Inviting Difficult Feelings for Tea

Photo by Chi Chen

It is easy to speak about peace when no one is challenging us. It is easy to speak about compassion when the person in front of us is kind. But when someone attacks, misunderstands, accuses, or lashes out, then we see the actual state of our practice.

Recently, I had an experience that brought this home. I called a dear friend whom I’d not spoken to for some time. She has been going through a difficult period and I wanted to reach out and let her know I was thinking of her. When she answered the phone, her voice didn’t sound right. Is she depressed? I thought. I felt concern.

Just as the conversation began, another call came in on my phone. The screen started blinking, a persistent beeping sounded in my ear, and I became distracted. I worried that if I pressed the wrong thing, I might disconnect everyone. In the confusion, I said I'd call her right back.

She said something like “don’t bother.” My stomach tightened.

I took the other call, and quickly called her back, but it went to voicemail.

Not long afterward, I received a text message from her that was very painful to read. It criticized me harshly.

My first reaction was distress. I felt terrible. The old questions arose: Did I do something awful? Am I a bad person? I could feel myself getting defensive. There was a wish to push it all away, and an impulse to blame her.

But I didn’t want to go in that negative direction. Instead, I sat with what was happening inside me.

Years ago, I read Stephen Levine’s A Gradual Awakening. One image from that book stayed with me. When difficult feelings arise, welcome them. Let them sit down. Invite them for tea. Spend time with them.

So, I let the feelings come. I felt them without looking away or pushing them down. There was pain, and I accepted it and remained there, breathing and feeling. There was fear, shame, hurt, and tightening. I breathed and allowed the feelings to be present.

Eventually, they changed.

Actually, they dissolved. I no longer felt the need to defend myself or attack her. Then I could see that her response was not simply about the interrupted phone call. Rather, it came from how she interpreted what had happened. She was in pain. It all made sense.

So I wrote back gently. I did not attack. I did not defend. I didn’t make myself wrong. I simply expressed sorrow that the situation had resulted in pain for her.

A friend later said that what I had done was validate her feelings without reacting negatively. I had not thought of it that way, but I think she was right.

When someone is in pain, that pain may be expressed outward and feel like an attack. If we respond with an attack, we reinforce the same old karma. The pattern continues.

This does not mean swallowing anger. That too is harmful. I have had the tendency to direct painful emotions inward, to turn them against myself. That is not the answer. But throwing them outward is not the answer either.

There is another way.

We can feel anger without becoming cruel. We can speak with strength without attacking. We can say, “I feel hurt,” or “I feel angry about what was said,” without saying, “You are terrible.” There is a great difference between expressing the truth and causing further harm.

This is one of the practical fruits of meditation. It gives us, little by little, the ability to be aware of our emotional and mental processes. Not perfectly. Not always. But more than before. We can pause. We can feel. We can breathe. We can choose not to make the pain worse.

The spiritual life is not about never feeling anger, sadness, fear, or shame. It is about allowing these energies to move through without identifying with them and without directing them into harmful action.

I once watched Swami Rama singing kirtan in Rishikesh. I stood near him, fascinated. As he sang, different expressions moved across his face. At one moment he looked angry, at another sad, then something else. The emotions seemed to flow through his body, but they did not stick. He was not bound by them. They were simply passing through.

That image has stayed with me.

Perhaps this is part of freedom: not the absence of feelings, but the absence of attachment to feelings.

Until we reach that freedom, we practice. We return to the breath. We feel what is present. We respond as wisely as we can. We try not to add more violence to the world.

And when difficult feelings come, we invite them for tea.