Curiosity is a Wildflower, part II
As I dive into this missive, I want to presence all of my Self, invite all that’s happening within me to participate in the formation of the words taking shape on the page as I write.
There’s a subtle tightness in my chest area, coming from the emotion of mild irritation, which is also causing me to hear my heart beating in my left ear, like a wave. Before I started writing, I sat for some moments with the irritation, invoking the wildflower medicine of curiosity towards it that I talked about in part 1.
Irritation is still here, and it’s welcome to be here. The situation that’s ostensibly causing this irritation is about something that some people have not done that I think they should have done, making me perceive them as thoughtless and selfish.
Ocotillo in bloom on the land we live on
The truth is, they’re really not the ones triggering me into feeling irritated. I could believe that to be true, project judgment onto them and outsource my capacity and well being, making them responsible for my feelings.
The truth is, irritation - and the rawness that it overlays - was already there, ancient, unfelt and unseen.
But when I make it all about other people, I’m fully identified with the trigger, in this case the irritation. I become the irritation, reflected in language when we say “I’m so irritated!”
But ‘I am irritated’ is not really true. I feel irritation or there is irritation here would be more accurate. There is irritation here, which right now I’m feeling in my chest.
Why does this matter?
Well, in the case of irritation, we generally tend to feel it in our bodies as a flavor of constriction or contraction. When I identify with it, I become the contraction instead of relating to it with curiosity and giving it the space + time it needs to naturally unwind and resolve in my body.
I don’t need to go in there and fix it, or take something to numb myself into ‘feeling better’.
I certainly don’t need to become it, and then go confront those thoughtless people causing me this irritation or passive aggressively ignore them or whatever it is I’m compelled to do when my identity has become enclosed in the contraction.
Because when I do that, I don’t have access to all of my Self. I’m not authentic. When I become the constriction - which is a threat response when there’s no actual threat present - physiologically, there’s not enough oxygen going to my brain which hampers my decision making and communication, among many other things.
Now, perhaps this is a situation where I do need to communicate that a boundary has been transgressed (it hasn’t but let’s just say it has.)
How will that go if my identity has become squished into irritation, where I’m not actually feeling and relating to it but judging it as bad?
(Anything I’m unwilling to feel, in this case irritation + judgment, is projected out onto the world, onto the other.)
Chances are, any communication coming from that place will not be sustainable.
Whereas, if I’m able to feel and relate to my own feelings first, without trying to fix them but tend to them instead, I have resourced myself. I’m not identified with them. I have more space, more oxygen. And from here, if I need to communicate something that was not ok, I have access to more of my Self. The conversation now has more freedom because I’m not bound up in the corsetry of false identity constructs.
What I say may or may not be received and that’s ok because attachment to being right dissolves in the presence of wildflower-curiosity.
And so, what began as judgment and irritation towards another can become an opportunity for deeper connection and relating to the parts of me that don’t see enough sunshine, that are muzzled away into silence and deprived of oxygen.
It’s important to note that this is definitely, definitely not about being ‘perfect’ - or not the oppressive, puritanical construct of perfection at any rate.
(Hint: you’re a part of Earth + Sky and you’re already wildly perfect.)
Sometimes, we do become the irritation or the anger and act out from that place (I know I do.) And if so, great! It’s an opportunity to invoke the non-judgmental, wildflower medicine of curiosity. It’s also usually a sign that we don’t have much capacity, that our bodies and nervous systems need some care and attention.
If that feels like a yes for you, join the weekly drop-in, The Light Gets In, Sundays at 10am PST.