All Emotions are Welcome Here!

 10.03.22

My emotional status right now is just feeling at peace. Life has been…an adventure and a half for the past 4 months now and now we live very close to the water in Florida, we officially bought a house that couldn’t be more perfect for us, and everything just feels different. We both sense a bigger better change coming here soon and that gives me a peace in my hear as well. I finally feel grounded enough to where Chris and I can put in some roots. The visions of becoming a family seem so incredible where it used to terrify me before. Everything just feels right these days (the three days we’ve in the house).

My emotional identity? This’ll be fun…  I had to look this one up. According to the School of Life, emotional identity is the “characteristic way in which our desires and fears manifest themselves and our personalities respond to the behavior, negative and positive, of others.” They broke it down into four categories: Self-Love, Contour, Communication andTrust. I’m an open book these are my scores. The lower the total score the more I have each, the higher the score the less I have it:

Self-Love: 5, 1, 4, 4, 5 = 19     

Contour: 5,4,2,1,1 = 13     

Communication: 3,5,1,5,4 = 18   

Trust: 1,1,3,1,2 = 8

I guess to answer in my own my own words but using this as my basic knowledge; I would say like most aspects of my identity it still has plenty of room for improvement but I know it is changing and improving. I used to be so blocked and walled up that my self-love didn’t exist. Rationalizing my reality was intentionally ignored. Communications was avoided at all costs and I trusted the divine and nobody else; I barely trusted myself. These numbers have shown I’m improving. It is interesting though, for the most part I’ve always trusted probably more than I should have and that was solely based on my belief that everyone is good, they are just wounded. I’ve very seldom had people I didn’t trust because I always had ears to hear, and for the most part I’d say people picked that up from me and didn’t feel the need to lie to me. They could probably also tell that I could sense a lie from a million miles away. The past couple years I have REALLY worked on the self-love and Chris is probably the biggest reason for that. If someone else can find a reason to love someone that has been in denial about reality; then I felt it was my responsibility to take that love he had for me, and embrace it and love myself for the same reasons. I work on getting discipline most days and that is so I can show up for myself and start to trust myself. My communication has been drastically improved (I can thank Chris for that one too) because that’s what it takes to be in a partnership. I have to have an identity especially an emotional one (ESPECIALLY being married to a melancholy! They love being in and with the feels)!

I don’t believe in doom and gloom. There’s too many people in the world that got that covered. I think more people need a cheerleader. I’ve always needed a cheerleader so that’s the role I try to play in most people’s lives. I’m noticing it’s starting to work which has been incredible. I’ve watched three people specifically drastically change their world because I told them I believed in them and I think sometimes that’s all a person needs.

Emotionally reactive. No. I am frequently humbled when I do react. I will say if I’m pushed to the point of anger or disappointment I do respond in a more reactive manner but I will try to walk it off before acting on it. My poor husband gets a little frustrated with me, because I don’t get excited very easily; but I’ve had to explain to him multiple times, it’s not that I’m not excited, I’m usually pretty stoked but usually around excitement, I get lost in stimulation and curiosity so it really does not come off as excitement. I would say overall I’m much more even-tempered. My dad was an emotional drunk and I got the brunt of it so that’s probably why emotions and I don’t get along well. He would cry, tell me to communicate with him about how he’s doing behaviorally than the next day I would and I’d get the cold shoulder for three days. So yeah, emotions have not been my favorite thing in the past; however, I know how important it is so I have been trying to allow the emotions and embrace them more. 

Is there a variation in your emotional being depending on circumstances? I would say no until I reach the point of anger. That brings a whole other side of me that I’m not comfortable with sometimes. Luckily, it’s only come out a handful of times, and I’ve been working on my anger quite a bit so I’ve noticed a huge difference in the variation this last go round that impressed me. 

Am I an emotional person, yes. I cry more than I’d like to, but I believe in crying because it releases the tension. Anger has been a common theme. I used to get sad, and sometimes my neural pathways like to go down a hole without my permission (although the number of times that happens reduces by the year, which is super exciting)! I don’t think grateful is an emotion but I know my gratitude for where life has taken me can get very overwhelming sometimes which is the coolest experience. When it comes to the positive emotions though I do tend to be more reserved. I feel the feels I just don’t express them well, I’ve always been embarrassed about showing positive emotions because more times than not I was surrounded by people who either didn’t feel positive emotions or just didn’t show them well. 

How often do I express emotionally? I would say not near enough, and that’s why I’m getting into writing again. It seems to be the most efficient outlet for me. I never want to write this much when answering prompts…yet here we are. But I say it’s a good thing because eyes aren’t meant to be on it; if I ever get a wild hair and do publish my blog. I apologize to all the viewers! Seriously…What situations do I show my emotions? Again usually the negative ones. I’m working on expressing the positive ones. Gratitude helps. A LOT!

Are my emotions pliable and changing? Oh yes, sometimes by the hour and after the last hour I don’t remember why I felt the way I did the hour before. I like to think it’s lingering chemical imbalances that are working itself out; however I think communication (or lack thereof on my part) has a huge part in it as well.

