Day 110: My Experiment
Nov 3, 2018 Photo by SilentPilot on Pixabay
Coping
Whether death, illness, or loss suffering is inevitable. To evade suffering the mind adapts beliefs and identities from the past to project onto the future.
Coping has two definitions: to deal with or the cope or cloak the priest dons. We cloak our pain and suffering under some cope such as addiction, laughter, over-work, suppression, analysis, defenses and so forth.
What results from coping is an increase in long term suffering while evading current experiences . Each time we cope we pile one defense upon another. This further codifies a, albeit false, sense of security. The hardened cloak may appear to be made of armor. Though nothing beliefs or masks can do will evade our eventual demise.
When triggered we feel we have lost control and rally to regain control. Simple logic tells us: if we ever had control then it would be impossible to lose it. Emotions, feelings, and contradictory beliefs make their way through our defenses turning the apparent adult back into a 4 year old. Clearly demonstrating that part of us has not come into adulthood but remained, under all its copes, the tiny child.
We would not leave a baby to cry while we go to the gym and try and figure out why the baby is crying. Tragically, each time we cope we do this to ourselves. Something is crying our for attention when we are triggered, an emotion rises with accompanying thoughts that deride ourselves or another. We point fingers at culprits. We judge harshly ourselves and others. We analyze, fragment, defend without once sitting and attending, listening. Try this today. When you experience suffering, a trigger, emotions, do nothing solely pay attention to the tension.
