The Reckoning

This past Shabbat we finished the book of Shemot, which ends with parasha Pekudei.  The word pekudei can be translated as, "reckoning," and the parasha opens with the following verse:

אלה פקודי המשכן משכן העדת אשר פקד על–פי משה עבדת הלוים ביד איתמר בן–אהרן הכהן

These are the reckonings of the Tabernacle, the Tabernacle of Testimony, which were reckoned at Moses' bidding.  The labor of the Levites was under the authority of Itamar, son of Aaron the Kohen.

What follows is a detailed list of all the gold, silver, and copper that people donated for the construction of the Tabernacle.  Moses kept track of every contribution and how it was used, a biblical version of what we might now call, "transparency."

Coincidentally, during the same week in which we read Pekudei, I was also reading Brené Brown's new book, Rising Strong, and happened to be on the chapter called, "The Reckoning."  (Brief book evaluation:  not my favorite of hers, a little sound bite-y, but I'm still a fan.)  In this book, Brené explores the process of "rising strong" after a fall, and the first stage of doing so is what she calls The Reckoning--engaging with our feelings and getting curious about why we have them.

Brené says:

"I don't think we can learn much about ourselves, our relationships, or the world without recognizing and getting curious about emotion.  Fortunately, unlike navigating using dead reckoning, we don't need to immediately be precise in order to find our way.  We just need to bring our feelings to light.  We just need to be honest and curious.  I'm having an emotional reaction to what's happened and I want to understand is enough for the reckoning."

For me, this resonates strongly.  Even as a child, I would have emotional reactions to things and would immediately judge myself harshly for what I considered, "wrong feelings" (usually anger or fear).  I never got curious or wanted to understand; in fact, I never even really talked about it because I was so sure that my feelings made me a bad person.

When I was a freshman in college, it didn't take me long to figure out that I was miserable.  I didn't get curious then, either.  Instead, I told myself that there was something wrong with me because everyone else was happy and I was not.  Keep it to yourself and deal with it, was pretty much my philosophy.  "Dealing with it" meant exercising and dieting away my pain; in short, developing the eating disorder that would control my life for most of the next decade. I shut down all my feelings and all my connections in an effort to protect myself, but didn't stop to think of what this might cost me.  As Brené Brown says, "...shutting down comes with a price--a price we rarely consider when we're focused on finding our way out of pain." Truth.

And now?  Now, my first response to an emotional reaction is sometimes still judgment (old habits die hard), which nearly always leads to shame.  The difference is that I now recognize that this is unhelpful, and instead I try to "observe" my feelings neutrally.  Then, usually in therapy, I can do the work of getting curious and figuring out why I reacted the way I did.  For me, doing that work in the context of therapy is hugely important because the support of an objective observer (my therapist) helps me to avoid the shame traps that are easy to fall into when I'm alone.

Reckoning with emotion--acknowledging our feelings and approaching them with curiosity--is a lot of work and often feels harder than shutting down.  But I've found that this is deceptive; in fact, the reckoning often leads to a way out of the feelings, whereas shutting down pretty much ensures that I'll stay stuck in them.  My eating disorder was all about shutting down; recovery is about open and honest emotional exploration.  I don't think it's any coincidence that since I've been engaged in the process of emotional reckoning, I've developed more satisfying and authentic relationships--with others and with myself--than I ever did in the entire time I struggled with anorexia.

Sometimes it seems like we are the only ones who feel what we feel, with the intensity that we feel it.  This is false. Everyone has feelings; some people just prefer to deny them.  I propose a different approach:  get honest, get curious.  Strive to understand your emotions, rather than stuff them away.  It's healthier, and it leads to more resiliency and greater insight.  If you're brave enough to engage in The Reckoning, you might just find that you are stronger than you thought--and you will begin to see a way out of the darkness of the icky feelings and back into the light.