One of our deepest challenges is how to handle disturbances. If we choose to open to love and relate deeply, to become vulnerable, if we choose to put our creativity out, to become involved in life, we will get even more provoked and we will at times lose our center.
Disturbances come in many ways:
Michael is deeply disturbed by the restrictions that his government imposed to deal with the corona crisis. He feels controlled and subjugated and he is convinced that he doesn’t want to live in a country or even in a world where others have control over his life and his behavior.
Peter is deeply disturbed when his girlfriend is not available to relate with him and then he gets more provoked when she gets angry at him for his persistence about spending more time together. He is convinced that she should be more present, more loving, and that she should deal with her anger issues. Because of this, he continually questions the relationship.
Sarah is deeply disturbed because she believes that men are not available for the kind of committed relationship she is looking for. She feels that the men she meets are not conscious enough for her requirements and she is losing hope that she will ever find anyone who is a right fit for her. She says that she is happy in her life but is lonely and doesn’t want to live her life alone. She is disturbed not only because she can’t find the right man but also because she doesn’t understand or accept why she should have to feel so lonely.
Nathan gets disturbed when his partner, Ruth, leaves her clothes scattered around the house. He likes things “very Zen” in his own words and gets frustrated having to clean up after her. He can’t understand why she can’t be more “mindful” and also considerate of his needs for things to be tidy and ordered.
Disturbances may come from some outside situation, from an attack of our inner critic, or from projecting fearful thoughts into the future. There is no way we can avoid getting disturbed. But very often these small or big disturbances may cause us to become resigned, mistrustful, and negative about life and love. Or we get ourselves involved in endless conflict and drama. Unless we bring more consciousness to the disturbances, they will profoundly affect how we feel, think, and behave. And that will have damaging consequences in our life.
It is natural that we will get disturbed whenever we feel disrespected, not appreciated, not loved, or not safe with another, with society, or life in general. It causes us to feel separate, and to distance and alienate ourselves. We may get angry or perpetually irritated and then we may want to retaliate in some way because we are convinced that if we don’t “do” something we will end up a victim.
When we lose our center, our inner connection, it doesn’t feel good and it is scary, so it is totally natural that we want to do anything we can to get back to center.
But the problem is that we are convinced that in order to find peace again, other people, life, society, or the government needs to change.
When we expect people or life to treat us in a certain way, we are giving away our power. We are putting our state of being, our calm, our trust, and our sense of self into the hands of someone or something outside of ourselves, something that most often, we have no control over. That something or someone we’re hoping will change, most often doesn’t.
Or if it happens that he, she or the outer circumstances do change, we may feel temporarily relieved, but the outer change can never bring the deep lasting inner peace and connection that we long for. We would then be on guard to wait for the next thing that is not how we want it to be and be constantly focused outwardly…losing our strength in the process.
So how can we deal with disturbances in a more solid and effective way and return to peace and inner connection?
Here is a five-step process that we can use as a guide to support our journey inwards instead of getting lost in the outer circumstances:
The first step is realizing that our disturbance is coming either from something or someone outside of us, from our inner critic attacking us for not living up to its expectations, or from believing that something bad is going to happen in the future. We are being impacted by something that is causing us to feel either unloved or unsafe.
The second step is noticing that in our mind and thoughts, we are expecting that the outside stimulus should not be there, or we are believing that our inner critic is right. And we believe that for us to be happy, either the outside stimulus needs to change, or we need to change. This is not an easy step when we firmly believe that outside forces are what makes us happy or unhappy and if we believe that there is no way for us to be happy, safe and loved unless there is a change on the outside. This is the definition of co-dependency. That we believe that we need something on the outside to change so that we can be at peace.
When our disturbance is being caused by our inner critic or by projecting fear thoughts into the future, we believe that we will never be happy unless we live up to the dictates of our inner critic or that life and the world is chronically unsafe.
When we bring awareness to these beliefs, they begin to loosen their grips on us and we create some inner space where we can observe them as beliefs and not as the truth.
The third step is consciously taking the focus off the other person or outer trigger, or the inner thoughts and choosing to go in to actually be present to the sensations in the body and the thoughts in the mind that are affected by the provocation. If the disturbance is arising from our inner judge, we can become aware that our vulnerable self is under attack and choose to be fully present to how that feels inside and how we are believing the negative statements of our judge. If it is coming from anticipating being unsafe or unloved in the future, it is important to bring our awareness back to the here and now.
Being present means to pay close attention to the contractions in the body and specifically identifying the beliefs that support the anxiety, tension, and loss of center. This step takes courage and commitment because it isn’t easy for us to be present to discomfort. Most of us are deeply programmed to find some escape for feeling ill at ease. Often what arises first in this step is that we feel anger. But if we penetrate under the anger, usually we will find a sinking feeling of not being able to trust in ourselves, in life or in others. Underneath is usually a deep feeling of helplessness that needs to be deeply felt in a way we never could fully feel as a child, where we just needed to survive.
The fourth step happens naturally if we follow the previous steps. It will bring us directly to the wound that is being triggered. We begin to understand that we are disturbed because we either feel unloved or unsafe or both. And these feelings are rooted in our experiences and traumas from childhood.
For instance, Michael’s wound is that he feels a lack of solidity, authenticity, and mastery of being in the world and easily feels overwhelmed, insecure, and less than other people. Peter easily feels abandoned and unloved and this is highly aggravated when his girlfriend gets angry at him. Sarah actually has a lot of shame about her attractiveness as a woman and also judges her neediness. But rather than go deeply into these feelings with loving awareness, she feels herself as a victim of her failure to find the “right” man. Finally, when Nathan is confronted with Ruth’s chaos, it takes him back to the chaos of his childhood environment where his father was violent and abusive, and his mother was a helpless victim.
Finally, the fifth step after we have processed the first four is asking ourself if there is some skillful action or inaction that we need to take. That action or inaction is a conscious and considered response which will most likely bring us more dignity and respect. It isn’t an anger filled reaction that usually leads to more conflict and less self-respect and empowerment.
This process of learning to handle disturbances in a more conscious way is transformative. But to embrace this process, we will have to overcome our biological impulse to react by either waging war with someone or something or withdrawing into ourselves (fight or flight). We will also have to bring light to our belief that the only way to be safe or get love is to retaliate when we feel hurt, misunderstood, not considered, or neglected. It is so basic in our psyche that if we don’t stand up for ourselves and react when we feel disturbed, nothing will change. And people will continue to take advantage of us, ignore us, disrespect us, and neglect our needs.
It takes tremendous courage to take the inner journey.
But if we can hang in the helplessness and go deeply into it, something begins to shift inside as we come home to ourselves. A deep inner sense of peace, of feeling safe and loved begins to emerge. This is not dependent on anything on the outside and is our freedom.
What we are describing here is not easy. This process of learning to deal with disturbances in a more conscious way takes a lot of awareness. But in our experience, it’s worth it.
If we wish to embrace life and love fully, we will surely get triggered. And when we do, we have a choice. We can go out or go in. Whichever direction we choose will determine the inner state we live in. It is not that one direction is better than the other, but our experience of life and of ourselves will be very different depending on which direction we choose.