New Thread: Accepting vs Repressing Emotions

[Uran]

Hello Jundo & Treeleaf,

I feel so honored and grateful to have found this sanga. It's like I've been waiting for this very space, for this learning and this sitting. Radical stillness speaks to me on so many levels.

And I have a question... With emotions, how do you know if you're accepting and witnessing or stuffing them down?

With gratitude 🙏🏼

Aimee B.
sat / lah

[Bion]

Hello Jundo & Treeleaf,

I feel so honored and grateful to have found this sanga. It's like I've been waiting for this very space, for this learning and this sitting. Radical stillness speaks to me on so many levels.

And I have a question... With emotions, how do you know if you're accepting and witnessing or stuffing them down?

With gratitude [emoji1374]

Aimee B.
sat / lah

I’d say, if I’m crying while sad, because I know I’m sad, I’m not stuffing it down. If I get angry or frustrated because I feel like crying, but I think crying means I’m sad, and feeling sad is un-buddhist so I try hard to not do so, that’s stuffing it down.

[emoji1374] Sat Today

[Artien]

Hello Jundo & Treeleaf,

I feel so honored and grateful to have found this sanga. It's like I've been waiting for this very space, for this learning and this sitting. Radical stillness speaks to me on so many levels.

And I have a question... With emotions, how do you know if you're accepting and witnessing or stuffing them down?

With gratitude ����

Aimee B.
sat / lah

I acknowledge them. When I feel sad, I don't feel bad about feeling sad. When I am angry or react badly, I try not pretend it didn't happen. I reflect about why I feel like I feel and why I reacted how I did and how it impacted myself and others. And about what the causes are and if it is something I'd want to change or just have to (learn to) accept.

Gassho,
Artien
SatLah

[Jundo]

Hi Aimee,

This is such a good and important question, that I hope you don't mind if I moved it to its own thread.

I would actually like to ask some of our mental health professionals around Treeleaf (we have more than a few ) if they have anything to add. I will speak only from my experience and common sense, but maybe some of the professionals can provide more specific insight. As was noted above by the others, we don't go numb or ignore, but feel sad or fearful when we feel sad or fearful. We do learn to flow with the situation, and not fall into extremes of the emotion (deep despair, exploding, extreme irrational fear), but neither do we try not to feel.

My rule of thumb is that, if you are "spiritually bypassing" or repressing emotions too long, it will start to leak out your ears, and show in other ways (like sudden snapping and such). However, if you are handling things in a healthy way, your life just feels balanced, and it feels healthy. You have to be aware and honest about how you feel.

I want to hear from other folks about their take on this. In a sense, it is not a "traditional" question in Japanese Zen or culture, which is very much based on "toughing out and swallowing down" tough times. Westerners are more concerned about this.

Gassho, Jundo

STLah

Sorry to run long

For me, if one is really honest in looking at one's feelings, one can tell the difference between the feeling of stuffing it down, ignoring, repressing and "keeping it bottled up," versus the feeling of acceptance, allowing and honestly feeling one's emotions.

[michaelw]

My rule of thumb is that, if you are "spiritually bypassing" or repressing emotions too long, it will start to leak out your ears, and show in other ways (like sudden snapping and such). However, if you are handling things in a healthy way, your life just feels balanced, and it feels healthy. You have to be aware and honest about how you feel.

Not much to add other than from the Old Hippies Handbook that 'inner conflicts unresolved become externalised.'
If you are just talking about 'stuff' then trust an oldie that 'most things work out in the course of a lifetime.'
If it is deeper 'stuff' then get help but 'klaxon alert' the best you can ever hope to achieve is to come to terms with it, you cannot change it, it is in the past.
Or as Paul Simon said 'people like me get better but we never get well'.

And one for me from the OHH - 'we teach best what we most need to learn.'

Gassho Aimeebeing and welcome.
I think of treeleaf as a safe space to be unsafe in, if that makes sense.
Relax and just sit.

Gassho
sat
M

[Uran]

Thank you all so much. Emotions are challenging for me so I have already read this thread through twice and will read it again. And I'll keep showing up and sitting while being present and inquisitive and grateful.

Aimee B.

sat

...

(Today I'm taking the day off from lending a hand so I can lend a hand to myself and recharge.)

[Tokan]

With emotions, how do you know if you're accepting and witnessing or stuffing them down?

I'm going to have to go a bit long here, being a mental health nurse, but I'll try to keep to the point.

