How to Stop Feeling Bad When You Go Home
Stoicism vs Mindfulness for Inner Contentment in Stressful Circumstances
My rickshaw’s lateness was galling, but my anger and anxiety were even more so.
I sat surrounded by my bags on the steps of my apartment, stewing. I’d trained to remain calm since my late teens, but the threat of a missed train could apparently still turn me into someone I didn’t like.
It was 2011, and I’d been living in Thailand and regularly meditating with Buddhist monks for several years. By my reckoning, I should be calm in the face of simple logistical hiccups. But I was far from calm, my mind racing ahead to an imagined chain of missed rendevous and canceled plans.
During meditation I achieved feelings of bliss and tranquility. In the calm afterglow of those sessions, I felt like I’d mastered life. But life isn’t meditation. My anxiety was yet another demonstration that I was missing something.
I was determined to figure out what it was.
Two Sides Of Being Even-Keeled.
Ram Dass told students, “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family,” which resonates with many peoples’ experiences.
You go home and the context triggers something that doesn’t live up to your ideals.
“Life,” has fooled you into thinking you’ve got things figured out. You’re calm, collected, and capable in the face of hardship. Then your context shifts, and you realize you were wrong. You can’t cope with the new context, and you’re miserable.
The mindfulness so often touted as a cure-all can be broadly considered phenomenology — observing one's consciousness and figuring out how it works. This is what I’d trained with the monks, alongside the skill of letting thoughts go and bringing attention back to the moment.
Many types of Eastern meditation build phenomenology skills, as does Stoicism’s “Prosochē (attention). These alone can bring insight and relief, and when paired with letting go of thoughts, can be a powerful practice. But it’s not the cure-all some people insist it is.
If we go no further we’ll suffer during times of crisis when unpleasant thoughts stir from the depths. Closing your eyes and withdrawing attention from the world isn’t a viable life strategy for non-monks. So what do you do?
Dealing With Content Via Inner Discourse
If you’ve built awareness, you’ll notice phenomena appearing and your mind automatically developing impressions about them — That’s good. That’s bad. I don’t want that to happen. I need that to happen!
Many of these impressions leave us feeling wretched. Waiting for that tardy rickshaw driver, my mind was full of judgments about my situation, and none of them were good.
This is where part two comes in — the spiritual exercises of philosophy, which involve talking to ourselves about the “content,” bobbing around in our minds.
I’d been reading the Stoics for years by 2011, but I hadn’t gotten good at the Stoic art of talking to myself about my impressions.
But I had a thick notebook I’d kept for years, and I pulled it out while I waited on the steps and looked for my old notes on Epictetus’s ideas. There was a quote on top:
“...It is easy to praise fate, if one has within him two things: the faculty of taking a comprehensive view of the things that happen to each person and a sense of gratitude.”
— Epictetus, Discourses 1.6.1
Below this were perspectives-raising questions I’d cobbled together from somewhere:
Is this under my control? If not, why am I wasting time worrying about it?
Will this matter at all in a week, a month, or a decade? If not, why worry now?
If you’re angry at someone, ask what hardship they may be undergoing.
Think of the things you have to be grateful for and the insignificance of this annoyance.
Can I envision a way this annoyance might bring about a better outcome than what I’d planned for?
The Stoics developed a suite of exercises to bring perspective and reframe our inner discourse. But even these “hints,” were enough to make some impact.
I sat there and talked to my anxiety and anger with these perspectives, and low and behold, they started to subside.
By the time my motorized rickshaw sputtered into the driveway a few minutes later, a flat tire strapped to the roof, I felt like I’d turned a corner and had a realization.
Awareness doesn’t do much if we don’t address what it notices. Withdrawing attention isn’t enough.
If you go home to see your family and something hard comes up, it doesn’t mean you’re not spiritual enough. It doesn’t mean you need to meditate more. It means you need to deal with what’s come up by talking to it. It’s an inner discourse game. It’s therapeia.
I’d spent years honing my awareness and leaving its fruits to rot. Ignoring thoughts until they dissipate doesn’t deal with the mistaken beliefs behind them.
I decided that day that I’d make sure my attempts to master phenomenology were matched by my attempts to master my inner discourse.
So far, it hasn’t let me down.