I think that we are not in control of when an emotion
shows up. It happens in a split second
at the sight, smell, touch, sound, and/or taste. We cannot fake our emotions. And sometimes an emotion shows up no matter
how we try to control it. I do not think
we have a choice in the degree of an emotional affect. It is after those few seconds of recognition
of an emotion that we have choice. A
strong emotion is harder to hide as there seems to be an automatic
response.
It is hard to hide what we feel. I spent a childhood plastering a smile on my
face. Then, it continued up through to
my adulthood. It came back to bite me
when I left the kid’s dad and my step-sister said, “But you always had a smile
on your face.” We were not close. She did not know me well enough to know what
I had gone through in my life. Many of
our facial gestures are not bidden. The
mouth might smile but the eyes might not match that smile. A voice can change tone and velocity. Our breathing changes. Our eyebrows might rise or flinch
crooked. Our eyes flicker. Our mouth twitches. Fear is one emotion very difficult to hide.
And we are so used to answering, “I am fine!” when everything about our aura
sends out signals that we are not.
Denial, withdrawal, self-isolating, and refusing to
answer our phone, are all signs that we are not fine yet we will answer the
phone in a phony voice trying to bely it all.
It might work for a while. Some
get calm and quiet under stress; some get shut down. Some get fidgety (bouncing their legs while
sitting), With me, silence means trouble, best to let me be quiet and figure
whatever it is out that is bothering me.
Some pace. Some flex their
fingers. Some rub their hands together. Some overeat, some under-eat. Some get almost manic in their way of trying
to distract themselves from authentic feelings they feel might not be
acceptable or accepted.
There are myriads of underlying emotions that we have
not really labeled, but the major feelings we express (anger is the easiest alternative
response) but the negative emotions we respond to will have something to do
with the following:
We feel guilty, shameful, bad. We feel criticized, judged, insulted,
devalued, disrespected, distrusted, and all the other ‘dis’ sensed
triggers. We feel silly, stupid, ridiculous. We feel invisible, ignored, undeserving,
defective, incompetent, behind. We feel
rejected, attacked, taken advantage of, betrayed. We feel rejected. We feel weak, vulnerable, helpless,
defenseless. We feel misunderstood. We feel lacking courage or resilience or
unworthy. We feel unlovable, un-cared
for. We feel like a loser. We feel that we are NOT Enough. All of these feelings lay in our heart and
soul for being triggered and then there is an emotional response. Most of our reason for hiding feelings is
that it compounds all of the feelings above.
Somehow it feels like giving up some of our power and we respond,
risking the reaction of others that we are “too sensitive”. Sometimes we are codependent and too attached
to other’s feelings rather than authenticate our own.
I used to say I could not cry. I couldn’t.
The only way I could cry was to watch a really sad movie (think
“Beaches”). I felt too vulnerable and
weak to cry when I should have. It gave
off that I was a really strong person. I
wasn’t. I was too weak to cry. Stoicism is not strength many times. It
leaves others not supporting us when we need it most, for instance, and that is
the saddest thing ever in that we cut ourselves off from those who would be our
cheerleaders, our compassion.
Self-soothing is good, to a point, but it still blocks
us from receiving what we may have given to others and have refused to give
ourselves. We need to hold our emotional
ground and be honest enough to say it the way it is, rather than how someone
else might prefer. Others cannot make us
feel anything we do not want to feel.
The double-edged sword in our emotional lives. I wish you authentic. I wish us all to be honest enough, caring
enough, to accept each other’s emotional life.
I encourage you to watch Brene’ Brown’s Ted Talk on
Vulnerability. She says it wonderfully
and best.
Carol Desjarlais 7.19.20
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