A friend of mine said recently he wishes he could be more calm at work, that he catches himself getting frustrated easily.
The frustration spills out in his tone of voice such that he finds himself apologizing more than he’d like, instead of advancing problems to solutions.
The first part of my response has to do with normalizing our emotions. We all have them!
We can all be triggered and in a nanosecond!
I’m presently reading the memoir of one of my heroes, Mingyur Rinpoche. He’s a Tibetan Buddhist monk who I had the pleasure of studying with a few years ago. He’s written several books on joy and has been studied by prominent neuroscientist Dr. Richie Davidson.
He’s been dubbed the happiest man in the world!
Certainly, being in his presence awakened something in me that I can conjure up even now. It’s a playfulness and an open joy that he exuded.
We all have that state in us too.
And, even Mingyur, Mr. Happiest Man on Earth, can be triggered!
Although his life has had status, comfort and security, there was something in him that craved a wandering pilgrimage. He decided to leave the safety of the cloistered Tibetan monastery and an enviable teaching schedule, to become a penniless beggar for 4 years. He left on that journey soon after I had the opportunity to receive his teachings, years ago.
Given that, I’ve been extra interested in reading in his memoir about what happened to him after I met that happy joyful person!
So, not 1 hour out of his monastery and on his own, guess what?
He was already judging others in a way that surprised him, given his own equanimity and his decades long practices as a Tibetan monk. His outer circumstances challenged him and he had chosen that path. He was stuck on a cramped train, sitting on the floor and overcome by smells and fumes and harsh sounds. This was no monastery.
If the happiest man in the world can get triggered in a few seconds, so can you!
We have a biology such that when we are triggered, it by-passes our adult-like pre-frontal cortex. And, to complicate matters, if someone else gets triggered in front of us, our mirror neurons make it such we are triggered too.
So, the point is not whether you will get triggered or frustrated. Because we all will. So let’s not judge ourselves or each other for having emotions.
As Lance Mikell says:
You can think it and you can feel them. You just can’t feed them!
As Mingyur Rinpoche proceeded on his wandering retreat as a beggar, he was constantly challenged to go back to the tools he knew worked for him in the calm of the monasteries.
He had built up a strength inside himself that the outward conditions and challenges he set up allowed him to draw on.
So how do we strengthen our calm and become more resourced?
Well, that’s been a subject I’ve been chasing for a while, since it’s an important part of how to engage a difficult conversation in a good way. In fact, it’s the whole subject of the book I co-wrote with my mentor, colleague, friend Judy Zehr.
Finding ways to create calm throughout the day can seem such a simple idea but not many of us put it into practice.
So, here are two easy and quick practices you can take away right now:
- BREATHE WITH INTENTION – You can create a habit of pausing throughout the day to consciously breathe. That is a practice. The pause activates the parasympathetic nervous system. This creates a stronger calm mindset and prepares you to stay connected to yourself when a windstorm pushes against your branches. Do this multiple times a day. Set an alarm (I often do!).
- CULTIVATE SELF-AWARENESS – Ask yourself:- What am I thinking?
– What am I feeling?
This helps you connect with yourself as well and you can add this practice right after you pause for your breath. It’s easy to think of 3 possible feeling states my book):
– Am I feeling good (that can range from happy, joyful, thankful, etc)
– Am I feeling off balance (that could be edgy, hangry, a bit irritable, a bit down)
– Am I feeling out of balance (I could lose it now!)
“Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them.” … Mingyur Rinpoche