Pecking at Chunks

Pecking at Chunks
4-15-2016
 
I think of emotions as a hearty stew seasoning in a giant cauldron. The texture of the stew depends upon my emotional state. When I’m light and upbeat, my stew looks a lot like a natural thermal pool bubbling, popping, gurgling thickly. Something good is brewing and a sense of contained contentment permeates the top with heavier emotions hiding below the seemingly thin surface. When I’m angry, my stew rolls and boils. When frustration defines my mind, I flare up in spits and splatters like a spaghetti sauce that’s stirred after simmering for an hour.

Sometimes deeper emotions come to the surface and I’m faced with one of three choices. The most common and easiest choice is to blame the spoon that stirred these darker crusty feelings to the top. The next option is to quickly suppress the emotional flakes by stirring them back into the stew. The last resort is to take a slotted spoon and finally have a nice long look. I do all three and the point is to simply become aware of my emotional cooking process so my cauldron doesn’t spill over and burn other people. The miraculous part of this whole process is that once you begin to understand these feeling-specks and hunks, they eventually transform the flavor of the stew.

There is one caution though. The gunk at the bottom of the cauldron is, for most of us, seriously caked-on stuff. I’m not taking about the sticky resin emotions that get scraped up by deep stirs. I’m referring to the layers below that. These are the deepest darkest emotions. The core emotions that have been cooked over for so long that when they rise to the surface, they come up in chunks.

Core Emotional Wads (CEWs) pronounced ‘cues’ arise often when we least expect them. They’re tricky because they defy how we normally deal with our emotional burbles. CEWs are easily spooned out but these chunks require more than mere external examination. We have to peck at ‘em in order to incorporate them.

Pecking at Chunks is a practice in patience with resolution happening one tiny piece at a time. The good news is that when chunks become pieces that dissolve into the stew, the taste offers a sample of Eden. And that’s not even the best part!

When you have a chunk appear, you’re ready for it. You know the cauldron of yourself and already have an impeccable stew. All you need to do is take your time. You’re not a woodpecker so frenetically jabbing CEWs misses the point.  Deep core feelings require tender attention, focus and concentration. I know Pecking at Chunks sounds sharp and picky like an awl against a block of ice. In reality, it requires no more effort than stepping on the outer edges of an almost frozen puddle. Remember when your chunks surface, you’re ready to peck them slowly, effortlessly and perhaps with a little curious fun.

(Inspired from the teaching The Cauldron and The Spoon©)

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