All of us mere mortal Earthlings get put through the emotional gauntlet in life. Unless you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, it’s going to happen.
What I’m going to explore today is a healthy way of dealing with those rollercoaster rides.
My son left the nest
I’ve employed this strategy in small snippets in the past several weeks and in major doses since Monday. That’s the day that my oldest child, Hank, like a chick flying out of the nest, flew off to Seattle for college.
It’s been hard. And painful. As I wrote a few weeks ago in an article about impermanence, Hank is, quite simply, a wonderful human being. He came out that way.
And yes, I’m sure that sounds like a biased dad spouting off, but I’m confident a wide cross-section of people in his life feel the same way.
My strategy
So, what’s this grand ‘strategy’ I’ve been employing for dealing with the Coney Island Cyclone rollercoaster ride that has been thrashing my emotions around so ruthlessly these past few days?
First, strategy sounds admittedly antiseptic when used in association with emotions. I use it only to give some teeth and firmness to what is usually a mushy, intangible topic.
The strategy is, in short, to feel what I’m feeling when I’m feeling it. It is to actually focus my attention on those tough feelings when they arise rather than push them away.