I would say that, before 'knowing' if you're accepting and witnessing or stuffing down, you can make a commitment to identifying the emotions first - there are some great 'emotions charts' which help you to identify emotions. We might think to ourselves, "I feel depressed", but this is really a poor way to describe our mood state, and is dangerously associated with the pharmaceutical industry. Going a step further, depressed can refer to sadness, guilt, grief, emptiness (not the Buddhist type!), isolation, despair - the list goes on. When we more accurately identify the emotion it enables us to create a more specific and meaningful response to counter it. Of course, I should say here that some emotions should be experienced in full - grief at the loss of a relationship or person from your life - that's okay, it's not an illness. This is often where people think toughening up is a good response, showing strength. In reality it makes us more restricted in the range of emotions we allow ourselves to experience and feel, and therefore more prone to extreme difficulty managing such emotions in future. It is not that we need to be strong in a different way, such as in the saying, 'real men cry', but that we need to allow emotions to be part of the landscape and climate of our lives, and have the equipment to respond to changes, whether sudden or gradual. As the other sangha members have already identified, there are serious consequences to repressing or stuffing emotions down. An appreciation of the Four Noble Truths suggests that we might repress emotion in an effort to reduce suffering, but it is the knowing and experiencing of suffering that is the key (the eightfold path part). It is also important to apply the same logic and process to pleasurable or helpful emotions, and not concentrate on the one's we don't like so much. In this way you have more influence on what you can consciously do with an experienced or felt emotion.

Many mindfulness or MBSR programmes include practices that are broadly consistent with Tara Brach's RAIN approach. Acceptance and commitment therapy is also good because it works with your humanity, instead of viewing you as, in some way, 're-programmable'. Having a framework like this gives you a basis for understanding emotions, so that you don't feel like you are groping in the dark. Of course, zazen has a different approach. I do not always emerge from zazen calm and having resolved difficult emotions, but in a strange way it always helps, and regular practice just adds to your ability to respond with kindness and equanimity towards yourself, it also fosters mental and emotional flexibility. Why Buddhism became so associated with repression or denial of emotions is a curious and unhelpful twist of history. It is clear that Gautama Buddha felt emotion from the suttas! Yet, Gautama sat under that famous tree and felt at peace with it all. As a health care professional it would be remiss of me not to also say, to anyone reading this thread, that counselling or therapy is not 'incongruent' with Buddhist practice, and you should seek professional advice if emotional difficulty is leading to some impairment in your experience or functioning in life. Many people with emotional difficulties tell me that they don't know how to talk about their emotions, but once they get going it gets easier, and they often don't even realise this is happening!

Apologies for the longer response, but I hope this adds something to the discussion.

Gassho, Tokan (satlah)

[Tom A.]

Here are all of the handouts for “emotional regulation” in DBT, note that since you are not in DBT therapy, some of it may be confusing, skim through, take what sticks, leave out what doesn’t. If it’s not helpful DONT DO IT! If you are in distress or feel depressed, contact a medical professional. There is a lot of info here and it is very similar to Zen, as it is from the acceptance/experiential side of CBT. Everyone would benefit from at least some of these skills. There is a LOT of good info here.

https://mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/ncal/Images/Emotion%20Regulation%20DBT%20Skills%20ADA%2004292020_tcm75-1598999.pdf

I should note (because it is unwritten at the center of these handouts) that the DBT model uses a strange concept and is something to cultivate, it is called Wise Mind:

-Wise Mind is when our mind is not too emotionally heated nor too emotionally cold (over-rational)

-Wise Mind is “willingness” as in willing to feel and accept all of the discomfort that happens when we step out of our comfort zones to follow our values. It is NOT willingness in order to… (insert any gain, such as feeling better, it is just completely willing with no expectation).

-Wise mind is not “fused” with unhelpful thoughts and feelings nor is it “hooked” with unhelpful behaviors. It is exactly like the mirror reflecting everything, good, bad, beautiful, ugly that Jundo talks about. Of course it is good to be absorbed in things if they are valued action.

-Wise Mind is when we are not “willfully” (burying our heads in the sand and denying reality). It is when our minds are centered and we do what matters.

I should say that there are no "good" or "bad" emotions in the sense that in life it is impossible to be happy all of the time, life has ups and downs when it comes to emotions that have to be either willfully suppressed (unrecommended), regulated, accepted, or tolerated.

Distress tolerance and acceptance are all about psychological flexibility, or the ability to feel emotions and still do what is meaningful.

Willingness has the quality of knowing that life has its ups and downs and knowing that we cannot experience what is rewarding if we push away what is uncomfortable. It is like a an open book with all of the rewarding and uncomfortable on each page. Not being willing is holding the book as far away as possible and willingness is resting it in our lap. Willingness is wholehearted and beyond words. "You cannot leap a chasm in two jumps."




