😬 Curiosity vs Unpleasantness

The Book of TREE 1.54

I have written about 1 2 3 categories of response to life’s unpleasantness. This post is about what to do before you respond.

Here’s what I recommend:

Be curious.

When you are in pain or feeling uncomfortable, the loudest voice voice in your head is the one shouting, Make it stop!

But, unless the discomfort is being caused by a honey badger eating your leg, you don’t need to make it stop right now. You have time to be curious.

What, specifically, am I feeling?

Where am I feeling it? This is both an interior and exterior question.

When do I feel it?

What event(s) is this feeling connected with?

Follow the discomfort back to its source and find out what’s going on before you decide what to do. It’s pretty common for life’s unpleasantness to be nonspecific or to feel like it’s something other than what it is at first. So start by giving your curiosity a chance to do its thing.

Update: An incident on Sunday reminded me that sometimes curiosity comes after the event. I walked into the Stroud Tesco for the first time and had a mild anxiety attack. It was very busy. It was noisier than most Tescos. I think that was because of its long narrow shape and lower than normal ceiling. Christine asked me if I wanted an avocado. I always want an avocado, but it wasn’t on the list and I was having a mild anxiety attack, so I said, ‘I’m in a new shop. It’s busy. I can’t think about avocados.’ I had no curiosity while I was in Tesco. All my energy was focussed on getting the things on the list and leaving the trolley and running. I succeeded. As soon as I was outside I regained the brain capacity to be curious about what was going on.

My point is that November 2023 Jeff must have been super chill and may have forgotten how mentally demanding even rather small unpleasantnesses can be.

Grow slowly
Jeff