I remember the conversation at a gathering. We could go there now. The woman is telling me how contented she is.
‘I’m very contented,’ she says. ‘Very, very contented.’
I ask if she ever gets angry. She says that people dying in Afghanistan makes her angry.
Why that war in particular?
‘Because we shouldn’t be there!’ she says testily. ‘We shouldn’t be there!’
Her smile quickly returns, however, and she adds: ‘But I’m able to push that stuff away and stay contented.’
And as she says this, she pushes away an imaginary irritant wither hands, enacting with her body what she is doing with her mind.
I feel uncomfortable. I suggest it isn’t true contentment if she needs to reject unwanted emotions in order to maintain it.
‘Why not inhale your anger and exhale your fear of anger?’ I say. ‘Perhaps then you could speak of contentment more truthfully.’
She moves away.
This is taken from my book ‘One Minute Mindfulness’, published by Hay House.
