11 Nov “The Sea Was Angry that day my friends…
…like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli” -George Costanza, Seinfeld
What do anger and other strong emotions have to do with the ocean? We can learn a lot about how to manage these strong emotions by observing waves in the ocean. If we are in the wave and being tumbled about, we lose all perspective. We are being thrust about and it feels like a long time before that wave finally comes out to sea. If we are standing at the shoreline, however, we have the perspective that each wave has its own life, there are big waves and small waves, and each comes to shore with another one right in back of it. When it comes to emotions we want to be more like the observer of our emotions where we can recognize – “oh, here’s anger/sadness/shame I recognize that it’s there and I can help it become calmer until it’s ready to leave me”
Some tools to help deal with strong emotions:
Mindful breathing: We always have our breath available to us. We can be purposeful in taking our breath from our belly instead of our chest. We can take a deep in-breath for 3-5 counts, then hold that breath 3-5 counts then exhale for 4-6 counts. With the exhale you can imagine you are exhaling through an imaginary straw to slow down the exhale.
Grounding: When we experience trauma, we “leave” or disassociate from our body because it doesn’t feel safe to be in our body at that moment. When we are feeling a strong emotion we don’t want to leave our body – we want to ground ourselves back into our body and let our body, in all its infinite wisdom help us. A simple grounding technique that you can do either seated or standing is to notice both feet on the floor and take notice of your surroundings in the room you are in. Notice – are their pictures in the room? a window? A bookcase? Take a mental note. Doing this simple noticing of your surroundings grounds you into the room, into the present moment, and not distracted by thoughts in your head about whatever it is you have a strong emotion about.
Somatic Experiencing: Taking a deep inhale and when exhaling saying the word “voo” as a long sounding “vooooooo” with a long exhale. This is similar to a long “amen” or “om” which has been around for centuries. There is are good reasons why chanting like this makes us feel so good. Beyond the spiritual reasons, physiologically we are sending a different message to the brain which shifts the nervous system into a much more balanced state and calms us. 