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I was in Manhattan last week, and had an epiphany while waiting for the #1 train downtown. I watched an uptown train pull into the subway station, load its passengers, and then rush back out again. Whirrrr! The lights, the sound, the increasing velocity—the train sped into the dark tunnel and disappeared. I had work to do, relationships to attend to, decisions to make, as usual.
I’d like my worries to speed like that train into the tunnel, I thought. Just swoosh themselves right out of the station.
I never liked the subway when I lived in New York, the dirt and crowds and noise. But on that afternoon, the speeding-away train appeared a great visual metaphor, the perfect image of what it might be like to notice one’s own negative thoughts and feelings as they enter, sit calmly on the still platform, and watch them rush back out.
I was thinking about this because I was holding a dog-eared paperback on my lap that I’ve been reading, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, by Buddhist teacher Michael A. Singer. He writes about the idea that your true self is the one who observes your inner and outer world, not the specific details or disturbances that you see.
In the meditation and mindfulness traditions, overly identifying with our outer circumstances or inner thoughts and feelings is the cause of a great deal of unhappiness. I've certainly experienced this in divorce.
Singer writes about the power of stepping back, observing both the outer world and your inner chattering monologue, and making the decision to free yourself from the distraction of your own “mental melodrama:”
“Consciousness is a tremendously powerful force. When you concentrate on these thoughts and emotions, they become charged with energy and power. This is why thoughts and emotions get stronger the more attention you give them . . . It just takes a moment of conscious effort to decide that you’re not going there. You just let go.”
The notion that we can “just let go” crops up in many traditions. Judaism has a “tashlich” ceremony at the start of the High Holy days. You toss bread into the ocean or river, or other convenient body of water, symbolically releasing your sins and concerns with it. Many Western and Eastern religions have a cleansing ritual, a way to wash away impurities before prayer or some specific act.
We see this idea in pop culture, too. I think of that song from the 1950 Pulitzer prize winning Broadway musical South Pacific, ”I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair.” In this Rodgers and Hammerstein entertainment-world version of “just let go,” a heartsick Nellie steps out of her dressing chamber onto the sand, a minidress wrapped around her bikini, lathers up her blond curls and bursts into song: “I’m gonna wash that man right outta my hair, and send him on his way.”
There’s an intuitive logic—or appeal, at least—to the idea that we can instantly wash away a stain or smirch or dark and thorny rumination. I’ve written a lot here about the benefit of cognitive behavioral therapy, communication techniques, and positive coping mechanisms. But I also love the idea that sometimes we need to practice just letting go of the thoughts that are making us miserable. Rather than giving them more credence by continually trying to work through them or figure them out, we can let them rush away.
As we’re going through divorce, and on with our lives, sometimes “working” on our problems can best be done by not focusing on them, and instead letting them speed out of frame.
For more ideas about coping, thriving and bouncing back after divorce, please check out Splitopia.com.
