One jar of pain...paper or plastic?

How is it that when I’m having a bad day, my daughter always seems to be in a mood? Something is always wrong. Something always hurts. Someone in school has always been mean. The sulks skulk, the scowls surface, the grumbles growl. But enough with the alliteration. Does this happen to you as well? And how does it always happen when the day has been particularly rough and when we’re holding on to the last shreds of patience and energy? Why does it seem like we have to comfort or cheer another when we ourselves need comforting or cheering up?

Hate to admit this, but on days that have been particularly bad for me, I have sometimes felt a dread of apprehension while picking up my child, almost knowing in advance that she is going to be sulky and that there will be tussles in our evening ahead. And there probably were.

But now I am beginning to understand that I am the one probably responsible for her moodiness. That it is a result of her feeding into my energy. A result of her noticing that Mom doesn’t feel great and as a result, she doesn’t either.

I suspect she may have been tuned in to me, my sense of well-being and the lack thereof for a long time. What a horrible horrible thought. As a mother, I wish I could take a cloth and wipe off the pain that was never hers in the first place, the burden she may have carried that was never hers to carry.

To make matters worse, when we don’t feel good, we don’t necessarily take it slow. No, not some of us. We will plod through activities with a zeal we really don’t have. And the struggle with which we do tasks, may be enough to make a child, spouse or others around us plenty grumpy.

Once as I pulled the car out of the garage in reverse, my daughter complained, “I really don’t want to go to whatever activity it was today”. I braked and said, “I really don’t want to take you to whatever activity it was today”. I changed gear and drove straight back into the garage. We went inside and spent the rest of the evening on the sofa, cuddled in our blanket, each reading our own book. It sounds so peaceful now. But it was probably the only time I followed my gut wisely enough to do so. The rest of the times, I probably scuttled myself and her around.

Agreed, we often go through our day, and activities based on a certain perception of what our day ought to look like. Whether or not we have the strength for it; whether or not it makes us joyous or grumpy. Agreed, we lead connected lives and we feed into each other’s joy and in turn grumpiness.

These day, I try (not always successfully) to just take a break and lay down on the sofa and tell my girl that I just need a 10 min break, rather than scuttle about, be grumpy and make her grumpy.

These days, I try (not always successfully) to explain to my girl that my pain is only my pain, and that she does not have to share any of the fatigue, or ennui. That even if I feel ‘blah’, she does not have to feel so. She mostly looks at me with the somewhat familiar, “my mom is weird; my mom says weird things; what the heck is she talking about”. Sigh… I somewhat agree with her even.
But I do believe we need to figure out how to not borrow each other’s pain. How to empathize without sucking it into ourselves, without getting sucked up by it. Ekharte Tolle refers to it as “pain body”. Some people have more of this pain body than others (circumstances, childhood, past, etc). And we sense each other’s pain bodies. He talks about acknowledging it but not getting swept away by its drama (if I remember right, of course).

I also remember reading a similar bit of advice by Sri Sri Ravishankar, “to join in with other people’s celebrations and to keep away from their sorrows” (paraphrased). At first, it sounded somewhat selfish, and even confused me, but now I see the wisdom in it. I suppose it is possible to support others in their time of sorrow, without getting sucked into it.

And perhaps I am twisting the meaning from their wise words to apply it to my life. To apply it to my little eight-year-old’s life, who may or may not understand what I’m trying to tell her. But someday, I hope she will understand. And someday, I hope she will be able to practice it. Whether or not her mother has ever learnt to do so in her lifetime.