I wish I could remember where I heard this term originally. I know it was in one of the many ceremony circles I’ve sat in. Whoever was holding the space told us that pain is like a hot potato, as soon as it reaches our hands we toss it to someone else to deal with. The metaphor ended there, but I’m thinking of it again this morning after an interaction I had with someone close to me.
They were standing in front of me; self-described as “squirming” in my presence. That familiar feeling that many of us have had, where we feel awful and just don’t know what to do about it. We writhe and text and doom-scroll and move in any way that we subconsciously think will alleviate us from the pain. As I write this, I realize it’s the denial phase of grief. Instead of turning toward what is hurting us we move away, reach for something else. In the worst-case scenario we toss it to someone else.
But it doesn’t really go away does it? There is no getting rid of anything. We just plant seeds and watch them grow.
That hot potato of harm you thought you were tossing to you partner, parent, or friend? Now not only do you hurt but they’re hurting too.
How do we hot potato our harm? We might yell at someone, cut them off in traffic, emotionally dump on them, say a rude comment — I think you get the picture.
We have all done it. There are few things I’m certain of but I think that statement might be true. It’s what we’ve been taught. It’s the kind of culture we live in. If you don’t like something, throw it out. If it’s not working for you anymore, get it out of your life. We may be able to toss our garbage out of our house, but if we’re really aware of how this world works we know it’s actually polluting the earth near our house in a thing we have designated a “landfill.” Eventually, we will have to deal with it.
The same thing can be said for our difficult emotions. They don’t actually go anywhere, we can’t actually get rid of them.
What we can do instead, is use these moments as an opportunity to come to know ourselves better. They are an invitation to learn how to love more. These difficult situations that we were taught to avoid are actually gifts in disguise.
After I came home this morning, I felt the ick of having picked up some of those sticky emotions. I put on a Grateful Dead playlist which nurtured my roots. I burned some incense and offered a smoke cleansing to myself, my ancestors, my guides. I grabbed the selenite egg from off of my desk and cut cords, gently scraping the edge of the crystal along various parts of my body. I put soft lights on and made some of my favorite tea. Within 15 minutes I felt at ease, peaceful, and back in my body again.
I looked in the mirror and thanked myself for taking care of me. I thought of writing this article. I sat to meditate, journal, and make breakfast. Because I was not yet done taking care of me.
How do we stop hot potato-ing the harm? That’s one of the key questions of karma. For those of you who don’t know, karma is a Sanskrit word that means “action.” It’s not a cosmic piggy bank that keeps tabs on every “good” thing you do or every “bad” thing you do.
Instead we can think of it as a spinning wheel.
The wheel of karma goes round and round. Someone makes us feel like shit, we automatically roll into whatever habit we’ve formed around that. Maybe you start to talk down to yourself about how you really *are* a piece of shit. Or maybe it’s the other way around and you think to yourself about how the *other* person is the real piece of shit. Instead maybe you just say, “Whatever that doesn’t bother me,” and you head off into a day so full of activity you don’t even have a moment to think about it. There’s drinking and smoking and scrolling and really any variation of distraction you can think of.
We feel the pain, we distract ourselves, the pain builds up, more harm is caused, we feel the pain again, distract ourselves, the pain builds up, more harm is caused, we feel the pain….you get it.
But, what the ancient traditions tell us (and now neuroscience has jumped on board too) is that we can feel the pain and then….pause. We can feel the pain. We can feel the pain. We can feel the pain.
Often just feeling the pain allows it to run out of energy, to dissipate. Sometimes, when we feel the pain we can see it has something to say. A need that hasn’t been met, a line that has been crossed, a feeling of being under-resourced in some way. Now we can start to get what we need.
This morning, I had told this person I wasn’t in a resourced place to help them hold their suffering. I told them I needed to get some space and take care of myself, but that I would return. Their fear kept me held there for 15 minutes longer. Finally, we parted ways.
In the old days, when I was much younger, I might have stayed there with them to do what I thought would be comforting. I would have overtaxed myself. Most likely I would have gone into my car and drove away, only to scream at drivers on the street. I would be snarky and rude. I would hate my job and be resentful of my co-workers. The harm would have been absorbed into me and amplified into the world.
What happened instead is that I let myself feel the pain. I let myself feel the pain of being unable to help someone else in their suffering. I let myself feel the pain of a rough night turning into a morning off to a rough start. I let myself feel the pain of how triggering relationships can be.
I held it in loving awareness, without trying to change it. I looked at it plainly in the face, without judgment or shame. And it receded back into me. Not like a dam of water ready to burst, but more like a wave back into the ocean.
The pain will come, it will visit me again. It always does. It will carve out caverns in my heart that sometimes will seem impossible to fill.
But if I just allow it, hold space for it, and create the conditions of care the emotional waters will ebb back into the vastness of my being. Leaving spaces within me to fill up with that much more love.
We stop harm by holding it. By allowing ourselves to feel it. Then to sit with it and see what it needs. Sometimes it’s rest, sometimes it’s space, sometimes it’s words of affirmation, sometimes it’s a loving boundary.
There is no “right” answer to suit every situation. That’s a mind-game we have been taught to try and keep ourselves safe, but it’s not working. Instead, what we can do is cultivate space, ease, and love. This is what I use my spiritual practice for.
Because in every situation space, ease, and love will allow the “right” answer for the situation to reveal itself.