Choosing How We Feel

We can probably all relate to the experience of a painful event in the past which has made us more wary in the present. It could be something mean our teacher said when we asked a dumb question in class, or something a parent or loved one did which damaged our trust in them, or a rejection by someone or something we really wanted. 

These experiences can change us permanently. Through them we “learn” something about the world. Sometimes it’s accurate, sometimes not. Nevertheless, it alters our way of perceiving the world.

For a long time I’ve been trying to understand the nature of choice in the world. How do our choices determine our future? Is there a pattern to be illuminated in all of the converging crises right now? Can the multiple traumas of climate change, coronavirus, racial violence, and other painful experiences be the result of some “blueprint of choices” that we are acting from?

In my understanding, there is something “responsive” about the world we inhabit. We are presented with a choice, and circumstances unfold around that choice. For instance, we choose to schedule our doctor’s appointment for Friday at noon, and then a friend who happens to live in that same part of town calls and asks if we can stop by for lunch that day. Our lives are interwoven together into a tapestry based upon the choices that we make.

But I’d like to focus on the most significant type of choice: how we choose to feel. We each have a range of emotions we can draw upon—anger, frustration, resentment, joy, gratitude, compassion—and what we choose can alter the direction of our life, and of our society.

Choices have intense downstream implications. For example, if I choose to stay frustrated and angry by a family member’s behavior, I’ll end up venting my frustration to someone and amplifying the angst in my life. Then I’ll eventually say or do something which exacerbates the yucky feeling between us. Six months down the road, our relationship has soured, but if I trace back the roots of the experience, I realize that if I had been able to healthily express my frustration instead of holding tight in resentment, the relationship wouldn’t be where it is.

What do you want to have spent your life feeling? Are you willing to feel grief instead of anger? Grief leads us to crack open our hearts, and from that crack joy can emerge, while anger tightens us up and amplifies itself.

It’s important, too, that some of us may need to feel our anger more. If you are someone who backs down and doesn’t express anger, you might check in about where that anger is really going. Sometimes when we can’t express anger at someone else, we direct it at ourselves. In either case, if our bodies hold onto the anger, or resentment, or bitterness, or cynicism, this affects the way we feel and the choices we make. 

We can change the blueprint for choice-making by keeping a space at the core of who we are that is untouched by anger and fear, even while we honor all of our feelings, so we can navigate our emotions without getting trapped in them.