so much time and energy denying and pushing away their negative thoughts and emotions. Denial is a hell of a drug. The problem with this path is your missing a very real and important part of life. You’re denying what is an essential part of your journey, of your humanness. Your dark thoughts are here to teach you something. They carry a lesson for you. In order to receive that lesson, you need to acknowledge the messenger and spend time with it. Feel it viscerally…see where it is in your body. Find where it’s resting and breathe into it. Having negative thoughts or bad feelings isn’t fatal. You’ll be okay. (If you feel you need help dealing with negative thoughts or they are overwhelming please get help from someone)
If you can sit with your negative thoughts start really looking at them. Dig into them. Look at them without a value judgment attached. Why do I feel this way? Where did it come from? Is this something I really believe? Go deep, one emotion sometimes is just sitting on the surface of a different deeper emotion. Be an archaeologist, your beliefs are what you’re digging through to make a discovery. You’re digging to discover the truth of who you are. Who you are is an amalgam of all your experiences. You have learned something from every single thing that’s ever happened to you. Every moment has a lesson. Joy and despair can occur at the very same time. Be unafraid to truly look at who you are. You are the totality of both light and darkness, and both are beautiful.
The assumption is that since I’m a woman I’m interested in babies. Babies and children are what we’re all about, right ladies? Not me. Here’s why. Little babies don’t do anything. They cry, sleep, eat, and poop. Sometimes for variety, they throw up. I once saw a tiny tiny baby projectile vomit like a foot and a half. I was ready to call the church. Oh, and that much vaunted delightful baby smell? Yeah, no. Sure on the surface, they smell all powder fresh and clean. But, no matter how fresh out of the bath there is always a faint undertone of spit up and poop. It’s a like a teenage boys feet…you never fully get the smell out no matter how much you scrub.
The Cranky Buddhist 