Gassho,

Sat

Tom

[Uran]

I would say that, before 'knowing' if you're accepting and witnessing or stuffing down, you can make a commitment to identifying the emotions first.

We might think to ourselves, "I feel depressed", but this is really a poor way to describe our mood state... Going a step further, depressed can refer to sadness, guilt, grief, emptiness (not the Buddhist type!), isolation, despair - the list goes on. When we more accurately identify the emotion it enables us to create a more specific and meaningful response to counter it.


we need to allow emotions to be part of the landscape and climate of our lives, and have the equipment to respond to changes, whether sudden or gradual.


I do not always emerge from zazen calm and having resolved difficult emotions, but in a strange way it always helps, and regular practice just adds to your ability to respond with kindness and equanimity towards yourself, it also fosters mental and emotional flexibility.


Why Buddhism became so associated with repression or denial of emotions is a curious and unhelpful twist of history. It is clear that Gautama Buddha felt emotion from the suttas!

Leon,

Thank you for taking the time to dive into this.

About the same time you were putting your thought and attention to this question, I found a perfect and perfectly simple exercise that complements much of what you shared:

Inhale while naming the emotion. ("I feel panic.")

Then exhale and breathe compassion into the emotion. ("I breathe compassion into this feeling of panic.")

Do this with "good" feelings as much as with those that are freaking you out.

....

For me, the naming and the breathing and the compassion worked together to give my mind some traction, a sense that I could feel this without running away.

And then doing the same with enjoyable feelings, that felt like a kind of magic.

...

Yet another badass tool to add to the Batman belt.

Thank you for allowing me the extra sentences here. I figure if I need to hear this, I someone else does, too.

Gassho,

Aimee B.

sat lah

[Tokan]

Tokan, satlah

[Amelia]

I feel that my body has its own mysterious tools for handling unpleasant emotions, if I just allow my body to follow suit instead of trying to block it out. For example, crying when I feel the urge to cry. My first instinct is usually, "don't think about it," but that is not necessarily healthy... unless one needs to act quickly-- for example, in an emergency.

Gassho
Sat, lah

[Gareth]

Hello,

I think it is a really important question.

Tom - thank you for the interesting slides! I especially liked the list of activity ideas.

Gassho,
Gareth

Sat today, Lah

[Nengyoku]

There was something I heard when I first started practicing that helped me start unpacking my emotions in a more healthy way.
It was about reframing how I expressed my emotions.

For example, before I would probably have said "I am angry." or "I am anxious."
Instead, reframe it as "I am feeling angry." or "I am feeling anxious."
It is healthy to recognize that your emotions are not you, they are just what you are experiencing at this moment. You are entitled to feel whatever you are feeling, and doing so does not mean they swallow you up wholesale.


Gassho,
Nengyoku
Sat

[Jundo]

This will be a topic of our little Talk during Zazenkai tomorrow. I discovered, in part due to this discussion, that recently I have my own fear (about affording college for my son and the economic downtown, like many folks these days) that I was "pushing down" with Zazen rather than recognizing it and admitting it. It is a kind of "spiritual bypassing." Zazen is about recognizing, allowing and admitting that we can be sometimes sad or worried, not using it as a way to forcefully bury such things.

So, my worry about my little Japanese translation office did start to come out of my ears a bit. Now that I just admit that I am worried, the flames are smaller.

I will talk about this tomorrow.

For example, before I would probably have said "I am angry." or "I am anxious."
Instead, reframe it as "I am feeling angry." or "I am feeling anxious."

I think this is good. I try to say to myself these days, not that the "I am scared, there is no way out, the world is scary," but instead something more like, "My mind is right now feeling scared, it is the mind theatre's current feeling, it is passing weather not the permanent way things need to be, the world is the world and the fear is my interpretation." Yours is a much shorter, succinct way to say that.

Gassho, Jundo

STLh

[Bion]

There was something I heard when I first started practicing that helped me start unpacking my emotions in a more healthy way.
It was about reframing how I expressed my emotions.

For example, before I would probably have said "I am angry." or "I am anxious."
Instead, reframe it as "I am feeling angry." or "I am feeling anxious."
It is healthy to recognize that your emotions are not you, they are just what you are experiencing at this moment. You are entitled to feel whatever you are feeling, and doing so does not mean they swallow you up wholesale.


Gassho,
Nengyoku
Sat

My approach is that whatever I’m feeling is already happening, and that’s fine in the moment, but I plan on figuring how I got myself to bring that feeling up and if it is a “negative” one, what I can change to not create the conditions for that to arise as easily in the future. That’s the pro-active approach, while zazen and the rest of the formal practice hopefully slowly chisel away at all of my rough edges.

[emoji1374] Sat Today