Reactivity and Grievances

A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle, Chapter 3, Section 3

So, after we consider complaining and resentment (see last post), we move into reactivity and grievances. We begin with complaining, get resentful, then are primed to keep going, to keep being reactive, just looking for something to do upset over.

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For those of you not familiar with the idea or the grammar of “doing upset” let me explain. It isn’t normal speech. It is a shift in the way of talking with ourselves to help us remember that we are in charge of our reactions.

For example, if I say he upset me then the fault is with him, and he needs to change in order for me to feel better. Yeah, good luck.

Let’s try saying it differently. I am doing upset over his behavior. Okay, now I am in charge. I am the one doing the upset. If this seems wrong, let me ask this. Where is the upset feeling located? Is it in him? Uhm no. It is in me. I feel it in my body, maybe as anxiety, anger, tightness, etc. So since it is in me, maybe I should consider looking there to change it…

I learned this way of speaking from a friend and sometimes counselor, Marlow Erickson. And I’ve been thankful ever since.

So, as we move from complaining to resentment and then hold onto doing upset, we are primed to keep finding wrong. Then we get to feel even more righteous. We can also become addicted to upset and anger. Harboring negative emotions becomes a habit; the readiness to find fault is ever in the background ready to color every experience.¹

To carry a grievance is to be in a permanent state of “against,” and that is why grievances can survive for centuries in the psyche of a nation or tribe and fuel a never-ending cycle of violence.

For you to be right, of course, you need someone else to be wrong, and so the ego loves to make wrong in order to be right…in order to get a stronger sense of who you are.

Eckhart Tolle

That is the end of this section, no further solutions offered yet. I believe Eckhart is familiarizing us with the idea so we can begin to be aware, laying the groundwork for continued learning.

Until next time. シ

Thanks for being with me on this journey. I am a yoga and mindfulness teacher, and offer classes online and in Basel, Switzerland. I’d love to hear from you.

1. I recently traveled with someone like this. I wish I had realized it earlier, that she would find fault in so many things in life, that she would spend so much time telling me how indignant she was over this situation or that. I began to see that she was collecting stories of being wronged because it made her feel important. Had I realized it earlier I might not have invited her to travel with me…but there we were. I did not handle as I might have, with kindness and wisdom. Rather I went into my own kind up upset. She said she could no longer spend time with me and I realized that she was right and we parted. Then she did upset about that too. I was sad to part in this way, but sometimes, that’s how life goes. And how I keep learning.