Podcast Revived

On the notion of pent up emotions as volcanoes

(From an email reply to a dear friend, who explained his understanding of emotional release as volcanic lava which is best not pent up, and can become the foundation for good soil.)

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Wow, what a detailed metaphor.  In a general way I’ve long agreed about the bursting notion of pent up emotional energy, but I’ll have to think for a while about the resultant deposits becoming the soil of a good relationship.  Heh, I imagine I’ve studied soil a little and that affects my notion of how that works.

My personal focus is not on what happens after the release but more of a focus on modifying the build up before the risks of release need be considered.  My memories of that concern begin with authors like Chogyam Trungpa Rimpoche, and I still carry that vaguely buddhist impetus.  

When I got the alert of a particularly dangerous stress caused health situation it didn’t take more than four days or so to discover the biggest resentment and give it up, and in that same exercise to realize that I had three others I’d been carrying.  The relief and calm I feel has been permanent ever since, even though I got little reminders, habits of thought really, for the next week or two afterwards.

Since then though I’ve been percolating on the whole situation, and for me what rises to the top (of an awful metaphor) is that there’s a core notion in the middle of the resentments that gave them power.  The notion is that I felt justified, justified to have my indignation.

The simple word ‘justified’ when I thought it brought up the immediate image of a four way stop intersection, where one might reasonably expect to have the right of way, and yet be plowed into by another vehicle for whatever reasons and end up dead.

The implications for me were subtle but wide reaching, and like a mind virus they spread around.  Once I had that notion, the idea of feeling justified to me seems awfully risky, and could easily limit my ability to support Donna and this place for as long as I hope to.  I want to live a long time, live and be useful to those around me. 

I suspect that as men in my family get older they all get cranky and think they are the experts and the last word on all sorts of matters.  Perhaps it’s hormonal for all I know.  That feeling of ‘Well, I’m right, <expletive>’ just seems such a pitfall.

So anyway, I’ve been having a wierdly interesting life since.  Smooth might be a word I’d use, but that doesn’t capture it.  I got a set of Diana Cooper’s Angel Cards with little bits of advice on them and each morning shuffle and pull one out before I climb out of bed.  It gets me thinking about something a little tilted I suppose, but I do this to load my deck on the positive side.  So yesterday and today I shuffled well and got ‘Honesty’ two days in a row.  Today I wonder if I am lying to myself about anything.  hee hee, I should ask myself if I am capable of telling the truth about anything.