How rise to a higher emotional floor

We didn’t want to go to the concert but we knew we had to go. It was the last night in New York City of a month away from home in Montana. The tickets were a Christmas gift from Bella. There was supposed to be a big storm and it had been a long day.

We went to the show and there was one moment I’ll never forget that touched me – so I’m glad we went. I’ll tell you about it later. It’s ok to be tired.

It sounds cliche but one moment can change everything. Or make a bunch of effort feel worthwhile. And one moment of effort repeated many times can change who you are.

You can become the person who is (happy, inspired, confident, passionate, healthy, joyful, peaceful, calm) by repeating a simple effort to be that way and having stamina about the project. I’ll tell you how to do that later, also.

It’s not inherently problematic that you are a project. You can look at it like something always needs to be fixed or you can understand that we are forever in the act of creating who we are.

Everyone knew a hard Summer rain was coming.

I have this feeling that the doormen see me as a little bit special – more down to earth than the rest. I like seeing myself this way.

Louis and I fist bump and if there’s time we talk and swear and shake our heads about things. Then I have to go to not be any more late, or someone else is coming from the elevator, and he goes to take their bags.

The first night I was in the apartment on the Upper East Side this time, Jose told me about his workout routine and said he wants to start stretching. He’s got three daughters and two small dogs and starts his shift at 3pm.

Darren offers the same truncated greeting every time with a quick nod. He was the service elevator and basement guy for a few years. Now he’s got the uniform. The thing he says sounds like abada-dooo-yup, with a smile.

There’s this guy who always seems to be leaving the building with his dog when I’m on the way out. He’s about sixty and wears a cap and loafers. The people in the building are civil and make statements they’re sure everyone else in the elevator will agree with.

Everyone mentioned the storm that was gonna come sometime later, except Darren. He just said abada-dooo-yup, smiled, and nodded. He was at the front while Louis was on break.

The small man in the loafers and hat with the dog said that maybe the storm would cool things off. We walked a few steps West towards Lexington Avenue, then I sped up. You have to speed up when you’re getting closer to the Subway entrance. You just have to.

It was 10AM and I was headed downtown. Later we would go to the concert at the far end of Brooklyn. At some point there was going to be a big storm. That kind of rain in the city can really change your day. It’s different than getting wet in the woods, where you expect it, and your clothes are made for it. In the city the water rushes down the dirty streets carrying everything with it.

I’m not implying that I overcame a great obstacle by going to a concert when I was tired and a little anxious about going back to Montana early the next morning after a month away. What I am telling you is that you don’t need to make anything harder, and you can make a lot of things easier.

You can feel how you are and you can project how you want to feel. This is the feeling paradox, and you must do the first to succeed at the second part. That is how this is not a bypass.

Everything is ok. In an emergency you don’t have time to get into all this. So what you are feeling and thinking about now is something that it is ok to pause with. Nothing is more important than how you feel.

You don’t expect the world for your feelings or become useless. No. You feel so you can stop thinking. If you think from the same feeling of dismay you will make choices that lead to more of that feeling.

So your feelings being the most important thing means that the most important thing to understand in your life is yourself because then you relate to everything differently.

Imagine an elevator. Each floor is a different way of feeling. Experience is filtered through the lens of the feeling of your current floor. You will have a better experience if you practice being on a higher floor.

Practice inhabiting the floor on which you’d like to live. I’ve been doing it. You have to really keep at it, so I do it every morning.

First, I feel where I am.

Feelings don’t tell us how we got where we are, but they do tell us where we are.

Next, I breathe for a while. When the timer goes off, I feel gratitude, joy, and love, in that order by referencing elements in my life that stimulate those feelings. Then, I feel them more, really lean into it like a goofball. By the end I am smiling, my face feels warm, and I feel like I just saw a painting or heard a song.

If you can worry harder and harder, you can also do this – don’t worry.

Bella and I wanted to leave for Brooklyn by 6:45. The rain started at 6:48 and we hadn’t left, still a bit resistant to the whole thing. I was sitting in one of the round chairs by the window and she came over and was worried. I opened the old window, pushing it outwards like a door and we sat together in the one chair and watched the rain come down very heavy, like in Montana when it might turn to hail.

The rain was so heavy that it started to get wet on the ledge where over a bit to the left my mom displays family photos in frames. Bella got a towel so we could keep the window open and watch. We decided to wait it out but had to pull the window almost all the way closed. There was just too much rain.

I took a hat by the door and we headed out. People on the street were cautiously taking down their umbrellas. Some people were soaked. The street was steaming. We caught the 6 at 79th ST to transfer to the Q at Union Square. The rain had stopped for us just soon enough to probably make the show on time. Now I’m going to tell you about the moment I promised to tell you about.

When I see something like the Raphael paintings at the Met the other day, or this concert moment I’m about to share, I immediately want to use whatever I have in me that is good and creative.

The art wakes up passionate, sensitive, hopeful, and confident energy and emotion. We can stimulate those same energies, or whatever energy you need, with practice.

We can drive with the feelings we choose if we are patient enough to start where we are. It feels better, to feel better, but we are all a little addicted to certain unpleasant feelings because we think we need stories to validate the feelings so we go in circles.

Isn’t it worth trying to run a different current through your body when the same person does the same thing again and you feel the same hurts? The experience and the initial feeling are real. I am not denying you that. However, if you are on a higher floor in your emotional elevator, you will experience it all differently.

The concert was the Avett Brothers, a band built on close harmony and songs people know by heart. We didn’t know it, but this show was a collaboration with Mike Patton, the frontman for the 90s group Faith No More.

Faith No More was aggressive, and Mike brought a real edge to the show, experimenting and testing the audience. His voice is undeniable – from gravel pit to opera house.

Right when you could feel the Avett regulars getting antsy, the collab segued into a paired-down take on the Faith No More classic, Ashes to Ashes. It was a showcase for a singular voice. I’d heard the song, but never really heard it.

Mike belted out, with all the power and poignance you’d expect from Broadway’s best:

“Smilin’ with the mouth of the ocean / And I’ll wave to you with the arms of the mountain.”

He hit the line a few times. In a moment like that, all of the emotion you’ve been hopeless to articulate even to yourself – maybe didn’t even know was there – is clear, and you don’t need any words of your own because the song is part of you now.

So here’s what I want you to do:

Look straight ahead and relax your stomach.

Put your tongue on the roof of your mouth.

Breathe down – not too hard – but feel your edges expand a little.

How are you right now? How have you been feeling?

No story, just emotion, energy, feeling.

Pause. Close your eyes.

Stay with it for a few moments.

Now - start breathing in for four and out for four.

Ask yourself, what emotion do you want to drive with for the next little while?

Ok. So now keep breathing and go to the place inside you where you feel music land.

Keep at it for a little while - just a minute or two.

You just climbed to a higher floor, all on your own. Incredible.