States of Mind

Whilst we all experience a range of moods and emotional states, some people experience, almost randomly, a heightened state of arousal. If you happen to be with the person when this happens, it's discombobulating. You can't be sure exactly what they are saying or why they are saying it, because it isn't particularly related to what happened just before their state reared itself. Most importantly, the sense of anger or even rage seems so out of kilter for the moment. My husband is inclined to do this; to be relatively at ease and then to suddenly speak fast and intensely about a subject. 

Last evening we were cuddled up on the couch, perfectly content, when at the end of the episode of a Netflix series we had been watching, he began to talk fast and emotionally with many, many f-words sprinkled into his language. The character's predicament was the trigger, I believe.

Of course, I know him (though don't necessarily always understand him) well enough to keep quiet whilst this is going on. He's not looking for conversation, unless it happened to be the words, "Yes, you are right."

I'm no Mother Theresa and I make mistakes and when he made a comment that seemed, to me, perfectly ridiculous and simply not true, I made a statement saying so. I didn't say he was wrong. I just stated what I felt I know to be true. This wasn't a good idea and escalated his sense of fury. I just left the room.

I've read enough about relationships to know that the ideal outcome is repair. Earlier in our lives, this happened a lot such that I said one day, "It's nice that you apologize, but I wish that we could avoid these situations altogether." Er, unfortunately that's not the way it went.

I believe that my husband sort of 'talks to himself' and by that I mean tries to do better in this regard. But, each brain is its own unique entity and it continues to be hard for him to stay on a even sort of kilter.

The next time we talked, this morning, he wants it to be as if nothing troubling happened. It's a new day. Not able to snuff things off quite that easily, I keep to myself.

For me, as much as I know it is part of his makeup to lose the plot with emotional hyperbole, I hate it. I try valiantly to not think about it, but I just do. On the nights when I can get through the night asleep after such a rant, I count as a great blessing. The norm is for me to wake up after a few hours or sleep.

I remember PP (the psychologist I saw a few years ago for a few sessions) say to me, "Look, people argue over spilt sugar", as if it was somehow my fault that I don't want these emotional tirades in my late evening repertoire. Hmm, maybe an insight into his own marriage.

I mention all this as a way into explaining my remedy...

There are different ways to meditate for different people and in different circumstances. When my interoception is high; that is to say when I am aware of my distressed emotional state and struggle to take my mind elsewhere, such as my external environment, the last thing I need is to focus on my third eye. Breathing exercises can be good, longer exhales than inhales, because that is calming at almost any time, but there is no way focusing more on what's going on inside me is a good idea.

If I am just awake in the middle of the night because something is vaguely on my mind, but not intensely so, Steven Snyder's 'Absolute Peace Meditation' does the trick. He takes you to a vast blackness, so black and so deep there are no edges. He then talks about the qualities there and the first one is peace. Everything that peaces touches become peaceful. And, so it goes. Blissful.

However, if I am stewing (I have a strong sense of justice and won't take the blame for things I didn't do) that's when I go to a Sound Meditation where it is a whole lots of disjoint sounds that mess with my  mind and simply will not allow me to think, at all.

When Deity and I got to know one another he did a bit of a research project on me and discovered - we both discovered - that I love to have an empty mind. He used to send binaural beats amongst other scripts.

Same goes for the people at the Ayurveda Retreat who quickly established that bliss for me was having someone pour a substance from above my head onto my third eye and then stroke it away. In fact, two women sat on either side of me doing this wiping away whilst I lay there like a person on a surgical bed with my veins full of anesthesia.

I mentioned it to the chiropractor last week and he said, 'That's a method for torture!' Well, not for me.

Earlier last evening I did a slow flow yoga class. The teacher is very gentle, has a gorgeous, soft voice and the class is as slow as a class can be. I said to her afterwards, "You are amazing. That hour always seems to me like 10 minutes."

I think one has to be aware of how one takes in information. I am a kinesthetic thinker. This was established when a meditation teacher asked us to listen to a script and raise our hands if we saw ourselves, heard ourselves or were there as ourselves. I was in the third category.

Hence, to move slowly in a meditative way is ideal for me. To breathe and move slowly in this way is to experience bliss, as opposed to moving fast, which also closes down the mind but in a more taxed way. (An example of this would be a challenging hike where the brain closes off but so too does common sense. I completely forget to drink water.)

I am very naturally drawn to experiences of deep peace (and a sense of connection), but it's more than that. I had to focus on them for my own well being under the circumstances in which I found myself.

Worthy

It's interesting to maintain a dialog with oneself, and I think very beneficial to a person. You find yourself noting changes in mood, patterns of thought, feelings and triggers.

I think the most obvious trigger for me is anger. If I become angry I am curious about that. Since it's an experience I loathe, I want to know what instigated that feeling in my body. The answer is that I was triggered - that the thing that was said or done or seen or experienced somehow stepped on a trigger point - a wound - that still sits there deep inside and out of sight.

To put a name to this trigger point, it would be 'unworthiness'. It could be a feeling that I am unworthy of love, or unworthy of attention, or affection, or care.

It's simply not the case that any old person could touch this trigger point. I am not expecting care, or affection from someone I meet casually in the street. Although, I offer that when someone in the street is caring that's a particularly lovely experience.

So, the experience of a difficult emotion such as anger comes hand in hand with expectation, I think. There's an expectation that a few chosen people in your life will take the time and make the effort to provide a sense of attention, affection, care and love.

It's this expectation, or perhaps hope, that one will be cared for by another person that can make some romantic liaisons so sticky. If things started out so beautifully, and then drift into only random moments of care, or words of affection, the memories of the beautiful experiences can lodge into the brain and body and not allow someone to see that the landscape has changed for the good. 

Even then, the body does throw up signals that all is not as it should be - that these are painful experiences that are remarkably like those already experienced in one's youth. Unworthy of love. Unworthy of care. Unworthy of affection. Unworthy of attention.

I used to think that I should fight against these triggers - be the better person, you know? I used to think that if I tried hard enough those triggers would evaporate.

But, I found a thought coming up lately...that maybe those triggers, the anger, was there for a reason, alerting me to the fact that whatever had brought up that trigger need not be tolerated; that the emotion need not be vanquished. Maybe there were just some experiences that should be sidestepped.

So, as an experiment, I tried this side stepping of a situation that led to trigger points for me; a lot of unworthiness; a lot of wishing it was different; a lot of longing involved for something that was out of range. In summary, I took a reality check of what I could control and what I could not control, and I decided to control that which I could - to avoid the triggers.

The result has been, so far anyway, a greater sense of quiet in the body and in the mind, which I like very much.

And...an acknowledgement lodged deep in my mind...that, aside from these trigger points from childhood, there isn't really anything wrong with me at all. 

I am worthy. 

I'm just going to sit and let that thought soak in.