A Druid Thurible

What we put into the waters of life go everywhere. ~ Phyllis Curott

I heard this great quote from Phyllis Curott on her Instagram account this morning and it really got me thinking about my own emotional hygiene; how well – or badly – I tend my emotions. I have been setting aside ten minutes every day to do a body scan exercise, simply focusing my attention briefly on every part of my body in turn, from my toes to the top of my head, in an attempt to help regulate my nervous system and shift me away from spending so much time in fight or flight. I have also been performing a yoga breath technique every day too.

Both have been enormously helpful exercises – I have turned to them many times in my life but I had gotten out of the habit, and re-engaging has illustrated, yet again, the value of engaging with our para-sympathetic nervous system on the daily. After three weeks of these practices, I can feel the change in my body; that background anxiety – like an idling engine pumping out toxic emotional fumes – is less present in my day, and my body feels so much more comfortable and safe.

Phyllis’s quote made me think of how our emotional state not only impacts on our own health and well-being, but of how it can also breech the boundary of our inner life like unwelcome and destructive flood waters, seeping out into the lives of others. I have been guilty of this in my own life many times, I am sorry to say. I am currently around it in the actions of a person close to me, and this has been a valuable lesson for me in reminding myself of the importance of regularly checking in with the way I am handling my emotions.

I suspect we have all known folks who dominate a room with their emotional stuff: the angry complainers; the emotional manipulators; the gossips; the litanies of ills and grievances, those weirdly one-way conversations where we get the sense that someone is talking at us, not with us. It can feel very draining. I also suspect that this way of communicating is fueled by a deeper, more hidden need. Sometimes this is a desire for love and attention that can so often prove counterproductive: most folks dread being on the receiving end of this kind of psychological dumping.  

We all need love when we are going through tough times; we all need a supportive listening ear to bear witness to our pain and struggle; we all need good advice from a valued friend –  but, we also have a responsibility to ourselves, to recognize when we are not tending our own emotions in healthy and self-loving ways, and how this – if we do it habitually – can poison the waters for others. What we put out into the world impacts the whole, and so being mindful of the style and content of what, and how, we communicate can be one of our greatest life-lessons. I certainly think it has been one of mine.

Emotional self-reflection and self-awareness are not easy practices because we all have our own infuriating blind-spots; looking straight into the face of our foibles can feel like being caught in Medusa’s gaze – and because of this, we can spend a lot of energy avoiding it. For me, so much of my spiritual journey has been a psychological one: I want to know and understand myself more deeply that I might be a contributing factor in the world becoming a better place for all. I tend to think that if we all did the work on ourselves, then the collective condition might improve immeasurably. It’s worth a go at least. However, it takes a lot of self-compassion; and empathy and patience with others, especially when our waters get muddied by their untended and unrecognized issues. When this happens, some good old-fashioned healthy boundaries are a must.

And so, for the good of all who know me, and for those who don’t, I am going to keep asking myself ‘what am I currently placing in the waters of life?’ I am looking to my own well, to clear those weeds that any stagnant waters might run clear and fresh again; I am treating those waters like a sacred sacrament.