Drawing the line in the sand, I stand with one foot on the side of calm, cool, confident and collected; the other foot on the side of Bad Yoga Bob,* nervously flailing, sliding into the pits of failure, insecurity, sadness, and despair.
I’m uncomfortable not fully feeling in control. I’m nervous thinking that a part of me doesn’t know what to do in every situation– or worse, is fearful of the millions of ways that things can go wrong. I’m uncomfortable not being in charge of my emotions, especially when it comes to “negative” emotions.
In my recent past, I’ve very frequently discredited any of my negative emotions. I’ve treated them like they were wicked, red-headed step-children (not that there’s much wrong with wicked, red-headed step-children, they deserve love too, but
I digress). I’ve repressed them, denied they existed, and told myself I was better off without them.
To be quite honest, that’s what I thought was expected of me. I was afraid that I would push people away by expressing negativity. In reality, I was denying myself the very REAL experience of negative emotions. In fact, I think that part of what I was doing for the first part of mastering my powerful creativity was validating my invalidation of the opposite end of the spectrum. It made “sense”– if thoughts become things, then you absolutely shouldn’t think negative thoughts, especially not accompanied by negative emotion!!!
This perception can be a very vicious process– the moment you start to feel badly and CAN’T stop the feelings because you’re repressing them, you easily spiral out of control.
The truth is that negative emotional experience can’t be eliminated. And it shouldn’t be! Negative emotional experience is another tool in our tool box, it’s an invaluable part of being human. Does that mean that we should want to feel negative emotions? Probably not, but at least if we acknowledge their purpose and VALUE, we can work through them and move forward.
Feeling blue, sad, angry, anxious, irritated, aggressive, etc. IS valuable. It’s an important part of being human because it gives us something to compare feeling good against. If we only ever felt good emotions, we would never really appreciate what it was like to feel good. We’d be used to it to the point where it would just be normal and ho-hum. I’m proposing that negative emotion is the contrast that makes feeling good feel that much better.
This change in perspective opens up many doors to emotions and reactions to emotions. Instead of feeling bad about feeling bad, it allows me to feel good about it. To let loose. As AmberLotus so aptly put it (and I’m paraphrasing), “Gotta pour the crazy out.” If we don’t get those negative emotions out of our system, they just stay there. They build up. Eventually, we explode. This is not terribly conducive to long-lasting and healthy relationships– with anyone.
Many of the metaphysical teachers have said that negative emotions are an indication that what you’re in the process of creating isn’t that which you desire. Of course. Right. Can anyone freaking spell that out for me in English??
What *I* think it means, and I could be wrong here, but this works for me, so hang in there with me while I spit this out: Negative emotion doesn’t mean you’re creating something bad. It’s an indication that your focus is off, and that you need to pack that experience away into the recesses of your mind, and use it as a comparison– as a strong tool that teaches you that whatever you were doing when you felt badly WASN’T working, and therefore associate as something you’d rather not repeat again in the future. Negative emotion isn’t something to be feared– but to be revered. It’s a reminder that whatever you’re doing isn’t something that flows with you. Whatever you’re experiencing is something to perhaps be avoided in the future– not because the stimuli by itself was bad but because of how the stimuli made you feel… which was bad. Do you see what I mean when I separate it?
Additionally, any time I am feeling bad and then witness someone feeling worse, somehow my own circumstances don’t seem so terrible, and suddenly everything _for me_ is much better. We learned in junior high that knocking people down isn’t a permanent solution to our own happiness, and we certainly (with good conscience) won’t be wishing worse circumstances than our own on the people around us. It’s not the person with more horrible circumstances than me that makes me feel better– it is that suddenly my own circumstances are ones that I’m able to feel grateful for. And with feeling grateful, comes many more emotions that can be contextually compared with the times we were feeling bad, and the cycle of gratitude perpetuates itself. Suddenly those negative emotions seem a lot more important now, don’t they?
I’ve struggled A LOT with being okay with feeling bad: in my cycle, in my relationships, in my head. I’ve felt wrong for feeling bad and have been afraid to express how I’m feeling. In many ways, this explains why I’ve been so afraid to feel emotions– why I’ve been so emotionally flat for most of my life. Of course, its not always been as un-emotional as a rock, because I’ve had uncontrollable blurps on the radar where I’ve instantaneously and temporarily broken into tears or felt giddy– but it wasn’t until the last few years that I truly experienced normal emotion to its fullest. Slowly, I’m coming into my own and discovering that not only is it okay to feel and express feeling good but I it’s also normal and I am expected to feel and express feeling bad.
Still, this lesson is a hard one to teach yourself. As good as I am at self-therapy, I’m also forcing myself to step outside of my comfort zone– outside of what I’ve known to be true this whole life.
Much of what I’ve learned these last few months has been the purpose and value of feeling bad– and to become comfortable feeling it, without also feeling guilty for expressing it. I can tell you that this series of experiences have been something that I’d rather not ever go through again– especially not something with this magnitude. As much as I’m thankful for the lesson, I’d rather not remember this once I’m done. *Nods at the universe* Got the lesson down. No need to revisit it. I’m good now… *sigh* But if I MUST recall this series of experience, at least I can do so knowing that I’m taking the utmost value from it and turning it into a learning opportunity.
I suppose you can’t ask for much better than that.
*Bad Yoga Bob, or BYB is a well-intended fellow who goes in to his activity with great amounts of gusto and no grace. He is dedicated to yoga– in that he attends regularly, but he just doesn’t GET that yoga is as much a mindful thing as it is a set of physical movements. He just jumps right in, throws his mat down haphazardly, and usually doesn’t consider how his flailing about affects the other people who are near him. Because he lacks the patience to learn how to do the movements correctly, he often falls down on top of himself– or worse– on top of the people around him. He is completely unaware that he is being BYB because he is completely unaware.
**Paradoxical: adjective; seemingly contradictory but nonetheless possibly true.
***ambiguous: adjective; open to two or more interpretations; or of uncertain nature or significance; or intended to mislead.
****paradigm: noun; an example serving as a model; pattern.
Recent Comments