Classroom Talk
Winter 2002 Archive
Ding, ding! This is your stop, Deirdre. ;-) Posted by John on March 23, 2002 at 00:19:35:
In Reply to: Re: About several of you . . . and the Sweet Sixteen. ;-) posted by Deirdre on March 22, 2002 at 13:52:55:
>Well.. to be pushed to the back of the bus is a bit alarming when it is a basketball game that is eating up the time .. just kidding.. no apologies necessary.
You are "just kidding," you say. But, it is too late to vote on it, Deirdre. The brick has already hit your foot, and—before you get around to forgiving
me there!—your body has reacted with one of the eight basic negative emotional feelings around the wheel, and you *have* made that remark. It's
obvious and apparent. It "stands up in high relief." There is a moment of emotion around "men and their games on television," or some such thing as
that, and there is that tiny knee-jerk impetus in your body to make a kidding remark about it. It is subtle. Yet this tiny bit of "sarcasm" actually
happened.
Your tasks, in learning the method of processing as it applies to that, are to: see if you can catch-on which of the negative emotions runs with that
specific kind of a behavior. And if you can catch on to that, go into your body with your awareness turned on, tune-in on the spot where you know
the tensions and sensations of that particular negative emotion usually show up. And then, keep awake and process, process, process (focused
awareness, and letting go of it)—escorting those tensions on through with your awareness.
Or, else, if you have woken up and realized there is a little score on your scoreboard over this, go right to the body ("first move") and scope around in
there and recognize wherever outstanding *feelable* pockets of tensions and uptightness have obviously become built up inside there. And knowing
you are feeling that uptightness in there, understand right away which one of the basic feelings is going on. And process, process, process.
Now I don't doubt that you very quickly achieved a fair state of peace and composure about this very minor matter, by the time you let me off the
hook, saying "no apologies necessary," Deirdre. I know that is "sincere." What I'm calling attention to is that, as the hours of the day are going by,
there is a lot of activity going on, unnoticed, that is kicking up negative emotions in our bodies, and, in many small ways like this, nudging our
conditioned acting-out personality into play . . . without our being aware of it. After all, you *did* go ahead and make that remark. It "jumped out of
you." (cf. "The Devil made me do it." Hee-hee.)
That's "the ordinary human condition."
These otherwise (if we wake up) feelable negative emotions—fear, loneliness, anger, envy, shame, anxiety, sadness, and guilt—are going on in our
human bodies, hour after hour every day, without our being aware of it. We are asleep, and on automatic pilot.
And I think that some of you are putting two-and-two together by now, and seeing that these unexperienced, unknown-about negative emotional
feelings are automatically *guiding the course* of each of our lives at times, in the ways we are unconsciously relating with other people around us.
The question on the table, from my point of view, is: what are we going to do about this? And here, there is a *broad variety* of different
approaches among different ones of "the Many Paths."
Let me go way, way back now, Deirdre—actually, it was March 9th; it seems longer ago than that—to when you quoted me first, and then expressed
an obviously heart-felt question of your own.
>John wrote: "It is suppressed anger that breeds more anger. Anger that isn't acknowledged awarely and dealt with awarely breeds more negative emotions"
>Well, if this IS true, then that is the answer to my question about WHAT to do with anger...!!!! So in your experience John anger acknowledged (not necessarily expressed?) is the key to allowing "anger" to "disolve"??
I think I understand where your great sensitivity on this issue is coming from, Deirdre. Let me see if I can find words to express what I think you
mean.
Somewhere, deep in you, you feel that it would seem to be better not to express anger out loud if that isn't absolutely necessary, so as not to add any
more uptightness to the space by doing that. I think you feel (maybe intuit) that to express "I am angry" out loud, would be a superfluous act of
violence in the world, an act that would, from a truly spiritual perspective, better be left undone. In other words, maybe it goes against the grain with
you to do "an act of violence" like saying "I am angry."
(Key question.) Is that the gist of your sensitivity about this?
There is no one answer for this. Different approaches do it different ways. You could say that the very reason that there *are* "the Many Paths," is
that different ones of us have different, very deeply felt, sensitivities about things like this. And there is some path for each of us. With all of the
different sensitivities and intuitions that different ones of us have, there is *some* approach, some path that is "home" for us. And in each of the
different paths, there is *some* method that adequately deals with the negative emotional feelings that humans have . . . . . or else that path wouldn't
have worked, wouldn't have survived.
