Squiggle & Heart No. 28

A Squiggle and Heart take on the Buddhist parable of “the second arrow.”

The teaching goes that the first arrow is the pain itself, whatever it is - a cut, something more serious, an emotional slight, witnessing horrors in the world, etc. The second arrow is all the things we do to either judge the feeling, layer blame on top of it (in particular at ourselves), ruminate on how it could have been avoided, any number of tactics our Squiggles will use to shoot arrow after arrow.

I’m always amazed after years of meditation practice and dharma study, my personal Squiggle is so good at weaponizing even those practices themselves, as depicted above. I can turn any damn thing into a chance to beat myself up.

Luckily at any moment we can choose to stop the docking of the arrows, and go back to the first Ow.

There’s some compelling research that saying the word “ow” (or its related word in other languages) actually reduces pain perception and increases pain tolerance. Even more fun, swearing has been shown to reduce pain as well. I haven’t read the full reports on either trials, but I like to think the reason these vocalizations work is that they mark the moment of the pain itself - the instant before we begin layering self blame on top.

I have found when I feel into pain - really let myself be present with it, whether it is physical or emotional - I can move through its bell curve much faster than if I either try to shoot past it, or let myself fall into a self-flagellation cycle. Often I will take it one step further than just “ow”, to really nail home the point to myself, and say out loud “ow, I’m in pain.” Or, occasionally, “sweetheart, you’re in pain.” I highly recommend giving it a try.

Anything to get that quiver out of Squiggle’s hands.