With the world the way it has been for the last three years, and global problems, and societal problems, financial pressure, it can be/has been/is an emotional rollercoaster for many. When put in high stress, all sorts of things pop up. Theisen who typically handle emotional stress are finding/have found they are stretched to the limit. Those who have had a hard time with emotions are feeling it to the max. There are a great many ‘feelings’ going on around us and within us. Learning to manage our emotions might be new to some, to some, it is same old same old but heavier. What we need to do is, right now, start dealing with every emotion as it comes up. What is the WHY of an emotion and go at it like a dog to a bone until you get to the bottom of your feelings. It is easy to blame someone else/something else, remember, so look within… own it. We have choices on how we allow things or others to affect us. Choose to figure yourself out…I do it every…danged…day!
When we feel an emotion, we have to pause and take note…what is it? WHY am I feeling it? It is worth the pause to acknowledge the feeling, whatever it is. I stay at it until I can figure out the What it really is (anger is the easiest emotion to feel, btw) and label it for what it is.
Once we know what the key emotion is, we have to figure out what the trigger is for us. What is it that gave rise to that emotion? I have dealt with a fear-based life most of my life… well, ¾ of a hundred year life. Last year, I finally got to the crux of my emotions and that most are fear-based. I accepted it as it was, but then the work came. I had to go back the decades, not just years, like one would go through a rosary, trying to find the original key trigger. Was it easy work? Absolutely not. Did I find some of my own shadow side? Of course. I usually dug those shadow things out when I chose to feel badly about something and there was always fodder for my miserable moments. What a waste of potential to grow when we merely lug them out and let our Ego/Evil Inner Witch/Critical voice whip me over past things I can no longer change, nor should I want to.. I had to let the past be. It was what it was. Thank God I have grown from my shadows and there is way more room for light now.
What I had to figure out was that it did not have to have been permanent. No feeling is. But , if we do not go back and find the key triggering of that emotional response, we do stay stuck with it. Knowing it, naming it, dealing with it, is our only way to heal it. No one else can do that work for us.
I was one who numbed feelings. I numbed them until they were not numb and then poof… full-throttle emotion as they escaped. Although, you may never have noticed it because it was inner emotion and I did not let anyone in there to help me deal with it. I was always “I can do it on my own” kind of person for most things. I grew up being my own protector, needlessly, I might add, but I learned very young not to show authentic feelings. I did not want to make my mother cry. I did not want to stir up things I had no control over. I did not have a safe person to tell things to once I lost my grandfather when I was young. He was my soul mate and confident. His love was unconditional. Unconditional love was not there for me... too many “ifs”. And so I numbed.
Those of us who “numb” will know that you can only numb for so long. Eventually those feelings will out. They will out over something trivial. Such as we will do a number on ourselves; guilt, shame, anxiety, depression, whatever way it decides to turn on us. I have only been free of that numbing since 1984 when I left the kid’s dad and all that divorce with children can do to a person. I won. I had to really keep my proverbial chite together though in order to do so. I worked hard on myself and kept it real every moment of every day and did University at the same time as single parenting it. I won the battle with myself, for sure. I learned how to feel authentic feelings. It does not mean “poof” and I was healed. I continue all these decades later to deal with life as it comes... with feelings as they come. I accept what belongs to my present and future, I refuse to look back because I have already been there and it wasn’t good for me.
There is danger in “keeping it all together all the time”. We were not gifted with emotions to let them slide…to bury them. They are gifts, those feelings of ours. Feel them, name them, explore them, and feel them again in their authenticity. That is how to deal with tough emotions that will come up, as they do in everyone’s life…no kidding.. it is not always a rose garden we can see through rose-colored glasses.
©Carol Desjarlais 3. 23.23
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