I know this is not just another intellectual question about metaphysics for you, Deirdre. It is a deeply sensed, and deeply felt dilemma. "What is the
right approach for working with emotional feelings for *me*, with my unique make-up and sensibilities?" And that is why I am not telling you: "Just
get with the program, Lady, and learn the awareness game the way that I'm coaching it here." Hee-hee. I am telling you to let your own innermost
intuitions guide you in deciding about this. And I can just tell you then about my own experiences around this question—exactly what you have asked
me for—my own experience.
I know that on one end of the spectrum you have Vipassana Buddhism, a comprehensive meditative method that focuses much attention on all the
sensations that can be perceived in the body. In Vipassana, not only do you not have to say "I am angry" out loud, you don't even have to know that
what you are feeling is "anger." You don't need any name for it at all. But in methodically getting in touch with all the sensations in your body, you
routinely cover the sensations in the mouth, jaw, biceps, and fists that are there, the same sensations that are called "anger" in the awareness game.
And in simply noting your experiences of this, that "acknowledgement," that simple, methodical awareness of raw sensations is enough to process
those sensations on through. From regular daily practice of this during hours of sitting meditation, the result is that one's body usually remains relaxed
and at peace, and one can maintain mental composure.
So there's one answer for you, Deirdre. Mere acknowledgement like this, without saying anything out loud, and without even having a name for it is
enough to do the job, in this approach.
On the other far end of the spectrum, there is Subud. This is an Indonesian form of spiritual practice, related to Sufism, that became popular early in
the 20th Century. It's been said that a lot of Gurdjieff's followers turned to Subud after Gurdjieff's death.
I've never been able to observe and experience this because the practices are kept secret from those who aren't devotees. But I met a Subud teacher
on the faculty of the University of Hawaii many years ago who told me something about it. Practitioners meet in a large hall together, and each one of
them physically acts out the emotional traumas that are in their life at the time—like a kind of "psychodrama." They don't do this acting out on each
other, but in each other's presence in the hall, they each individually "do the dance" of their emotional trauma, and in each other's hearing, they
vocalize their emotional trauma out loud individually. Mindfulness is practiced in the doing of this. And, it is like a dynamic purging of their emotional
stuff that they do. I imagine it was quite remarkable—even awesome—to witness a roomful of people doing an exercise like this.
In Primal therapy, there is a kind of dramatizing of a patient's key issues that resembles this that is practiced, along with vocalizing out loud. The
person's awareness is summoned by the facilitator's techniques. And at certain points of deep insight and understanding, the "primal scream" comes
forth, quite spontaneously. Here again, there is a kind of purging of the tensions and trauma of the emotional issue that is accomplished by the
method.
Primal therapy borrows certain techniques from gestalt therapy, which also dramatizes emotional traumas and employs vocalizations of emotions.
Gestalt is milder, and less dynamically dramatic than Primal work. But the purging of one's emotional stuff by the methods is similar. And the use of
focused awareness of the experiences of it while doing this is similar.
There is "a statue" of each of the primary negative emotional feelings that can be described. That is, the body can assume the statue of these emotional
feelings. With "anger," for instance, the person is standing, feet awarely on the ground, knees slightly bent, with the fists doubled, the biceps
tightened, and a growling grimace on the face. A gutteral growl emerges from the throat, and the clenched fists strike out at the space . . . . . the
statue of anger.
With mindful awareness of the inward sensations of it, assuming this statue of anger and growling could have a part to play in the practices of Subud,
Primal Therapy, or Gestalt Therapy. One experiences the normal dance that the body does in being filled with anger this way. And in processing this,
consciously, the tensions of anger are purged. The vocalization, "I am angry," is commonly a part of this. Primal work and gestalt added in the
physical pounding of a pillow with one's fists (or with a tennis racket, or a "bataca") to "complete the normal physical dance that the body naturally
does with anger, so to speak. The idea of this is to get a complete mindful experience of the whole bodily dynamics of anger.
