Emotional Pollution

I was in Briones Regional Park on my birthday, walking, feeling peaceful after listening to an audiobook by Eckhart Tolle. Three doggie visits into the walk, the bliss kept deepening, their puppy smiles and sweetness filling me up. My phone chimed with Facebook alerts, all happy birthday wishes. Life is good, I thought.

My mom called to say Happy Birthday. Then she got all instructional about how to take care of myself (because at 47, I apparently still don’t know how) and judgmental about my sisters (because that’s how she is). Since I can’t talk her out of her negativity, I kindly excused myself from the conversation – yay me! Still, a little emotional pollution got in. I refocused on the now, the woods, finding and photographing trees that look like they have faces.

I could hear a jogger coming, her footfalls, rhythmic and stomping as she loudly fought with her boyfriend on the phone. I heard her complaining about how he treats her, his negative judgment about her weight. She passed me. She was skinny and fit. And she was flooded with anger which leaked into the forest, into the trees, into me. I felt slimed. Once again, I redirected myself to the present moment, the music of the birds, the excitement of the squirrels in a bounty of acorns. I felt almost better.

As I came to the end of the trail, the jogger was there, stretching, still fighting, even louder. She didn’t know it was my birthday. Didn’t know she was in my "church." Didn’t know her hostility was polluting me (or even that it was polluting her). I wanted to tell her to hang up, to stop running, to slow down and see how beautiful the world is, and she is. I wanted to hug her till she calmed down. Instead, I hugged myself till I calmed down. It was all I could do.

Driving home, I was still upset, and all the upsetting things my mind could find started joining in the chorus. Eckhart Tolle was on the CD player, talking about being in the now. You can’t have problems if you are truly in the now, he said with his German accent. Clearly, I was not in the now. Or maybe I was. Maybe the sensation in my body, feeling slimed, was the now I was not accepting. Eckhart Tolle said to take action if I could or to accept reality if there is no action to take.

The action I could take in that moment was to keep hugging myself, to breathe in pain and breathe out love as the Buddhists instruct. It worked. But I had to work it, training my mind, like a puppy, to be in the now, to be in loving presence with myself. Like the jogger, like my mother, I had to get myself off the phone with the part of me who thinks life should be different, that I shouldn’t have to deal with slime in my church, on my birthday. Shoulds, clearly indicating that I am not accepting reality.

I leaned into the present moment. There was a tightness in my chest, my sympathetic nervous system still processing out the chemicals that arose in reaction to my mother and the jogger. I helped it along, reaching inward with an invisible hand, massaging the tightness. I’m so sorry this doesn’t feel good. I told myself. I will stay with you until it feels better.

At home, I went back in my mind to the start of the walk, the smell of the bay laurel, the coolness within the shade of the trees, the baby plants sprouting after the first fall rains. I remembered the dogs, all tail wags and love. My chest eased.

Then I remembered on my way out of the park, a man carried some trash to a can in the parking lot. I don’t know if it was his trash. It could be that he found some trash in the park and decided to throw it away, even though it wasn’t his. And in that moment, I put my emotional trash in there too.