Emotional Balance

Lords was awash with red yesterday on the second day of the Ashes Test Match. Red caps, red shirts and even red adverts marked the Ruth Strauss Foundation, which, as we’ve heard, former England captain Andrew Strauss has established to commemorate his wife, who died of lung cancer. As well as raising money for research, Strauss wants to encourage openness about death and grief, especially among men. 

Several sportsmen have chosen to open up publicly about their mental health issues, and I applaud the growing belief that it’s better to share experiences like grief or depression than to bottle them up. But I also wonder if, in appreciating openness and emotional sensitivity, we may sometimes cease to value traditionally masculine qualities like courage and fortitude. Lasting sporting achievements – perhaps any real accomplishments at all – demand resilience: the capacity to keep going when things are difficult. 

Finding a measured response to suffering is one of the fundamental challenges that Buddhism identifies. The Buddha, himself, is a balanced figure who exemplifies compassionate gentleness but is also tough and heroic, abandoning comfort to confront life in its unvarnished truth. And his teachings suggest that the key to  balanced emotional awareness is distinguishing different kinds of emotions.

Imagine you’re struck by an arrow, he says. It hurts like hell. The arrow could represent physical pain or an emotion like grief. Wanting it to go away, we may distract ourselves or pretend the pain isn’t there. Perhaps we’re thrown into confusion and struggle to find a way out. The result, the Buddha suggests, is that we drive a second arrow into our flesh, which is a second source of suffering. 

The point of the story is that, while there’s no way to avoid the pain of the first arrow, we can avoid secondary suffering if we patiently turn towards our raw experience with mindful awareness. When I’m upset or stirred up, I try to give myself space, take a breath and feel what I’m feeling, letting go of unhelpful reactions. Like other mindfulness teachers, that’s also what I encourage others to do when they’re experiencing chronic pain or emotional distress.

From a Buddhist perspective, being aware of our emotions needn’t mean being swamped by them; kindness and sensitivity can coexist with drive and determination. I even think Andrew Strauss instilled something of that phlegmatic balance in the England team he captained: always staying humble and focused, whether the team was winning or losing.