What’s This?
There’s a cliché out there that goes “What you resist persists.”
Clichés, of course, become clichés because there’s some truth to them.
As far as resisting and persisting, just about anyone who’s gone the long way around the block to avoid conflict has been awakened in the middle of the night – or joined for morning coffee (or both) – by the nagging bark of woulda, shoulda, coulda dogs…
You know, the baying hounds of never-ending internalized conflict that show up in the brain and belly (or neck, low back, shoulders, jaw, etc.) continuing a fight that got moved indoors, because side-stepping seemed – at the time – the easier way to go.
If only taking that long walk made the original conflict magically vanish…
And sure, just the idea of banging heads with others brings up all sorts of emotions few would consider a fun part of any breakfast, nutritious or otherwise.
But making it policy to avoid the tough conversations and the emotional experiences that go along with them…?
That’s the stuff of slow, sticky poison…
Here’s part of the challenge: the culture tells stories and makes up rules about emotion, most of which are just plain silly.
For instance, how many times have you heard (or said) “I just can’t go there… I’ll get lost and never come back!”
Lest you think I’m being cavalier, let me say this: If there’s a diagnosed (or suspected) depressive condition, paying reasonable attention to not going there makes sense and, if you or a loved one has not yet sought out the requisite help, get on it. Now.
The culture also persists in stigmatizing depression and other mental health issues, but that’s a conversation for another time…
That said, most people are not in danger of vanishing into a dark one-way corridor if they allow themselves to feel…
Because emotions fully experienced – even intense ones – are transitory. When allowed rather than resisted, they come and go quickly.
To add to the muck of emotional myths, many of us have been taught that emotions are either good or bad, positive or negative.
With that limiting, dualistic notion in hand, off we go, determined to pursue and display the good whilst burying, avoiding or otherwise hiding bad.
Good emotion! Have a cookie!
Bad emotion! Go to your room!
Ever witnessed someone apologizing for failing to stifle tears or otherwise “losing it”, as if “it” were something one must never lose?
C’mon people.
Let’s be reasonable.
Cheap lyrics aside, have you ever really seen someone actually drown in their tears?
We’re also taught to tread lightly on the “positive” end of the continuum. After all, you don’t want people to think you’re too happy or having too much fun, lest they become envious, wonder what you’re smoking or consider you completely nuts…
And we could talk all day about how expressing anger has been conflated with acting out, how showing hurt (outside the standard permissible hurt time frame) gets lumped in with being an insufferable victim – and on and on.
In the name of remaining above it all, (or at least not lost in or consumed by it all) we learn the art of resistance and do our best to vote our emotions off the island…
But because we haven’t yet permitted them to share their information with us, they don’t willingly paddle away – and like marginalized 4 year-olds tugging on parental pant-legs for attention, the more we try to turn away, the louder, determined and distorted they get.
Here’s the thing: Emotions are key pieces of our human operating system – and chock-full of useful information – providing we’re willing to give them attention, space and time.
Just a few examples of available info:
We tend to get angry when values aren’t minded and/or when personal boundaries are crossed…
Disappointment happens when expectations are dashed or unmet…
Feelings of meaninglessness show up when relationships have run their course or when, for instance, we’ve kept at a job or task long after it ceased being challenging or satisfying…
Worry appears when we’re focused on a future we fear and don’t want…
And our old friend conflict…?
Well, it could contain many things depending upon the nature of the relationship…
It could also, by the way, be a threshold beyond which understanding and deeper connection are to be found.
If you’re up for approaching your own emotions differently, a great place to start is slowing down to notice what your emotional state is, doing your best to name what you’re feeling – even if you’re not quite sure what to call it – and inviting in a whole mess of curiosity, invoking, in the spirit of the Halloween season, Jack Skellington’s (from Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas”) question of choice…
“What’s this?”
Besides, resistance is just a recipe for prolonged pain…
And given the current state of the world, we could use a whole lot more folks willing to experience, own and take responsibility for their emotions.
It’s part of what Conscious Adults do – and now’s an ideal time to begin.