Making Peace with Dread (The Personal Kind)

Recently I said something snarky and it got back to the person.For the whole day, I dreaded what would happen. When the worst did happen, I felt even worse: a slow, painful remembering of how imperfect I am, despite all the striving. And of how perfection is not even a thing, no matter how much I strive.
 

In a funny way, dread helped me. In fact, dread was the most helpful thing. Without dread, I wonder if I’d even have noticed, let alone cared. But with dread, and after making peace with dread, which took a minute, self-compassion emerged, and then a plan. And self-compassion plus a plan feels like a decent idea for this moment.

Transcript

Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 489. Welcome.

I woke up yesterday with a sense of dread. It felt like a hollowness inside. My throat was constricted and there was a lot of tension in my body. I took a few breaths and relaxed, but the dread continued. 

I was tempted to immediately assign it a story: dread about the world; dread about work; dread about the consequences of something I said recently – this last one in particular: I lost my temper and it got back to the person I was upset with. I was tempted to assign one of those stories to my dread but there were other stories, too, and as I laid there, ruminating, there were so many story choices that I could see that to jump to the story – any story – would be to try to immediately solve for the dread rather than practice with it and maybe even learn something from it.

Not assigning a story to the dread right in that moment, on the other hand, meant I had to look at the dread without a way to solve for it right then. Meaning, with curiosity. And with peace, really. And not only look at the dread, but look at the underlying causes for the dread…with those same qualities: curiosity, peace. Which meant that not only did I have to give up on not wanting the dread to have happened, but I also had to give up on not wanting the causes for the dread, to have happened. Because they did.

Instead of doing any of that right away, though, my mind went straight to irritation: I was irritated with myself for feeling dread; and then to singling myself out - “no one else probably has this, my partner (blissfully sleeping next to me right then), doesn’t have dread, why am I the only one?” So there was dread, aversion to dread, aversion to the underlying causes of dread, negative self-talk for having dread…and threaded through all of that, a desire for dread to end. All in the span of a second or two or three. 

In fact the whole process happened so fast that I felt lucky to have even noticed. Lucky, and, it made me wonder how many times dread has been present and either I haven’t noticed it or I’ve quickly (ostensibly) solved for it, or I’ve avoided looking at it, while also singling myself out for self-criticism for having it and for not solving for the underlying causes. Many, I’m guessing. 

Which isn’t a good thing – the not noticing, the aversion to the dread and the underlying causes – because then they turn into a kind of filter I don’t even know is there, and I’m speaking or acting through dread, or anger, or whatever, and my words, my actions, even my ideas, are filtered or infused with dread, or anger. Which is probably what happened all those times I didn’t notice. 

So not noticing isn’t a good thing. Noticing, on the other hand, is a good thing, even a lucky thing. But noticing, to be good, to be lucky, requires something else. The secret sauce, if you will: friendliness. At least for me, there has to be enough friendliness towards the moment, friendliness towards the state of mind, and also friendliness towards myself, to remember that all I’m seeing is what’s true (dread, the past causes of dread), that I don’t actually have a corner on dread or its underlying causes, and that we’re all, always, just doing our best, with the amount of wisdom and compassion and equanimity we have in the moment, with dread and with the causes of dread, the past events that gave rise to the dread. 

There are two Pali words for dread: hiri and ottopa. Hiri is prospective: it’s the dread that if I say or do a certain thing, it’ll cause harm. If it arises and I’m paying attention, I find it to be very instructive: it stops me from saying or doing the thing, until I can check in internally, or with someone else, to see if what I’m about to say or do will cause harm, and then pivot if it seems like it will. Ottopa is retrospective: it’s the dread of the harm that may arise, or is arising, when I’ve already said or done the thing. It’s the forehead-slapping moment.

Hiri didn’t happen, or I didn’t catch it, when I lost my temper last week. Lawyering happened. The story is that there’s a contractor who did a beyond-amazing job at our Tahoe cabin but since it was done, has consistently ghosted me. Which has sometimes just been annoying, but which last week wasn’t going to work because a plumbing issue arose on Friday and the water shut off. And there was no reply to texts or to calls. And what I didn’t do was STOP - stop, take a breath, observe that I was hopping mad, and then let hiri guide me as I proceeded. I just proceeded. Proceeded to call the condo manager and say something like, “Fine. I’ll just hire an outside plumber then, and go after the contractor’s state bond for reimbursement.” Lawyering happened. Such deep conditioning! But I only said it to the property manager…and she, thinking (she later told me) that it would be helpful, told the contractor.

So not hiri: the words were out of my mouth, but ottopa, alive and well. Because even though I wrote the contractor an apology, I still feel so much dread. Dread that I’ve caused harm – maybe even irreparable harm – if not to him, then at least to the relationship. 

And so, what a powerful practice moment. Waking up (literally and figuratively), feeling dread, believing it’s only me who has this, being upset with myself, trying to squirm away from the whole thing (I mean, I sent the apology after all), and finally letting go and just being dread-ful. Being full of dread, and knowing why – my flash of temper, of anger, of lawyerliness. As Pema Chodron says, being nailed. When I allowed dreadfulness to be what was happening, I felt nailed. 

In a good way, nailed, though: nailed to the present. To a moment of having to, and eventually being able to, say, “Ohhhhh, dread is like this. And a flash of temper lands like this.” Not, dread is theoretically like this, or philosophically might arise in that situation, but dread is right here, right now, unavoidable, and its underlying cause did happen, clear as a bell. And it’s ok, not because it’s ok to have harmed this person, but because there’s no other choice: this moment is ok because it’s the truth. And, I can do better.

In a way, I guess I feel like it’s a good, bigger, strategy for life right now. The moment is like this, and for me, there’s plenty of dread. The underlying causes are taking my breath away.  (And of course I have the privilege, at least as of now, to step back and say that – I’m not being shoved onto a flight. Yet.) It feels like a good strategy and even a kind of self-care, being able to say, “This moment is like this, dread is like this, a flash of anger feels like this, causes that, leaves that residue, is unfortunate but happened, happens, to the best of us. And is ok.” Is imperfect, is another way of saying it: the moment, the emotion, me, you, all of us, on both sides of the aisle. Which doesn’t let us off the hook – there is work to do done, there are apologies that need to happen, but at least this strategy feels to me like it places us all squarely in the very same boat, on this small planet earth we call home. Walking each other home, as Ram Dass said.