Pockets of Freedom, Encounters with Agitation

I have been thinking about what happens when we become the place where another person works out their unfinished emotional business.

Sometimes people carry agitation they don't recognize.

They walk into a room already irritated, frightened, defensive, impatient, lonely, restless or angry, and instead of noticing what is happening inside themselves, they begin interacting with the world from it.

They can even build narratives around it.

Questions become sharper.

Requests multiply.

Small inconveniences become conflicts.

In plain language, the person is saying:

I’m not self-regulating, and I want to give this to you, too.

They are not necessarily right.

They are not necessarily righteous.

They are dysregulated.

And they need somewhere to put it.

Like toxic waste being dumped from a ship, somebody else’s peace-building moment suddenly becomes the disposal site for another person's internal struggle.

Their shadow work gets placed in your lap.

I have experienced versions of this in workplaces, families, friendships, relationships, public spaces and ordinary encounters with strangers.

You can see it on the road.

Someone comes flying up behind you, changes lanes aggressively, revs an engine, short-stops another driver, apparently determined to dominate the commute home.

Fine.

Thou shalt pass.

Whatever battle you are fighting on Highway 12, please take it somewhere away from me.

But sometimes we can't simply let someone pass.

Sometimes we share a workplace, household, institution, family system or some other space where our choices are constrained.

That is where things become more complicated.

Hierarchy matters.

I am not at a place where I can peacefully look up at someone in the middle of their dysfunction and ask a beautifully insightful question that opens the door to their self-realization.

I wish.

The best I am usually capable of is creating distance.

Sometimes that means physically leaving.

Sometimes it means saying:

I’m trying to relax myself. Let's do this another time.

That is approximately my enlightened best.

But when someone believes another person has fewer choices—that they cannot leave easily, cannot object without consequences, cannot refuse without creating even more work—it becomes remarkably easy for unhealthy behavior to be tossed downward.

The person with less power becomes the receptacle.

Absorbing the customer.

Absorbing the supervisor.

Absorbing the family.

Absorbing the institution.

Absorbing the person who has not learned how to sit quietly with whatever is happening inside themselves.

I will kindly call some of this childish behavior.

Not because children are lesser.

Children are still learning something many adults never completely master:

I am having a feeling.

That does not mean everyone around me has to have it too.

Adults are supposed to develop some awareness of their own inner weather.

We don't always.

And when we don't, our garbage leaks.

Sometimes it trashes somebody else's whole being.

I used to think becoming healthier meant learning how to remain completely unaffected by those storms.

Observe, don't absorb.

Perfectly calm.

Perfectly detached.

A little Buddhist monk sitting serenely while the world crashes around me.

Lovely idea.

Not me.

I have learned that waves of dysfunction exist, and sometimes they will disrupt me.

Sometimes they will topple my boat.

Sometimes they will rip my sails.

Sometimes I will recognize what is happening quickly and choose distance.

That is my first instinct now: create distance.

Sometimes I won't recognize it.

Sometimes I cannot leave.

In constrained systems—families, workplaces, relationships, institutions and hierarchies—we can find ourselves with a front-row seat to somebody else's agitation or shadow self.

Eventually it can transfer.

Anyone who has watched a frightening movie and felt their body tense understands the basic mechanism. Human beings affect one another.

We have nervous systems designed to pick up information from the people around us.

That can keep a group safe.

It can also make dysfunction contagious.

And modern life gives that mechanism plenty to work with: families, workplaces, media, communities, institutions, religion, politics and every place those things intersect.

Sometimes I become angry.

Sometimes I react.

Sometimes I absorb too much before realizing what has happened.

Sometimes I don't recognize the wave until I am already underwater.

And remarkably often, whatever has pulled me underwater is something I had no power over and didn't care about five minutes earlier.

It isn't mine.

That has become one of my mantras.

It's not mine.

I say it at the beach.

I say it on my bike.

I say it at work.

I say it at home.

I say it while reading emails and moving through tasks.

It's not mine.

That creates emotional distance.

But sometimes emotional distance isn't enough.

Sometimes physical distance is constrained too.

And that is where I have become increasingly interested in the difference between a free choice and a constrained choice.

We like to speak about human decisions as though everybody stands in an open field with every direction equally available.

That isn't how life always works.

Money constrains choices.

Children constrain choices.

Employment, housing, debt, caregiving, geography, health, family and history constrain choices.

Technically, there may be ten doors.

That doesn't mean there isn't a refrigerator pushed against nine of them.

I have made many choices in my life under constraint.

I don't particularly like that realization.

I don't like hierarchy very much either.

I prefer relationships in which both people can say no.

I prefer work I can walk away from.

I try not to impose unnecessary hierarchy on my children.

I increasingly value relationships in which nobody needs another person to become smaller in order to feel secure.

I want freedom.

Not theoretical freedom.

Not you are technically allowed to leave freedom.

I mean the kind of freedom in which choices are genuinely available and the consequences of saying no do not become their own punishment.

I don't have complete freedom.

Most of us probably don't.

So lately I have become interested in pockets of freedom.

A room.

A bicycle ride.

Good coffee.

Music.

A painting.

An hour when nobody needs anything from me.

A closed door.

A stretch of water where I can get my boat upright again.

That may be what the painting accompanying this Field Note is becoming about.

A small vessel beneath something enormous.

Not controlling the sea.

Not commanding the wind.

Not pretending the waves cannot hurt it.

Simply moving when it can.

Repairing when it must.

And trusting that not knowing exactly where the water leads does not mean the journey has stopped.

Would I like to recognize dysfunction sooner?

Absolutely.

Would I like to step away before somebody else's agitation becomes mine?

Oh yes.

Would I like to be the perfectly detached monk who remains peacefully unaffected?

Sure.

But I'm not interested in turning that aspiration into another demand for perfection.

I have learned that waves of dysfunction exist.

Sometimes they will disrupt me.

Sometimes they will topple my boat and rip my sails.

I am only human.

What I have learned is that afterward, I still decide what to do.

These days, I make as many good choices as I reasonably can to keep my distance from dysfunctional performances.

Sometimes I succeed.

Sometimes I get soaked.

Then I get my boat upright again and decide what comes next.

Best I've got.

There is freedom in that too. Imperfect. Constrained by hierarchies and political and social pressure.

But it’s the best I can get these days.

This is not mine.

I step away.

This is not mine.

I let go.

This is not mine.

I turn away.

This is not mine.

I flow.

Emotional and physical distance then recover.

And give myself grace for being less than zen and just human.