Ponderous Simplicity

Emotions are fascinating things but are not understood very well I think :) So today I thought I would discuss emotions and the things over the past few years I've learned about them. Working with victims of domestic violence gave me alot of insight and access to so many emotions, and to those that had become so numb, they didn't really experience emotions. It was a very broad spectrum. And interacting with that and teaching about it made me take a close look at my emotions. The hard thing is that as people we often don't WANT to feel emotions - especially those we call unpleasant - hurt, sadness, vulnerability, anger, etc. So we often act like the ostrich who sticks his head in the sand, pretending those emotions don't exist. I do this as much as the next person - but lately I've been trying not to and I've been thinking and analyzing everything I know about emotions, so I thought I would share!

Lets talk emotions!

Emotions have two categories - primary and secondary emotions. This is important because of the biggest emotion categorized as secondary - ANGER. This means that the majority of the time, or almost always, when experiencing anger, it is simply a mask or a cover for another emotion - a primary emotion that we don't/aren't ready to acknowledge. The primary emotions are hurt, sadness, happiness, vulnerability, peace, fear, etc. Because many of the primary emotions we don't enjoy experiencing, we often experience anger in addition. The problem arises when we think anger is the PRIMARY emotion, rather than the secondary because you then can't resolve the emotion that is really driving anything.

Why do we experience anger with those primary emotions? Because emotions such as hurt, sadness, vulnerability leave us often feeling out of control or that we don't have control in a situation. Anger gives us a false sense of regaining or having control. But it can also stop us from experiencing and moving through an emotion so we can eventually move past it for the situation that caused it.

This leads me to another important thing to know and understand about emotions - too often we talk as if we have control over what emotions we experience. This is only partly true - what we ALWAYS have control over is how we RESPOND to an emotion. Part of this life is learning that - not learning how NOT to feel and experience emotion but how to respond in positive and uplifting ways to ALL the emotions we experience.

Ask yourself why we have emotions? What is their purpose?

Their main purpose is to tell us something as an individual - they tell us how we feel about a situation, experience, person, interaction, etc. Meaning the emotion we feel in connection with any of those things tells US something about how we view that situation, experience, person, etc. Now I can work to change and emotion I experience with certain events, situations, etc. but ultimately I don't choose the emotion. I choose the response, which ultimately helps direct the emotion.

What often happens when we think we control, which emotions we experience is we tell ourselves we aren't feeling such and such emotion and then go merrily on our way. But emotions never just "go away". They aren't like the flu or a bad cold :P

Let me use an analogy now - not acknowledging and experiencing our emotions is similar to us carrying around a bag - every time we don't allow ourselves to experience and work through and emotion, we stuff it in that bag. But as with anything with limited space - what eventually happens? There isn't anymore room!! You then have an uncontrolled explosion. Have you ever started crying at something small that you say to yourself, "Why am I crying at this, it is not a big deal at all!" but you can't seem to help it. Or you explode at someone and get extremely angry at a minor mishap or aggravation that normally you would have blown off. That is because your bag has gotten to full and the emotion has to go somewhere :)

Experiencing emotions - especially ones like sadness, hurt, vulnerability are ones we would rather skip. But they are important and necessary for us to feel. We have all experienced them - and if any of you are like me you just want to "move past it." When something happens that hurts me -and I feel hurt and sadness I often want to feel the emotion once and then be done. But emotions don't work that way - especially the hard ones. I recently had a friendship end - it was a friendship that mattered to me alot and I had invested alot into it. It was HARD, when ultimately, no matter how hard I tried or wanted to save the friendship it ultimately wasn't just my decision, and there is a lot of hurt and sadness tied to the ending of a friendship. When we love and care about people - we are vulnerable and that leaves us open to hurt and sadness.

Some days I'm fine with what happened and I accept it. After all I've had numerous times and days where I've almost felt overwhelmed by the sadness or hurt. And then of course with those two emotions I feel anger. I work through the emotion and sometimes think I'm done. But emotions have a way of sneaking up on you - you will see something that reminds you of the friendship or person, or do something similar to what you did together one time, or even just out of nowhere the sadness hits you.

The most important thing I learned in the last few months - is that I just have to be patient and experience the emotion that comes. I can't choose not to feel sad or hurt - I cared and those emotions are a part of that. But I can choose to work through the emotion - to acknowledge and accept WHY I feel those emotions but not allow them to overwhelm me. Ultimately, emotions allow and tell me one big thing - I CARE and that is what matters.