Natural Wakefulness by Gaylon Ferguson

Author:Gaylon Ferguson [Ferguson, Gaylon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780834822658
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SURVIVAL, SCARCITY, ABUNDANCE

When strong emotions arise, they seem to threaten our very survival. Even though it’s just a passing, intangible psychological event, we feel as though the presence of anger or jealousy calls our existence into question. At the very least, a wave of emotion raises the question: who’s really in control here? Am I riding my emotions, or are they riding me? Am I sitting in the saddle—or are these things pounding on my head like the hoofbeats of wild horses? Because of this question of fundamental control, we experience heightened emotions as both exciting and threatening.

On the one hand, we are glad for the excitement of some colorful feelings—life would be a very dull affair indeed, if we always trundled along in a terminal gray zone, never falling in love or rejoicing in a good friend’s promotion. Gathering to raise a glass in good cheer, we celebrate graduations, marriages, and the birth of a child, silver anniversaries and sixtieth birthdays. Emotions awaken us, perk us up, arousing a sense of movement and liveliness. Suddenly, something—it almost doesn’t matter what—is happening! The novelist Toni Morrison once spoke of her wonder at her two sons; she noticed the way they seemed so enlivened by the sense of danger.4

So, on the one hand we’re grateful for the arrival of some emotional color. On the other hand, we’re anxious that our emotions don’t get out of hand, out of our control. Not long ago, in the waiting room of my dentist’s office, I felt sympathy for the anxious young man fidgeting in the chair next to mine. Eventually, after our eyes met a couple of times, we both put down our magazines and began a conversation about the recent fortunes of our favorite baseball teams (the Mets and the Rockies). After a few moments, he confided that he cries sometimes when he visits the dentist—and worries that he’s a “bad” patient for being unusually sensitive to pain. Where did we learn this curious ideal—that good patients are always in complete control of their feelings?

In everyday life—at the office, for instance, even alone in our cubicle—we feel the pressure of keeping a tight grip on our emotions. It’s embarrassing to be revealed as addicted to rage, or stung by jealousy, nervously insecure, or tearfully sad. Like handling a pack of wild dogs only recently tamed, we are careful to keep these feelings on a tight leash. As in my Bay Area study group, we usually swing back and forth between anxiously trying to turn the volume down on our emotional music or, bored with too long a steady state, trying to turn it up, to pump up the volume.

Both these approaches reflect an attitude of basic scarcity. When we desperately try to control our emotions, the underlying assumption is that they are arising as threats to our stability. Strong emotions—not just fear, but certainly being afraid is an outstanding example—bring up the feeling, “Am I all right? Have I survived? Am I going

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