Where, When and Why of Our Thinking

"Choose not to be harmed, and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed, and you haven't been."
--Marcus Aurelius

I had to read and meditate on the famous stoic Marcus Aurelius's wisdom for quite a while to sort out his thinking and how I could apply it to my life. It came to me slowly what he was driving at. It was the principle of taking everything personally while at the same time looking at what is said or done to you as a positive opportunity. 

Yes, everything good or bad is a positive growth opportunity.

After all, if you allow someone or something to make you angry, sad or worried, you have taken what you can control and gave the power to them. Transferred your personal agency to another. Sure, it feels good to yell at the person that cut you off in traffic, be angry at the baby crying in the restaurant or just saddened by hurtful words. Maybe this is the opportunity to look at our reactions, confront our feelings, and look at them in a new, less-painful light.

First, I would challenge us to put ourselves in the other person's shoes. I know that most of us have probably heard this a thousand times before, but if you are anything like me, it doesn't seem to stick very well, like worn out Velcro. I've taken to grabbing one of three words to apply to stuff like this: where, when or why.

I would apply any one of these three words to any of the previous examples. Applying my logic to someone who has said something hurtful to me, I would ask the 'Where' verb of myself: "Where does that person want this to go?'; "Where did they learn to act like this?"; or, "Where inside themselves are they suffering?"

Or you could choose 'When.' "When were they hurt?"

And lastly, "What can I do about it so that I don't suffer?"

Doing this for myself has been a rich experience, and it has been an opportunity for me to grow as a person, and be much, much more empathetic with others. I also have come to think of where what, and when as three basic questions that can help in the understanding of people and what has shaped them, drives them and ultimately leads to the greater reflective observation of their unique, troubled, challenging, wonderful, varied story.

Maybe that crying baby will grow up to be a doctor that will help cure a cancer, that person who cut you off was rushing to a hospice to say goodbye to a dying relative, or the person saying hurtful things may be expressing unconscious expressions of the hurt that was visited on them that they may not understand.

Stress Is...Painful

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment ~ Marcus Aurelius

Stress is killing me. Literally and figuratively. Now don’t get me wrong, much of it is ordinary stress. Our bodies and our mind as they age are literal victims of the stress of just living and breathing and existing in time. Who would have thought you could have sore muscles from sitting hours in a tree stand hunting deer, at a desk at work or even a long ride in a car or motorcycle? I like to think of this as causeless soreness or stress…even though it hurts literally like a vigorous work-out would hurt. The price I pay for more than a half century of living.

As for the figurative side of things, relief is obtainable if you can find a way to extinguish the triggers that are causing the anxious aches and pains of the heart and mind. As an example, anyone who is a parent has said (or at least thought), “Son (or daughter, substitute at will where appropriate), you’re killing me.” Now they were not actually sticking a knife in your heart, poisoning your food or digging a tiger trap in your path to the lawnmower. But they were definitely contributing to a loss of balance in your cortisol levels. Those Fred Sanford moments. If you don’t remember Fred…Google him. To relieve those chest pains I have a couple suggestions that you can adapt to different circumstances that worked for me:

·     Screaming. At. The. Top. Of. Your. Lungs!

·     Vigorously splitting firewood with a maul and a wedge (I highly recommend this if a specific person is responsible for the stress. Visualization of what you are splitting is delightfully relieving).

·     Refer your stressor to someone who can help or even cares. I remember a specific time I was “being mean” to my daughter and she told me should would call social services on me. I wrote the number down and put it on the refrigerator and told her to call it and I was sure they would be right out to pick her up because I was “mean to her.” Footnote: she never called.

In the meantime I have to find a way to unclench my teeth and fists. Stop trying to run from what is chasing me. I was afraid to stop for fear it would catch me, but that may be actually the best plan. Slam on the brakes and get it over with. Let it pile up on top of itself like a chain-reaction freeway accident. 

Then and maybe only then will I be able to survey the wreck, access the clean-up costs and start to repair the damage. Or I could just start by screaming.