November
1 - Tenderness Journal Challenge For November
“If
you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to
happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd
be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink
or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You'd never love anyone, ever again.
You'd never dare to.”
― The Blind Assassin
― The Blind Assassin
Tenderness is different than
sensitive. We have to define the
difference between TENDERNESS and OVERLY SENSITIVE. Highly sensitive
people are those who may or may not have had a diagnoses as ADHD, as an adult.
I am struggling with this right now.
Once of my goals is to have grace, some dignity, some peace of
mind. I am my own worst enemy in that I
can ruin my own peace of mind in a moment and then I have no peace, etc.
because I ruined it. Overreaction is
huge and I need to find a gray area. As
I begin, with encouragement from a psychologist friend, to find ways to stop
being over-sensitive and to find a way to respond with tenderness, is
huge. I have, for long been an emotional
reactor and I thought it to be tenderness in some cases, and it was not. I am a sensitive-reactor not a tenderness-reactor. I work, this month to find ways to work
through this in art journaling.
It is to note that highly sensitive people can be overly
emotional and can be a positive as long as it is positive emotions worked
with. Sensitivity can be overly emotional,
in response, and is actually, according to psychologist Elaine Aron, as a
conditional called HSP (Highly Sensitive Person). Highly sensitive people are those who
experience the emotions of others, like a lizard that can change colors to its
environment. They are typically full of
emotional angst so any extra stimulation and, because emotional and physical
stimuli are felt in the same area of the brain, they take longer to deal with
overloads that are easy to happen. I am
pretty sure, over the years, that I have , somehow, learned new ways of
stuffing, unconsciously, and my emotions are bottled up. It amazes me to consider this.
Some people are more in tune with their
feelings, negative and positive, and can feel things deeply, sometimes without
knowing why they respond the way they do, they simply respond, in a heightened
way. Sometimes, people who are
overly-sensitive, will turn to feeling that they are more tender but their
tenderness is turned to pseudo people, places, things, to express the tender
side of their emotions. Emotional people
can be tender. Tenderness is expressed towards
safer people, places, and things than the event that made them feel tender.
Consider how well you express each and
every emotion one can feel. Consider
when your feelings are overly expressed.
What things do you tend to close down for? Where do you place the authentic feelings of
tenderness? Consider how hard it is for you
to let go of things, to forgive, to manage in appropriate responses. And, this
is huge for me: What is your reaction
when you feel someone is criticizing you and do you take comments personally,
and negatively, at a deep level? This is where I immediately become reactive
rather than contemplative and pausing to look at what is being said, apart from
a finger/fingers being pointed at me in some sensed negative way. Do you turn intense feelings outwards in any
response that happens to come, or do you take it in, quietly, and feel put down
and derided? I respond, as intensely as
the pain inflicted, and do not take it in as being authentic until I can work
through it in a quiet space of time. It takes some time for me to come to a
place of change, acceptance, without sensing the negativity of a situation. I
am working on this, intensely, during this month, in order to not make
immediate response, but to take it in and spend some time considering what was
really being said or done. I want to be
tender not sensitive. I think in finding
the way to respond with tenderness (even for Self) I will have accomplished a
huge feat. Lord, where is my 'whatever'
and walk away? I need to find that
reaction.
People who are tender, authentically, do
not seem to struggle with intense emotions and reactions. I have to learn the lesson, then forgive and
refuse to be automatically overwhelmed.
I have to find a way not to react instantly as if I were fighting for
breath. I have to find ways not to dwell on a problem, but to work through it...
as quickly as possible before the next wave hits. I have to do some deep internally emotional
work, but not dwell on the feelings.
This blog is going to be ways I work through this through art
journaling. I need to be more inwardly considerate and
empathetic and work hard to get some level playing ground... not feel like life
is constantly a battleground where it is me against the whole world..not
maudlin, lord, not that, but truly only battling what needs battling. Life is not
all about big threats that need fleeing or fighting but my psyche does not seem
to know that yet.
Some of us are simply born highly
sensitive in many ways. Some of us
take things very personally in ways you cannot fathom. We are all unique in ways we respond to outer
stimuli. Somehow, some of us need to
learn the language of authentic emotions, even yet. We wear masks and sometimes we are afraid to
take off the masks because we do not know who the real is under it all
(Jeff Desjarlais quote. RIP). Somehow, one needs to create ways to deal
with the impending 'doom and gloom' of reacting instead of pausing and really
considering why something hurt us or had us feel threatened. Sometimes, we can help each other. Sometimes not, because there are too many
triggers.
We all have strong feelings but
towards what? What feels threatening to
us? Why does it feel threatening? Some of us express joy in exuberant ways. Some of us express ourselves as if our life
was a story...duh, creative people. We
care, deeply, for our own friends
families, our own friends, our own neighbors, towns, cities, world. To be hushed up is horrible. It stops us from trusting the whole world
again. Once we understand ourselves, we
can move on...limping a little, but moving, nonetheless. We learn about
ourselves through the voices and definitions of others about us. We have always been that way since
birth. Some of us take even gestures to
heart and make them fit us, in some construed way. Some of us take words in and we digest them
and turn them around, taste them, feel them, and know if they truly fit
us. We need to go to some seclusion of
sorts to figure out what to do with what we feel. When I am overwhelmed, I have to find a calm
place, fast, to extinguish the hurt.
Then comes authentic feelings, the ones not having been said in a rush. We either accept the challenge to change
ourselves, or we remain the same and full of chaos. Being overwhelmed means that we become even
hypersensitive if we do not get the personal thoughts worked through.
Somehow we need to figure out how to
become stronger in coping with, in understanding, in either setting aside or
taking in, the lessons offered. I have
to figure out this tenderness verses versus over-sensitivity spiral. I have spent hours talking to my friend/peer
in the old days. I just have to work on
it every day and get the bit of clarity that comes as I do. I do know that my saving grace is that I
love. I do know that my fall from grace
is feeling unloved, rejected, which leads to feeling defensive. We will see how this goes this month.
Challenge: Can you somehow do a page that shows your
feelings about tenderness verses over-sensitivity? Please do and share.
©Carol Desjarlais 11.1.19
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