“So what brings you here today?” the therapist asked me.
I was seventeen and in full emotional burnout. Multiple therapy sessions helped me uncover an unhealthy cocktail of my sensitive nature, a self-inflicted pressure not to disappoint my parents, a deep misunderstanding of what God was asking of me, and an honest desire to help people. Combined, those elements led me to a dark place.
That experience was the beginning of a lifelong struggle with emotional management. How do I embrace my sensitivity and serve others while letting go of faulty expectations and setting appropriate boundaries? That’s a balance I’ve wrestled with for thirty-six years, but now I have tools that make managing my emotional health much easier. I’ve written about some of them previously, including benevolent detachment, sabbath, and Rule of Life.
Recently, I learned of a concept I’m now trying to implement—choosing your emotions. Many of us think of emotions as uncontrolled responses to external stimulus or circumstance. But as the old adage reminds us, while we can’t control much of what happens to us in life, we can control how we respond to it. I’m coming to understand that not only refers to our actions but also our emotions.
Cynthia Bourgeault, an episcopal priest and teacher emerita at the Center for Action and Contemplation, puts it this way:
In the psychological climate of our own times, our emotions are almost always considered to be virtually identical with our personal authenticity, and the more freely they flow, the more we are seen to be honest and “in touch.” A person who gravitates to a mental mode of operation is criticized for being “in his head”; when feeling dominates, we proclaim with approval that such a person is “in his heart.”
In the Wisdom tradition, this would be a serious misuse of the term heart. Far from revealing the heart, Wisdom teaches that the emotions are in fact the primary culprits that obscure and confuse it. The real mark of personal authenticity is not how intensely we can express our feelings but how honestly we can look at where they’re coming from and spot the elements of clinging, manipulation, and personal agendas that make up so much of what we experience as our emotional life today. . . . (CAC Daily Meditation June 22, 2022)
Cynthia Bourgeault
In the podcast Achieve Your Goals, Hal Elrod shares a technique he learned in a high pressure sales job. When an important sale would fall through, he’d allow himself to feel the disappointment, anger, and frustration for five minutes, then let it go and choose to be happy and hopeful. He then expanded that practice to choosing the emotion that best served him in every situation, be that joy, peace, confidence, anger, hopefulness, courage, or energy. My early attempts with this technique have been mixed, but I’ve seen enough success to believe in its potential.
Effective emotional management helps me avoid drifting along in passive response mode, allowing me to be aware of my emotional reactions to external stimuli, and actively choose my response. I look at my emotions as objectively as I can, determining where they came from and if they are serving me. I try to “feel the feels,” but not be controlled by them. Learning to embrace the full range of my emotions without letting them define me, then choosing a healthy emotional response, is an ongoing journey.
How’s your emotional health these days? Are you buffeted by uncontrolled responses to whatever life throws at you? Acknowledge and experience your emotions. Examine them. Identify what’s driving your feelings. Then try to choose the emotions that serve you well. If you do, you’ll find a more peaceful life and take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
Sometimes I struggle with what to write in this blog. It’s not usually for a lack of content. The difficulty lies in choosing which content would be most helpful for my readers – people who are working to become better emotional, mental, and spiritual versions of themselves.
I faced that dilemma a few months ago (July 2019) when I decided to write a post that was outside my norm. I did it because I believed the message was an important part of our collective journey toward “becoming ourselves.” I encouraged readers to do something for others by signing the Barmen Today Declaration. I encourage you to read that post first, but here’s an excerpt from what I wrote:
“What is the Barmen Today Declaration?… in short, it’s a statement that provides a simple way for you to stand with people who are suffering and marginalized. A simple way for you to make your voice heard in a call for unity and healing. A simple way for you to say that every human matters and has inherent dignity and value regardless of class, gender, orientation, race, or religion. A simple way for you to say you stand for love vs. hate, compassion vs. apathy, and hope vs. fear. This is not a statement in favor of any particular political party or religion. This is a statement about the kind of world you want to live in and are willing to fight for.”
After posting that four months ago, I moved on and continued writing about things I hoped would be helpful to you in reaching your personal development goals. Then a few weeks ago, a surprising thing happened – one of the authors of the Barmen Today Declaration, Susan Stocker, contacted me saying she’d read my post and thanked me for it. We exchanged emails in which I invited Susan to write a guest post to share what inspired her to write the Declaration. I am honored to say that she accepted.
