Part 1

Being human isn’t always easy. What makes navigating the human experience more graceful is understanding that experience is created from within. As the teachings of Sydney Banks and other non-dual spiritual teachers point to, we live in the experience of the thoughts we identify with. What we feel depends on the thinking we identify with. Therefore, the source of our emotional suffering can only be our own thinking.

This does not mean that other people's actions can’t be out of line. They can and they are at times. It doesn’t mean that we don’t take care of ourselves if we find ourselves in harm's way. It is our responsibility to do so by making self-honoring choices and setting healthy boundaries for ourselves. It does mean that our internal experience is not defined by what happens to us. It is rooted in our own thought system.

I use the example of being slapped in the face by someone while working. They were incredibly dysregulated and suffering. My face hurt from the slap. I called security, and I did not suffer one bit emotionally. I felt compassion. My lack of suffering does not condone the action of the person who hit me, but I am grateful that I didn’t take the act personally and suffer more.

If this was someone in my personal life who hit me, I might not be so neutral, but that would not be because of them. It would be the result of my thoughts at the time. The point is that recognizing our emotional experience comes from within does not support or condone harmful behavior. It simply recognizes the source of our personal experience.

Understanding our feelings are byproducts of our thoughts also doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have painful emotions. Our initial thoughts and feelings aren’t within our personal control, and they are all part of our health. We don’t need to control our thinking or our emotional experience because there is a deeper intelligence within us that orchestrates the unfolding of our healing. We don’t need to interfere with it. We can allow the wisdom in our design to let us stabilize.

What it does point to is our empowerment. We are not victims. We are creators of experience whether it be unconscious or conscious. That means if we are the source of our suffering we are also the source of our healing. We are not dependent on anyone or anything for an internal shift in our experience that changes everything.

How this relates to navigating intense feelings in relationships is when we understand our feelings are a reflection of our stirred-up mind, we then know how to take care of ourselves. If the mind is stirred up and dysregulated, we let the mind relax. There is no “one way” to do this. There is the way that makes sense in the moment. The way of self-kindness and self-compassion that allows us to be gentle with ourselves at that moment. When we know how to take care of ourselves when we feel intensely there is much less risk of us causing damage to the rapport in our relationship by discharging upset in harmful ways.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t talk about challenges or resolve problems. It just means you don’t need to do it from a place of internal upset. The capacity to hold space for ourselves when we are in emotional suffering is empowering. It is normal to want someone else to be able to hold space for us when we are emotionally dysregulated, but they may or may not be available. And if our emotional dysregulation is having us behave in ways that are painful for our partner it is not recommended to damage rapport in this way.

Self-regulation is part of our design. We are designed to come back into balance and harmony so it is not difficult when we understand our role is simply to allow the intelligence within us to bring us back into internal harmony and balance. There is really nothing to do other than be kind to ourselves while we ride the experience out.

Angus and I went through an experience like this recently. It was over something very minor and silly, but for some reason I dropped into a really low mood and felt really angry with him in a way I hadn’t felt in years. It was over nothing, but I had a major inner reaction.

It happened at the beginning of a work-cation. We had the opportunity to do one of our relationship intensives with a couple in the desert so we thought we would use it as a getaway for ourselves. Angus had booked the Airbnb for us. When we got there it was much smaller than expected. We had to drive miles on a very bumpy dirt road that was bone-jarring in our car and the final straw for me was that there was no wifi and poor cell reception and I had some work to do while we were away in terms of video uploads and other internet-related things. So I would have to go somewhere else to work rather than be able to get things done in the comfort of where we were staying.

I felt furious. I knew my experience was extreme for the situation, but I couldn't stop identifying with all my angry thoughts. Internally I was fuming. To make matters worse after we finished work that day, the best place we found with internet was an Applebees full of screaming children. My thoughts weren’t stopping and they revved up with the computer software told me it was going to take three hours to upload the video. I was furious. Angus knew I was furious. I wasn’t able to get over myself even though I wanted to and knew I should. I did complain a bit but knew it was best to keep my mouth shut as much as possible. I just told Angus I was in a really low mood.

After eating and getting the work done we went back to the Airbnb and I lay outside on a lounge chair and looked up at the stars. Angus let me know he was there for me if I needed him, but he was going to go to sleep. I lay under the stars and slowly I started to feel my mind relax. I still didn’t feel great, but the raging fury inside of me started to settle down enough so that I was able to go to bed and funnily enough slept really well.

When I woke up the next day I felt fine. We were able to laugh about the experience and acknowledge ourselves for both handling things way better than we did in the past. And from a more settled stable state of mind the Airbnb wasn’t that bad after all and the hotspot seemed to work well enough for basic things like email.

Our poor car was probably not happy with the choice, but we decided to stay put.

The reason this experience didn’t devolve into something much more painful is that Angus didn’t take my low mood personally. He knew I would eventually stabilize. I also knew I couldn’t trust my thinking so I just let myself go through the experience with some indulgence of my judgmental thoughts toward Angus, but I kept them to myself. And what was probably most impactful for me is I didn’t judge myself for being in a low mood. I didn’t go down the rabbit hole of telling myself I shouldn’t feel the way I did or of making meaning up about my low mood. I just had to ride it out. This resulted is less collateral damage.

Eventually my nervous system settled. I was no longer gripped by my low mood thoughts and I found myself feeling good again and able to be close to Angus.

This is a trivial example, but even with something like this, in the past I would have caused a lot more damage to my relationship with Angus by acting out from my feelings of anger and hurt.

And the same principles apply if there were a more serious challenge.

• Our experience of upset comes from within.
• It is not within our control.
• Emotional upset and reactivity are temporary.
• There is nothing wrong with us for having intense feelings even when they feel out of proportion to the situation.
• We can’t think our way out of our upset.
• We will always stabilize.
• When we are upset our first priority is to take care of ourselves.

Understanding this helps our intense feelings to be less scary and helps us to be kind with ourselves as we go through them. It also makes it less likely for us to discharge our upset on someone else.

When we are suffering emotionally we are up against our own limiting beliefs and misunderstandings. No one else can fix that. Nothing outside of us will change that. Our healing is to wake up from what is not true so we can experience what is true.

When we have come back to ourselves and are in our right mind, we can then assess if anything else is needed to be done. Sometimes there is. Sometimes there isn’t.

For Angus and me all that was needed was to enjoy our time in the desert and our work with our clients.

Although we did decide that I was the better person to make our Airbnb bookings going forward.

If you would like to listen to the Rewilding Love Podcast, it comes out in a serial format. Start with Episode 1 for context. Click here to listen. And, if you would like to dive deeper into the understanding I share along with additional support please check out the Rewilders Community.

Rohini Ross is co-founder of “The Rewilders.” Listen to her podcast, with her partner Angus Ross, Rewilding Love. They believe too many good relationships fall apart because couples give up thinking their relationship problems can’t be solved. In the first season of the Rewilding Love Podcast, Rohini and Angus help a couple on the brink of divorce due to conflict. Angus and Rohini also co-facilitate  private couple's intensive retreat programs that rewild relationships back to their natural state of love. Rohini is also the author of the ebook Marriage, and she and Angus are co-founders of The 29-Day Rewilding Experience and The Rewilders Community. You can follow Rohini on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. To learn more about her work and subscribe to her blog visit: TheRewilders.org.