Perhaps this has happened to you before: you’re at a bus stop. You are — what else? — waiting for a bus. One pulls up, but it’s not the one you want, so you wave it on.
It seems so obvious that it hardly bears explanation: of course you did not get on the wrong bus.
Last week, my therapist used this to explain how feelings, too, are buses, and you can choose to get on or not. I’ve been thinking about it nonstop. It put words to a half-baked thought I’d already been ruminating on — that I have some choice in whether to get wrapped up in my emotions. Previously, I’ve thought of feelings, especially the bad ones, as unavoidable. And yes, of course, you can’t bypass every emotion. But that twinge of annoyance when opening a rude email? The pang of jealousy upon hearing someone else’s good news you had wished for yourself? The flash of anger when someone coal rolls me on my bike? All buses, and not the ones I want. I don’t have to get on and be taken along the full route of Bad Feelings.
But how tempting it can be to get on the wrong bus! The feeling of self-righteousness: definitely a party bus. The door opens; your funnest friends are there, and they’re passing around tequila shots and somehow, they’ve procured a karaoke machine. It would feel so good to get on, to blow off some steam — but no! Not today. I know the end of the route will take me all the way across town, on the opposite end from where I need to be.
Feelings of inadequacy and comparison: a gilded limo with leather seats and a sunroof. You get on thinking some of the glamour might rub off on you, but you just end up feeling even worse about yourself.
Anger: a fire engine you thought was en route to put out some inconsequential blaze, but when you pull up, it’s grown into 5-alarm affair.
Impatience: an old-school yellow school bus that stops and opens its doors at every railroad crossing. Every time you wish it’d move faster, it slows down to spite you.
Lately, when an unpleasant feeling has visited me, I imagine myself at a safe and cozy bus stop, one with a little shelter and surrounded by big elm trees. It’s a breezy spring day and I’m listening to a good album, an engrossing podcast, and I’m in no hurry to get where I need to go. I imagine a bus pulling up: as the driver opens the door, I ask myself if I want to get on. I say hello and explain I’m waiting for another bus; the driver nods, closes the door, and continues along their route. Feeling acknowledged, I get on with my day, ready for the right bus.
Love the analogy!
That’s an excellent analogy. I would add that I have to acknowledge the bus and am sometimes tempted to get on for a short ride. But then I get off and wait for a better bus that’s going where I want.
oh i love this! next time i’m on the wrong bus, it’ll be helpful to remind myself i can get off.
When I was a teenager and often hung out in covered NJ transit bus stops with a notebook or novel in my lap. I appreciated the shade, the partial windows, the metal bench. The bus came every hour, so I knew I’d have at the very most an hour to wait.
For some reason, I’m grateful for the bus driver that didn’t even see me one day, and so didn’t stop. I’d waited for three-quarters of an hour in the midday summer sun. But where was I going anyway? I was just filling the day with sights and sounds, and scratching in my notebook, maybe reading Robert Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land.” Another hour made no difference. Content to wait and read, I reminded myself to look up a little more often so that the next bus driver that drove around the bend would see me standing, expectant, fare in hand, ready to get on, and stop for me never guessing how long I’d waited.