What follows is the first of a two-part story in her own words. Please remember that while there is a political reference, the message of this post and the Declaration is NOT about a particular political party – this transcends politics, addressing the essence of who we are all called to be as individuals as well as the kind of global community we seek to build. If you find yourself tuning out, I encourage you to read the Barmen Today Declaration before making your judgement. Whatever your political affiliation, I hope you find Susan’s words as helpful and motivating as I did on your journey toward Becoming Yourself.
Susan’s Story…
It didn’t start pretty. I know this because it started with what I refer to as “my scream.”
In the spring of 2018, I happened upon the book published the summer before by the Yale Conference on The Duty to Warn. This conference was a group of experts in mental health, law, and theology. The duty they perceived: warn the people of the United States about an imminent threat. The name of the book: The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump. I read the book. I didn’t sleep for three days. I couldn’t figure out what to do, but I knew I absolutely had to do something.
Finally, I realized I needed a team. I was a student of The Living School of The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. That’s where I would find kindred spirits for whatever must be done. My scream was a plea for help on the Living School Facebook page.
Roy answered first, a lawyer and community organizer from Maryland who had worked mostly in conservation. Then Leslye, a Catholic worker from Alabama; Amari, who worked at Rutgers in New Jersey; Enrique who taught in Texas; Scott, a minister and educator from Florida and Washington State. Lastly, my friend David, who said, “If you’re starting a revolution, sign me up.”
We emailed and texted. Amari got the idea we needed a Zoom account so we could see and talk to each other. Scott, the primary author of Barmen Today, had studied the original Barmen Declaration and felt we could use it as a template for a statement of our commitment to contemplative resistance.
Our only commonality was we were each involved with The Living School. We were from all over the United States, five of us born in the United States, three of us activists, four of us educators, two legally trained, three church workers, and I’m a Marriage and Family Therapist. (All of us fit multiple categories!)
We all felt that Scott was divinely guided as he wrote the basis of Barmen Today. That, of course, didn’t stop the rest of us from wanting to weigh in, add this or that, and emphasize or diminish various points. We all agreed, though, the statements must be positive and FOR something instead of negative and AGAINST anything.
It took us four months. Finally, we sent copies to Richard Rohr, Jim Finley, and Cynthia Bourgeault, then held our breath. Would our teachers and mentors be with us on this journey? All three of the core faculty of The Living School quickly signed and endorsed Barmen Today.
We made plans to launch it at our August 2018 gathering where three of us would graduate from The Living School. Two of us had already graduated, and two were entering the program at the August convocation. Enrique put together a beautiful three-minute slide presentation he designed explaining Barmen Today. We had this running during the days of the gathering. Leslye created promotional cards for us. Roy had copies of the Declaration printed and also prepared a large display to attract the attention of the 600 attendees.
In his address to the graduates, Richard Rohr held up a promotional card, talked about how proud he was of Barmen Today, and called it “ours,” meaning belonging (at least in spirit) to The Living School. We left Albuquerque with a few hundred signatures and felt fortunate and energized. We continued working.
Alana Levandoski, a professional musician, read the Declaration and wrote a song, Divine Obedience, based on the meat and meaning of Barmen Today (find it on Youtube). Enrique and a professional translator friend of his translated Barmen Today into Spanish. David used Barmen Today at his church with great results, getting, as he says, “the elephants” out in the open. Roy has done a number of interviews explaining why Barmen Today is so necessary and timely.
We have wrestled repeatedly with what to “do” with Barmen Today. So far, we have followed David’s wisdom and simply opened our hands and offered it to the flow of Spirit to do with as Spirit will.
None of the seven of us feel any ownership of Barmen Today. We welcome and encourage all who are motivated to use the ideas and content (properly cited, of course) for education, discussion, meditation, contemplation, and prayer.
Our deepest hope is that Barmen Today stands as a testament to love and compassion, a template for healing division and hatred, a guide for promoting and protecting human dignity, and a reminder of our responsibility as stewards of creation.
We are approaching 30,000 signatures. If you, too, “want to remain faithful to both the Divine which we seek to understand and the Love which we seek to live,” please join us.
Susan Stocker is a blogger, novelist, and Marriage and Family Therapist with Masters degrees in Communication and Counseling. She served as a mental health ambassador to China in 1998 and has volunteered with the Alzheimer’s Association, American Cancer Society, and many other organizations. Her published works include Only Her Naked Courage (2013), Heart 1.5 (2013), The Many Faces of Anxiety (2013), The Many Faces of PTSD (2010), and Heart (1981), as well as her blog The Many Faces of PTSD (manyfacesofptsd.wordpress.com). She is on a lifelong journey toward Becoming Herself. You can contact her at sraustocker@yahoo.com.
