Are you acting out your emotions and sabotaging yourself instead of experiencing and dealing with them appropriately in a mindful way?

I have a friend who calls this, “acting in grip of a strange compulsion.” Well, we needn’t be so dramatic about it, but did you ever find yourself acting strangely, knowing it’s not like you even as you’re doing it? Usually you’re doing something that doesn’t help your own cause, that you wouldn’t ordinarily do, and that you “know better than to do.” You surprise even yourself!

An example of this would be forgetting to pick up your wife’s laundry. Ordinarily you’re an organized and efficient person and this is part of your weekly routine. It’s not like you to forget to do it. Often if you think back, it can be traced to an emotion you didn’t acknowledge, express, or deal with appropriately. For instance you may have had a fight with your wife and failed to resolve it. The resentment lingers and if you aren’t mindful, you’ll forget to pick up her laundry as a way of getting back at her and expressing your anger.

Another example would be being criticized unfairly by your boss, failing to deal with your anger about it, and then failing to get a report in on time. Suddenly you can’t find energy to do work. The creativity to do research leaves you, your fingers just won’t write report, and every little thing distracts you from task. Failing to get report in on time sabotages you, which adds insult to injury. It’s kind of thing you might do when you aren’t mindful.

In each case healthy way of handling emotions is different, but they must be dealt with or else they will find their own way of being expressed.

I was in a hospital getting a chest x-ray, a prerequisite for surgery on my broken ankle. It’s been two weeks since it happened, two weeks full of pain, change, and coping. I’ve described how it happened, learned how to get around house on crutches, visited doctors and labs, waited on x-rays, and asked neighbors to get mail and groceries.

I’ve also been put through pre-op battery of tests – blood tests, EKGs, chest x-rays, and discussions with my doctor, who felt best approach was surgery.

In my EQ Alive! program, which trains and certifies EQ coaches, I’ve participated in weekly EQ Check In along with students. We tell each other how we feel physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. We begin each teleclass that way, and listen closely to answers. EQ competencies include emotional expression, and also Integrated Self, being in touch with all aspects of yourself. Most of all it means not engaging in meaningless, “How are you?” “Fine.”

In a shutdown and coping mode, I thought I was being realistic about how I was feeling. I said I was in pain. I said I was physically slow and painkillers had dulled me mentally, and that spiritually things were same as ever. What more was there to say? I never gave it a thought.

So there I was in hospital. I’d been sent to wrong place and walked about ½ a mile on crutches to find that out. I was accepted, however, thanks to work of a nurse named Lupe with very high EQ who just pushed order on through. And then, mercifully finally in a wheelchair, I’d been wheeled to x-ray waiting area and left in hall.

As I sat there, a woman on a stretcher was wheeled up. I could tell she was sick. Her hair hadn’t been washed in a while and she had a nose tube for oxygen, and a tube in her arm. Her color didn’t look good and she barely moved. She reminded me of my dad last time I saw him in hospital. She was accompanied by two women. The first one went over to sign papers, and other one walked off down hall.

A technologist walked out toward woman on stretcher when I heard speech that touched me so. I think she thought he was coming to take her into x-ray room.

“I’m afraid!” she cried out.

“God love her,” I thought. “So am I!”

I tried to get out of my chair and go to her, but technologist beat me to her. Speaking to her in her native tongue, Spanish, he rushed to her side, took her hand and started soothing her. “Abuelita,” he called her, “little grandmother,” a term of endearment. A nurse brought out a screen to give her privacy and she quieted.

She quieted and I thought: Why is it so hard to get to “I’m afraid”?

Of course I’d been afraid whole time, from moment I heard bones turn in my ankle. I started repeating, “Please don’t let it be broken, please don’t let it be broken.” There was no way to tell, and I was left with pain and fear.