Step Away or Push Forward? That Is the Question

If you are a client you may have heard this story in my effort to demonstrate what can happen by stepping away rather than pushing forward in conversation when feelings arise. Revisiting it in writing has added dimension and reinforced the concept for me. It’s been a powerful reminder because we all know how tempting and unproductive it is to push forward or be pushed when triggered.

Removing ourselves from an emotionally charged situation to be with our feelings—meditatively—can save us a lot of heartache when our purpose is to seek understanding rather than prepare a case for being right, making the other person wrong, or getting our way. 

Relationships are always presenting us with opportunities to evolve our hearts. The empty nest period is no exception. Doug and I found ourselves in the yard together. When the kids were around we’d do our yard work separately: Doug would fit mowing and weed-whacking into his schedule while I would fit tending to the flowerbeds and weeding into mine. I had recently been enjoying cultivating some butterfly and hummingbird friendly gardens at our lake house as well. 

This one garden at home had been feeling more like a chore so I wanted to rip it up and plant grass in its place. Our lawn was more of a flowering meadow, and we liked it that way. When Doug would mow it smelled like mint which we thought was pretty awesome until it managed to weave its way into the weed barrier and take over this particular garden. If you know mint, you know that it shoots out roots called rhizomes underground and then up pops another plant, and another, and another. This area contained a couple perennials, a partially dead shrub and a tangled web of mint roots with mint plants that had pushed through the fabric of the weed barrier. Doug wanted to top the area off with another layer of weed barrier and leave it as is so the subject had been dropped. 

When doing spring cleanup together, rake in hand, I broached the subject of pulling up the weed barrier again. 

“Do you know how hard it would be to rip that up? Do you want me to have another heart attack?” (He had had a heart attack a year or so prior.) He was angry.

“I just want to throw this rake at you right now, so I’m going to go inside to meditate,” was my response (to feeling like I had just gotten yelled at).

And let me be clear, I would never throw a rake at Doug or want him to have a heart attack, and he knows that too. I did not respond in a rage. I hadn’t thought about how difficult it would be to pull up the weed barrier either. How would I know? Saying I wanted to throw a rake was my way of letting him know that I was frustrated and saying that I was going to meditate was being responsible for my feelings by removing myself from the conversation. Acknowledgment can bring lightness to a situation. 

When in the house I let my anger out meditatively. I was curious and interested about how charged I was rather than justifying why I should get my way over his. The latter would have been the direction the conversation would have taken if we had continued with the power struggle. 

I had been taught, growing up, that feelings harm: my parents weren’t very attractive with their anger so in my effort to be nothing like them I had learned to hold mine in. I had a PhD from the school of “Suck It Up,” you could say. But here’s the thing, in my effort to spare others and keep the peace I had been harming myself. How so? Anger has to come out somehow and mine came out through some health issues. I had inadvertently developed my own passive version of feelings harm. 

If you find yourself flipflopping between holding your anger in and spewing it out you know the struggle. From holistic studies, trial and error and self-help books, I concluded that there is a healthy place in between passive and aggressive where we can use our feelings to heal. From this place emerged some helpful phrases and gestures for changing course from harming to healing. It is important to get your feelings out; just do it productively.

If anger is something you wrestle with, here are some tips for changing course with it:

• Biting your hand can prevent you from blurting out something unproductive. Not to the point of hurting yourself, just place your hand horizontally in front of you at head height with your thumb under your fingers and put it in your mouth. You can talk but no one will be able to understand what you are saying, and it buys you time to regroup. Then go meditate. My Italian grandmother used to do this. I didn’t really understand its value until now. Thanks Nana!
• If the other person wants to continue with the conversation when you are heated say, “I refuse to say anything I’m going to regret later.” You can simultaneously put your hand out in a “stop” gesture if you want. (This is just as much a note-to-self as it is to the person involved.)
• “We both know this isn’t going anywhere good,” is a great phrase for breaking an unproductive conversation pattern. “We” is a power word. You are reminding the other person of what they know too. At least you’re acknowledging agreement somewhere.
• Remind yourself by declaring, “I think too much of you, myself, and our relationship to continue with this conversation.” (Meditate and go back to it with your findings. I recommend 24 hours at most. Go back while it’s still fresh enough.)
• “Let me get back to you,” is a great phrase for making decisions. It gives you time to be sure you are coming from love rather than fear with your thoughts, words and/or actions. 

What came to me—from being open to understanding—was that this was a picture of how we approach life. I like to get to the root of things. I have even cultivated a vocation out of it. Doug's tendency, at the time, was to smooth things over and hope it (whatever it may be) never happens again.

Now I was laughing and couldn’t wait to share my findings. I went back outside looking for Doug. Much to my surprise, he wanted to share first.

“Okay.”

“While you were inside I thought to tie a rope to the half dead shrub and the other end to my trailer hitch. His outstretched palm proudly presenting the place where the weed barrier used to be.”

“You pulled it up with your car?” Brilliant. I couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised. Then I shared my findings. He thought about it for a minute and had to agree. We both chuckled.

From my experience it’s best to remove ourselves from a conversation when angry rather than push to defend our position. Defense is an attack back. If I had attacked back Doug would have likely been focused on his defense rather than on a win-win solution. Defense is how fights are born.

Meditation is a great way to step out of our life for the purpose of revisiting a situation that is emotionally charged. Life is like a movie. In meditation we get to revisit something that happened frame by frame with curiosity and interest and an intention to heal and grow. We aren’t open to understanding ourselves or the other person when our focus is on winning our case.

I didn’t have any answers about the weed barrier but I did emerge with a clearer understanding of why I was triggered and how we approach life. Doug provided a fresh foundation for planting grass while I provided a fresh foundation for our relationship to grow and evolve.

The same situation that creates distance can deepen intimacy depending on how it is handled. People fight to win, not to get to know you or themselves.

The more you hold in, the more there is to trigger, so when you start letting it out it feels like a dam let loose. The whitewater rafting period is not the time to make any major decisions. Letting your feelings out with a professional trained in loving is definitely recommended. I had been practicing removing myself for a while before this incident. This way of thinking takes commitment, discipline and practice, practice, practice, but the rewards are far reaching. Ask me, I know.

I’d have to say that my biggest epiphany that ever came to me in meditation was that I had been taught tomanipulate rather than to love. In this way we use people rather than get to know them/deepen the intimacy. Then we get frustrated and resentful when they won’t say or do what we want. Humbling, right! When someone feels that they aren’t getting their needs met in a relationship, this is often what is going on. The truth can be a bit of an ego bust. The great news is once you realize these things about yourself you can change them and your life will reflect the changes.

Your ego speaks first, speaks loudest, and talks a good talk, but it rarely leads you anywhere good. This practice of removing yourself in search of understanding will definitely bust your ego, deepen intimacy and increase your capacity to love and for love. Give it a try. I’d love to hear a report back.

I hope you enjoyed my weed barrier story!

Friends in this Love,

Trish