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“Feel the feelings, drop the story,” was a sort of refrain at the meditation center I used to attend, and it both sounded wise and confused me. After all, weren’t my feelings and the story I told myself around them closely connected? For example, wasn’t I mad because my editor was being a jerk, therefore my feelings (frustration) were a reaction to the story (jerkiness)?
Then I learned another the Buddhist concept of the double arrow. It comes from a parable:
The Buddha once asked a student, “If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?” The student replied, “It is.” The Buddha then asked, “If the person is struck by a second arrow, is that even more painful?” The student replied again, “It is.” The Buddha then explained, “In life, we cannot always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. And with this second arrow comes the possibility of choice.
My interpretation: we can’t go through life without the first arrow, which is the pain we feel because life can be hard: we experience rejection, grief, disappointment, sadness, etc. Sometimes, we get sick. We lose someone we love. We mess up and hurt someone and feel awful about it. These things legitimately suck and genuinely hurt. That’s the first arrow, and there’s no way to avoid it without being a total zombie.
The second arrow is that story we weave around the pain, the arrow we shoot at ourselves, the extra baggage we layer on around the original wound. The guilt, the fear, the beating ourselves up, and the general giving ourselves a hard time.
I’m an expert at the second arrow, which I think of as feeling angry about being angry or stressed about my stress.
I might feel exhausted these days, from being the mom of a very busy toddler and having so much work on my plate, a book about to come out, another baby brewing in my belly (the size of a pomegranate, this week!). That’s the first arrow. It’s real, but the second arrow is worse. It’s the one that says I have no right to be tired, or grumpy, because I am incredibly lucky, and I need to suck it up and just handle things better. It tells me to get over myself, I have plenty of help, but then tells me I am lame for needing so much help.
The second arrow is all that chatter in my head, which is often harsh and rarely helpful. It’s usually judgy, mean and small-minded. It sounds like obsession, or like shame.
I think a big part of avoiding that second arrow starts with simply acknowledging the first one. That takes a whole lot of gentleness and acceptance around life stuff, which doesn’t come naturally to me. It means lots of deep breaths, sharing with somebody kind, walking through discomfort, and feeling a lot of messy feelings.
So if that first arrow is the feeling, the second arrow is the story.
It’s not about denying our pain but accepting it, feeling it, and walking through it rather than around it. Then we get to respond mindfully rather than react impulsively. We get to pause before lobbing additional arrows. And not make extra pain for ourselves, because life is hard enough.
PS I’m not claiming to be great at this, or even competent at this! It’s something I’m working on verrrrry slowly.
PPS My second book Plenty: A Memoir of Food and Family is an Amazon First Read pick this month, which means prime members can get it early and for a big discount. Scoop it up, and bonus points and so much love for you if you write a few kind words about the book on Amazon or Goodreads.