8 Keys to Practicing Mindfulness by Manuela Mischke Reeds

Author:Manuela Mischke Reeds
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

The Theatre of the Past: When the Drama

Seems to Never End

Trevor had a shady past. After class one day, during a training I was leading, he came forward in tears. He had been touched by a lecture on practicing self-compassion and wanted to tell me his story. In the past, he had been a drug dealer and user, and in his youth he had committed robberies with his best friend to support his drug addictions. When his business dealings went dangerous and his best friend had an affair with his new wife, Trevor snapped. After almost killing his friend in a violent encounter, he realized he needed to get out of his hometown. His heart was broken. He left his friend, his wife, his family, his community. He developed a severe addiction and went broke trying to support his drug use. For fifteen years he meandered through the country, doing odd jobs and barely getting by. He eventually found a welcoming church community that provided food, shelter, and addiction counseling. He turned his life around and started to help others, counseling drug-addicted men who had experienced a similar fate. But the betrayal and hatred he felt for the friend who had “caused” all his suffering was still with him. Eventually, a message reached him that one of his family members had passed. As he returned to the hometown he had hastily left fifteen years before, he was gripped by conflicting feelings. Would he bump into his hated friend again? Was Trevor now better off than he was? Had his traitorous friend stayed with his ex? When he got to his hometown, he learned quickly that his friend had died the week he left—over fifteen years before!

“I lived with the ghost of anger for all those years,” Trevor told me. “Every day I hated my best friend, and seethed in grief and anger, but for what? None of it was real.” Trevor was overcome with longing and regret. Sitting quietly by his friend’s grave that night, he asked for forgiveness, finally making peace with the ghost of his own anger.

The guilt of doing something wrong or the shame for being wrong can have a powerful impact on our psyche. We want to hide, avoid, get away, or go on the attack for feeling so badly. As I witness my clients grapple with emotions that seem to be as big as life or death, I kindly remind them, “It’s just the theatre of the past.”

Our emotions have a convincing yet ephemeral quality; the drama and high notes display themselves in full color, and the feelings make us believe that they will last forever. We suffer like the main characters of a dramatic story with unfulfilled longing and deep angst. Yet, in a flash, it’s over and we are left with the imprint of the drama and perhaps a bittersweet taste. Even when we are mindful, the theatricality of our emotions is still there, but we can learn how to see through the intensity as a temporary and necessary part of befriending our feelings.

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