In Practice
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My First Day of School and What I Learned about Feelings and Needs
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I will never forget my first day of school and what I learned that day.
I remember standing at the bus stop in the early morning chill of the Fall season. I was with my mother, feeling really anxious and confused, not really understanding what was going on. When the bus arrived, my mother informed me that I was to get on the bus. In that moment, my whole world changed. I suddenly became awash in fear. I knew clearly how much I did NOT want to go. I DID NOT want to be on a bus with strangers or go to a big strange building full of more strangers. I wanted to stay home in my house with my toys and my mother. That morning, not a cell in my body wanted to go to school. I was terrified.
I refused to get on the bus. Clinging to my mother, crying, yelling at the top of my lungs, I begged to be allowed to stay home. As all this was going on, the bus driver had stepped down from his driver's seat and was now walking toward me and my mother - quickly. He then nonchalantly pulled me from my mother, threw me over his shoulder and carried me onto the bus as I screamed, begging and pleading not to go. Maybe I'm mistaken, but it seemed like he had done this before. As the bus pulled away with me pounding my little fists on the inevitably closed steel and glass door, I was learning something.
"As upset as I was, it didn't matter". My feelings, as strong as they were, didn't matter. I was going to school that day.
I learned that feeling my feelings and being aware of my needs can be a horrible experience. I learned that I could experience tremendous pain and desire, and there was really not much that I could do about it. For me that day, and for many of us still, feelings have mainly been a source of pain - bad news that we just don't want to receive. Some of us have learned to ignore, disregard or deny the existence of them. For some it helps us survive.
I'm sharing this, not to blame my mother or the teacher, or the bus driver, or society. I'm sharing this experience with you because remembering it helps me understand my relationship to feelings. I'm hoping it might help you understand yours. In the practice of compassion, feelings play a large role. Often the path to compassion starts at noticing feelings, feeling them, understanding them and communicating clearly about them. So when it comes to feelings, this memory of my first day of school helps me to see how I'm trained or "untrained."
Hunger
As children and often as adults, we eat by the clock. Hence the term "lunch time". In school, we generally ate at 12:00 - not when we felt hungry.
Additionally, many of us have heard the phrase "finish your plate" or have been encouraged in one form or another to eat all the food we have been served - not until we feel full.
Sleep
As children and often as adults we sleep by the clock. Hence the invention and widespread use of the alarm clock. As children, most of us had "bed times" that had more to do with what time it was than being tired.
Eating and sleeping are crucial human functions, yet many of us do them without an awareness of what our body tells us about them. So now, when I look back on my upbringing, it helps me understand why I distanced myself from my feelings. It seemed they weren't really serving any purpose. To a large extent, I learned to fear and suppress them.
As an adult, I have discovered a reason to feel my feelings, to pay attention to them. Now, they tell me about my needs, my life. Now my feelings are guidance. And the more I bring my awareness to them, the more self-connection I can have. The more I feel my feelings, the more I understand "how I am", how my needs are or are not being met.
In my years as a trainer and empathologist, I have come to believe that we all have a "feeling feelings muscle" that we can develop - All of us. And when we develop that skill (muscle) and create a deeper relationship with our feelings, it gives them new meaning and purpose.
It has been my repeated experience that when we have a deeper relationship with feelings (and needs), almost all of us experience more self-connection and connection with others. That, in turn, engenders compassion, both inward and outward.
So I find it important to remember that first day of school and what I learned that day. It gives me more compassion for my "grown-up" self now, when I have difficulty experiencing or understanding feelings. And
that
helps me stay with my practice; and then inevitably, life becomes more wonderful.