It is only in the actual *doing* of this that one can know from the experience of it if this kind of an exercise is succeeding in purging the body of angry
tensions. Bear in mind that even the simple acknowledgement of these tensions with awareness works. These other "embellishments" of the process
are designed to accelerate, to deepen, and to amplify the purging that takes place. In my own experience, from doing this exercise, first in gestalt
workshops, and then countless times on my own over the course of my life, it is my experience that these embellishments (putting the body through
the dance of it, and vocalizing it out loud) *do* augment and hasten the purging of the tensions that are there, very considerably so. It's obvious to
me, when I do it, that this type of exercise works very well in letting off the tensions of anger.
So there is your other answer, Deirdre. Mere acknowledgment, mere awareness of the tensions works. And the more dramatic doing the dance of it
and vocalizing it also works. Some people, apparently, seem to be cut out for being more comfortable with one of these approaches than the other. I
would say to go with one's own instincts on this. But for me, having tried the more dynamic approaches, I would say that these methods appear to
work much better for me. That's my experience. In both cases, it is the purging from the body of the tensions of the negative emotions that is the
object of the work. The object is for the body to become relaxed, and the mind to become composed.
And, by the way, in utilizing the more dramatic methods, it is not so unusual for one to start out being very uptight with anger, do the exercise, and
wind up at some point suddenly cracking up with laughter, and laughing and laughing.
There was one dramatic exercise that I once mentioned to the class quite some time ago, and I was afraid to spell it out for you students at the time,
because I thought you would all think that I was "nuts" and you would quit the class. I call that exercise "the Devil in the bathroom mirror."
Sometimes, when I am very, very angry about something, I go into the bathroom and look into the mirror, and I growl, and I contort my face into a
more and more frightening grimace, in which, quite quickly, I look, quite remarkably, "like the very Devil, himself." Don't be surprised, if you try this
out, because the devilish look that you get on your face will be a lot uglier and more terribly devilish than you might expect. It might even frighten
you the first time you try it out. In doing this exercise—of course, being very centered and mindful at the time—I am doing the dance of being very,
very, very angry. Almost invariably, within less than a minute, I burst into laughter, and I laugh and laugh and laugh. This, for me, is the *quickest*
way to get over being very angry about something. And my body is relaxed immediately afterwards, and my mind is composed. The situation is still
exactly the same as it was before, except the difference is that I'm not being angry about it any more.
I can explain this exercise to you now, because I think that all of you can handle hearing about it at this point . . . . even if you might not care to try this
one out on your own. The purpose of all of these approaches, from the mildest to the most dramatic is to use our awareness to *mobilize* blocks of
emotional tensions from the uptight muscles in our faces and other muscles in our bodies, and escort these tensions on through. The object is to free
our physical bodies up from the tensions that accumulate inside from our unconscious reactions to all the things that impact us during daily life.
There is no one way to go about this to the exclusion of all other ways. Each of us (who are interesting in adding the processing of negative feelings
to our repertoire of mindful abilities) must find the approach that is most suitable to our own sensibilities. What works quite well for one person may
not be suitable for another. A method that one person likes and even enjoys implementing, another person may simply not abide.
If it turns out that you prefer the milder methods—for instance, just sitting, meditatively, and being aware of the sensations of it, acknowledging that
and nothing more, the key may lie in your spending enough time at that for it to take effect. It might take a half-an-hour in the morning, and a half-
an-hour at night, daily, to keep up with the purging of all the tensions that are in there. From practicing these other methods, like doing the dance of
it and vocalizing it, and "getting good at doing that," the same purging may be accomplished in a matter of minutes, right on the spot. And sometimes,
when the negative emotions have you powerfully in their grip, even the more dramatic methods may take half-an-hour on some occasions. Of course,
the trick is to keep on being awake to it, and keep on processing it patiently, until the body has become relaxed and the mind has returned to
composure.
I have collected a number of notes on other points connected with this, Deirdre, points that some teachers make in explaining other views on the
appropriateness of "putting violence into the space by vocalizing anger," for instance. But I've lollygagged much of the day today, and it's gotten quite
late. So I'll continue with those points next week, as soon as I can.
Have a happy weekend, Everybody. Next week we need to think about another semester break. The bulletin board is getting quite long again. And
Brent called me up to remind me that Spring is the time. We've got four years in on this school by now. In fact, maybe we need to think about taking
a week or so of "spring break" off! What do you all think of that? But anyway, I'll try to use next week to wrap up the things we've got started here
already. And then we can talk about that.
Coach
If you have more questions, or feedback, on this much of it, Deirdre, this is a good time to post them.
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Archived 05/02/2002