Real But Not True

When I read this article from the HuffingtonPost.com contributor Tsoknyi Rinpoche I was struck by the idea of acknowledging emotions but also acknowledging their place.  I've been thinking a lot lately about my reactions to things being under my control (pretty much the only thing under my control btw) and how I can use that knowledge to care less.  Let me clarify.  I still want to love and care for my loved ones but I don't want to care when they do something I don't think they should.  Because, it's none of my biz-nas.  I've been trying to figure out how to acknowledge that I feel upset by their choice but then be done with it; to evict the feeling of disappointment -which isn't my business to even have-from my bod.  I feel like Rinpoche's article helps me think of my emotions in a different way.  What do you think?  Comment below!  

Real But Not True

 by Tsoknyi Rinpoche for the huffingtonpost.com 

When very strong emotions -- like fear, anger, or jealousy -- come up, it's very hard to resist giving up and giving into them.

For example, several years ago I was traveling on a very small airplane between Pokhara -- one of the lowland regions in central Nepal -- to Muktinath, a remote site high in the Himalayas. I was traveling to oversee the rebuilding of a Buddhist nunnery there, which had fallen into disrepair. The plane was supposed to depart at 8:00 a.m. in order to avoid the high winds that almost always develop later in the day. But in those days, airplane travel in Nepal was an uncertain prospect at best, and planes often departed hours later than they were supposed to. Eventually we left the airport, 3.5 hours after the plane was scheduled to depart and long after the winds had begun to blow.

As we flew between two huge mountains, our tiny plane was buffeted up and down by turbulence for almost half an hour. The few other passengers on board were screaming and crying, sure they were going to die. I applied a little method I hoped might steady me a bit: Instead of focusing on the movement of the plane, I looked out the window and focused on one of the mountains. But I must admit I was infected by the same fear that gripped the other passengers. Although we landed safely, I prayed that there might be another way to get back to Pokhara -- by car or bus -- but the only route in those days was flying. On the return trip, crammed in the same small plane with foreign tourists, I sweated so badly my robes began to get wet. I clutched the armrests tightly, and though doing so made me feel a little better, a part of me knew that no matter how tightly I clutched, it wasn't going to help if the plane really crashed.

The fear I felt on that return trip, however -- and the fear I felt for many years later, even when I was traveling on large commercial airliners -- was real, in the sense that I was fully experiencing it. However, as I looked back on each subsequent experience, I had to admit that it wasn't true. That is, it wasn't grounded in actual, present circumstances, but instead was triggered by residual memories of a past experience.

This sort of experience, in which fear or some other strong emotion arises in a context that doesn't necessarily warrant such a reaction -- or perhaps to a degree that isn't warranted by the actual circumstances -- that I've learned to engage in a little conversation with myself: "Yes, what you're feeling is real. I recognize and honor that. But this fear is not based on true conditions."  Continue on huffingtonpost.com