Floating Wisdom
If I look at the many conflicts I’ve had in my life, now that I have some distance from them, it is easy to see how I was overwhelmed by what I was experiencing inwardly and this led me to do or say things that were hurtful to others, or experienced as disrespectful. I think this is a common human experience that I’m sure sounds familiar to some of you. It is often explained in a way that says that a person is overcome by his/her emotional state which causes the person to overreact. It’s a way of saying that we lose control of our emotions. And it certainly feels this way. But if we look at it more precisely, is that it is not so much an emotional state that is at the heart of the conflict, rather it is the story and perception that has taken shape inwardly that is the driving force behind the emotions.
In other words, I become possessed by certain thoughts, judgements, and/or perceived threats to my well being or to something or someone I hold dearly. Inside of me, my inward way of making sense or putting together meaning in that particular moment is generating a narrative that frightens me and causes me to attack or retreat. As I look out through my eyes, I see the other person or context in a way that appears threatening to me, or unjust, or simply wrong. This inner storyline, formed by my moment-to-moment racing thoughts, comes over me like a spell, compelling me into defensive behaviors. It creates a laser-like focus on the bad, the suspicious, whatever I dislike about the situation at hand, and it does this to the exclusion of all else. In simple terms, this is what we call losing perspective, and it is precisely this. The intensity of this thought storm manifests instantly in my body in the form of turbulent feelings. These feelings then propel more of the same thinking, such that the drama gains more and more momentum.
We know that wisdom holds an abundant perspective. When we seek guidance from a trusted friend or advisor, the help always arrives in the form of awakening in us a greater perspective. We begin to see something about ourselves, the other person, or the situation, that we didn’t see before, that we didn’t feel before. In the moment this insight hits us, even if it is a small one, our feeling-state shifts and softens. This new insight/feeling punctures the bubble of previous narrow self-enclosed view, enabling us to take into account a greater consideration of variables, variables that are often far more significant than the narrow scope of thoughts that were assailing us.
Another and even more simplified way of seeing this is that I am either consumed by my thinking-in-action, or I have a degree of inner spaciousness that allows me to see this thinking as thought (as story-making, narrative generation) in a way that allows me to choose whether or not I continue to engage in it, or give it greater energy. With this spaciousness, I can essentially vote on my own thoughts and stories, whether I want them to hold office or not. I can pause and ask myself, if I put those thoughts in office, what are they going to do? To what outcome will they lead?
If we’ve experienced enough conflict in our lives, we should be able to identify the pattern: whenever we are possessed by our thinking, this thinking generates a storm of emotions such that our thinking and emotional state feel like one and the same thing. The more we invest in this thinking, in the picture of reality that it has painted for us, the more our emotional state intensifies. The more intense the emotional state, the more compelled we feel to act out. If we can identify this, we can likely then identify that almost every time this happens, it leads to greater conflict or an emotional retreat that leaves us walled-off from parts of ourselves or our experiences. As we act out of this state, the world tends to reciprocate in a similar fashion. As we channel negativity outwardly, this negativity comes back to us in equal or greater measure. And yet, we continue to do it.
What is our alternative?
Speaking from my own experience, it can seem futile to try and reason with myself when I am in such a state. This is because my “reason” is based in the same mind that is generating the thought-story. You know the famed Albert Einstein quote, “You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it”, this is exactly the situation. And so, if I can’t use my mind to change my mind, then what possibly can I do? What or whom do I trust?
Here I want to relay an anecdote…
If you have ever learned how to swim, the first thing you learn is how to float. This comes as a startling realization, because the first thing that happens when we jump into deep water is that we sink! A good swim teacher, however, will know how to support us and help us to relax. While in the water, moving into a position of reclining outstretched on our back, we take a deep breath, expanding our lungs, and hold it. With our lungs full of oxygen and our body relaxed, we begin to feel our body rise in the water, just enough to hover at the surface, our mouth able to open to the air to take another breath. What a realization, to discover that, with almost no effort, apart from taking large breaths, we float!
The subtle trick to this floating is in doing as little as possible, and to allow ourselves to relax while non-doing.
This is the opposite of what most of us do when we find ourselves overcome by conflict. The more intensely troubled by our inner thoughts and feelings, the more we try to think to overcome it. This would be akin to flailing our arms about in order to stay afloat in the water. It’s at first very hard to resist this impulse, because our entire bodily sensation is telling us that we are, indeed, sinking! So, again, the question is, what helps us? How do we find the trust to stop flailing when we feel ourselves sinking?
The answer is, having a deeper understanding.
When we genuinely arrive to the felt understanding that as soon as we relax, breathe deeply, and hold that breath, we will rise to the surface - it is this very understanding that enables us to let go and relax. I say “felt” understanding, because it’s not an intellectual belief or theory. Rather, it is something we come to know, feel, and experience in our body, through our lived experience.
Transposing this example to our moments of conflict and emotional distress, we can learn to trust that there is a deeper wisdom that lives within us that will enable us to rise to the surface, if we allow it. If we get out of our own way. If we stop flailing about. If we stop believing in the fear-thinking that is telling us we are drowning (or that someone else is trying to drown us). I italicize ‘believing’ because it may be that we cannot stop the onslaught of our thoughts when we are caught up in fear. However, with a little more awareness, we can stop believing in them. We can stop voting them into power. We can divest.
Growing in this awareness entails coming to discern that there is a life-intelligence that circulates on a level deeper than the personal thinking of our ego, and deeper than the intellect or rational mind. I would say it is this life-intelligence that conducts the living symphony of the entire planet in all its biodiversity, including the life-sustaining systems of our own organism. What we generally call wisdom is the spontaneous emergence of insight that arises from this inner life-intelligence in response to a given situation. And the more we begin to point our awareness towards observing this life-intelligence at work, the more it begins to reveal to us.
If, when we find ourselves in conflict again, we can manage to get just enough inner distance to let the thought-storm pass and allow for an opening wherein a deeper feeling and perspective can emerge, if we can succeed in doing this, then that experience becomes a lived experience of new alternative. It becomes a new point of reference. The more we then experience this alternative, the more we grow into a living understanding (not theory or belief) of how a deeper wellspring of life-intelligence and feeling is available to us.
I have been a slow learner in this. But no matter how many times I might fail, I have yet to find the evidence to refute this phenomenon. I still catch myself flailing at times, caught in a fear or panic, but eventually this wisdom returns. Breathe. Let go. Return to trust. This intelligence of life lives in us. It circulates quiet and invisible among us, binding us to each other and to the whole of our wild planet. Remember. We can float back into wisdom…
