I want to have a result. And I want this result to be valued as good and positive, to be a success. When it doesn’t happen, when the outcome of my efforts and work is not what I wanted I get disappointed. I feel disappointed, unhappy and useless. It is not a comfortable and pleasant feeling so I do anything to run away from it. I will go shopping. I will eat a half of a cream cake. I will drink too much wine or train too much. I will blame everybody and everything around me. I can even climb Kilimanjaro to get away from that disturbing feeling of being a failure.
But whatever I do this nagging voice will not disappear. So I have to treat it in a different way. I have to face it. I chose to sit with it in a quiet and safe space of meditation. I allow it to come out. I allow myself to feel it. I concentrate on feeling it not on judging it. And instead of running away from it I allow it to move through me, through my body. In the space of meditation I don’t need to suppress or deny it, I can be honest about what I really feel and accept it unconditionally. I can relax and watch what is happening.
This posture of not taking any action, of having no intention, only witnessing is very relaxing and cleansing. And so refreshed after meditation I can go back to my daily pursuits, tasks and plans. Only that this time I don’t focus so much on the result, but I pay a lot of attention to the process, I experience it. I am in it. The result becomes a natural, organic part of the process and I allow it to be.
Eating only half a cream cake - impossible! Good to hear your experience, I similarly adopted anger/disappointment management techniques.
Yes Chris, it is how we do it with all feelings, just gently, gently and particularly to the beginners, but I understand that you are not a beginner at all. Greetings to you.