PROMPT: Negative Feelings

Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?

Feel them, but don’t feed them. By that I mean take time to be aware of the feelings, but do not let the mind go into its default mode of fixation upon the object informing these sensations and worst-case scenario building. Give the feelings your attention but recognize that you influence your experience of the world and don’t give the mind free reign to build an illusory scenario that it accepts as its reality. (i.e. Remember what Mark Twain said, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”)

The biggest problem with negative feelings is that the go-to modern strategy is attempted distraction (by vice, by entertainment, by activity, etc.) this leads the body to turn up the heat. If you give the sensations your attention without adding value judgements, it becomes impossible to obsess. For yoga practitioners who’ve done Yoga Nidra (Yogic sleep) the experience will be familiar. One often begins by being attentive to sounds, by giving the sounds attention without judgement, your mind starts to lose interest and it becomes harder for those sounds to distract you throughout the practice. This approach to negative feelings is much the same.

Also, breathwork that extends the exhalation component of breath will shift the balance toward rest and digest activity.

Ultimately, realize that these feelings are just sensations your body and brain use to turn your attention in certain directions. They have no more power than that, other than what one grants them. They are not identical to — or inextricably linked with — the events of the world that triggered them, and — therefore — you get to be the master of, and not the slave to, your feelings.

The next time you find yourself getting bogged down by a negative feeling, give the feeling a minute or two of pure undivided attention, and then think, “This is a wonderful opportunity to learn how my body and mind work.” See what happens.

Wen Fu 1: “Poetic Experience” [文賦一] by Lu Ji [陆机] [w/ Audio]

The poet stands in the Center
And stares into deep mysteries.
He's nourished by reading Classics
And tombs of the men in Histories.
He sighs as four seasons pass by
And thinks upon ten-thousand things.
He's saddened by Autumn's leaf drop
And gladdened by the tender Spring.
He feels Winter's frost on his heart,
Though his mind may be up in a cloud.
And when he sings of ancestors'
Heroic deeds, he belts the song aloud.
He combs through great literature
Just as he roams the forest wild,
But in search of a "natural" --
Shown in elegant phrase and style.
And it's just such thoughts and feelings
That set my brush and mind wheeling.

The Original Chinese:

佇中區以玄覽,頤情志於典墳。
遵四時以嘆逝,瞻萬物而思紛。
悲落葉於勁秋,喜柔條於芳春,
心懍懍以懷霜,志眇眇而臨雲。
詠世德之駿烈,誦先人之清芬。
游文章之林府,嘉麗藻之彬彬。
慨投篇而援筆,聊宣之乎斯文。

What I Know about Beaches [Free Verse]

On a sandy beach,
I think of each grain
of sand as being
the same.

But on a pebble beach,
Each stone has its own
color, texture, size,
and shape.

It's made me second guess
What I know about beaches.

Let it Float [Lyric Poem]

Sans fear of dying,
The angst of trying
Is felt and left
To float.

PROMPT: For a Day

Daily writing prompt
If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?

A Buddha / Bodhisattva (if there’s one about these days.) Why? To feel how his (or her) subjective experience compares to my own.

Inside View [Senryū]

snail stretches
to view the beautiful house -
too close to see.

The Big Drift [Haiku]

downriver drift;
ferries & fisherman cross
without collision.

Foggy Morning [Senryū]

foggy morning:
a figure approaches...
nope, just a shrub!

Shapeshifter [Haiku]

light & shadow play
across the mountains —
redrawing ridges.

The Cave [Free Verse]

Jagged window 
on the world:
All light and sound
deadened,
but from one opening --
The cave mouth.

From behind
nothing stirs,
nothing glows,
shadows are subsumed
by shadow.

Eyes and mind
frame the cave mouth,
making the mind
a cave within a cave:
layered silence
layered remoteness,
and all input of a single,
common source.

How many caves deep might
this thing go?