Do self-knowledge and self-compassion help when it comes to controlling emotions?
I’m pretty good at dishing out suggestions but am I speaking from a place of self-knowledge, or is it just all theoretical training?
I was asked this week to write a piece for businesses that are trying to support their staff through anxiety about the situation in Ukraine.
I’m thinking about how to approach it as I’m measuring the toilet bowel front to back, and then the gap between the holes that secure the seat to the toilet.
This is my fourth trip to the bathroom to make certain of my measurements aware as I am of a tendency to get some key piece of information wrong and then buy something that doesn’t fit.
With my head under the lavatory, I consider the ways in which I deal with my own anxiety about war in Europe.
The day before I had wandered into the clinic while two of my colleagues were chatting.
“We’re talking about the war,” they tell me.
“It’s not within my control so I’m trying not to use up too much emotional energy on it,” I tell them which sounds both hard-hearted and dismissive in equal parts.
“That’s not really much help,” they only half-jokingly reply.
I wonder if what I’ve told them is really true. Is that how I’m dealing with it?
I listen to the news in the morning and check again in the evening figuring that if anything I need to know happens I’ll hear about it.
I’m staying away from all social media.
So far it’s helping, so perhaps I’m right about myself.
Someone writes and asks a specific question about how they can manage the anxiety they feel at the pandemic, the cost of living crisis, and now the outbreak of war in Europe.
“I’m finding it hard to put the thoughts out of my mind and concentrate on other things,” they write.
“Don’t resist the thoughts,” I write back. “The harder you push away fear and sadness the more powerfully they will come back at you.”
“As hard as it is, accept that you feel afraid, let yourself feel it rather than resisting it and you might find it passes more quickly.”
My father-in-law is admitted to hospital after a fall.
In the space of three days, it is concluded that there is nothing more that can be done for him than palliative care.
Last week we were chatting normally while we both had a haircut.
It triggers thoughts about the death of my own parents and a moment I can remember sorting through papers after my father died and finding his birth certificate.
I stared at the record, the point at which all of his life was still to come. Then, in a second, he is taking his last breath, alone, while a blackbird sings on the washing line in the garden.
Rather than pushing it away I sat with it, pushed myself down into it as if I were immersing myself in grief that grabs me only sporadically these days but is as deep as it ever was.
Afterward, I felt tired but oddly comforted.
In my answer to the anxious client, I write,
“Try and separate the anxiety-inducing things you have no control over from the things you may be able to influence and then, take action.”
Having decided on the size of toilet seat I need I return to my list.
There are new cleaners coming to the house on Friday and I don’t want them thinking that the house needs cleaning because that makes me feel anxious.
I’ve written down everything I need to do and after I’ve finished the piece about how to deal with Ukraine-related anxiety, I’m going to work my way through the list until I feel better.
Leave a Reply