What lens do I see the world through? Well funny story. Most people say they are intrigued with the way I see the world because it is a little more on the unique side (I get it from my mom and I’m incredibly grateful for it). However, I have also had people point out I can be very dark when talking about the world. I was very aware of the world at way to young of an age and turned very bitter at way too young of an age. I understand the world is corrupt, and unfair and we’re all going to die anyway. However, we have enough people who make the world a living hell with that viewpoint. So if I know that media is toxic I’m going to stay off of it. If I know capitalism is to keep the rich rich and the poor poor. I’m not going to participate in it. If I know people suck, and I’m not going to be a person that sucks too. Like the Buddha or Ghandi said “Be the change you want to see in the world” that’s my lens. That viewpoint has been pretty consistent for a long time.

Ohh man I thought I was going to start to wrap these questions up quicker towards the end. This why I try not to think….

What parts of your emotional self are you denying? I read The Art of Fear that said we are made up of 10,000 employees. The top employees if you well are named Fear, Anger, Happiness, and Sadness, (according to Inside Out) Disgust is another one. We have a tendency to throw Fear and Anger into the basement and lock them into the dark because they are buzz kills. I would say Fear is a side I deny and abandon quite often, and I didn’t know about it until about two years ago when I got engaged, and I would say it’s still a work in progress. I realized I am so scared of living a “normal” life, especially with the emotional package I have under my belt. Marriage. House. Family. Career. Death. It’s so suffocatingly mediocre, and I am terrified of it. It’s so emotionally demanding; each category alone let alone all one after the other. The fear haunted me. The fear of an sociopathic ex boyfriend haunted me. The fear of the truth of who I was being revealed haunted me. For three and a half months I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to curl up in a corner behind a dumpster and rot. But I did what I do best. I reminded myself that there was going to be a day when the fear would stop and I’ll move on with my life. That’s exactly what happened. I mean I worked at it. I had to talk myself off some ledges. I had to face some ginormous demons in the face. I did a lot of work on loving myself, and forgiving myself and on and on and on. But now I don’t fear as much. It’s cool. 

Moving on the anger I’ve always known about myself and look I’m Irish, Italian, German and an Aries. My anger scares me; I know how to let my head go into flames without making an ass of myself. So I guess I don’t deny it, but I definitely try not to shine the light in that direction. 

I need some help figuring out if I’m denying my positive emotions. I don’t get excited easily, and when I do I show it. I squeak sometimes, it’s embarrassing but I know that’s when I’m excited, and it feels good to be excited. I think because Chris being more emotional, I’ve dialed down my emotions quite a bit. He gets annoyed but when he’s high he’s super high and there’s been plenty of times where someone or something has shot him down and then he gets incredibly low. When we first met we would yoyo off each other emotionally and it was devastating how it didn’t cause a break up we still don’t know. But now being married and growing the way we are, we both have been able to manifest some incredible things and that gets me super geeky excited. So maybe I haven’t denied my joy I just keep it in check. I think I was around the wrong crowd when I was in college I didn’t want to show my positive emotions because I was afraid they would use it against me to try to keep me around longer. Gah!! I just had a daddy issue moment. My dad used to take us to Fat City all the time and would use it against my mom because “the girls had so much fun at Fat City” which is a place my mom couldn’t afford. So anything my mom try to do just wouldn’t cut it for fun, which I did not find out until way later. The weird part is when I was super young, I did enjoy the things we did with my mom (they were sketchy I’ll be honest), but when my dad found out he turned it into a bad thing….so there ya go!

Since the business I’d say I’m doing really well handling honestly all my emotions, and I give Suzanne an enormous amount of credit as well. She kick started me processing my emotions especially the negative ones and turning them into positive ones. The business however talks about “turning mountains into molehills” and “celebrate or grieve for 24 hours then move on” and “don’t have the same problem you have now 6 months to a year from now.” I mean beautiful beautiful phrases that are so easy to implement, especially for someone that doesn’t like expressing or dealing with my emotions.

Do I feel the feels? Absolutely. Chris and I both have really been working spiritually through calming his emotions and me embracing mine. I preferred to ignore my feelings for the longes time and now Chris not only gives me the space to acknowledge them, but encourages me to; and he’ll stand right next to me when I want him to, and he’ll go kick rocks if I want him to. He’s just so incredible when it comes to stuff like that; then once I’m ready we discuss them and how I handled them. 

That Art of Fear book I mentioned had another good point: emotions are neither good or bad. Some just have a societal stigma. Fear is a survival emotion, it’s kept us alive for millions of years and now we don’t need to survive the way we did but we have the million year old wire in us that is telling us to fear and here’s why. It’s not a bad thing, and it’s not a bad thing to get angry. What’s “bad” is suppressing and trying suffocate those million year old wires that do have a duty. That’s the philosophy I’ve adapted on that topic but I do find a lot of truth in it. As mentioned before, I’m working on not suppressing but embracing all emotions including the fear and anger. Chris had a good analogy as well: he said let your awareness be your angers friend. Let anger talk it out with your awareness, and let your awareness just love and on and empathize with your anger. 

What do I yearn to do? Experience? Be? And Feel? Ooof! That’s a good one too. I yearn to live a life of freedom in every aspect of my life. I yearn to experience the feeling of being free in every aspect of my life. I yearn to be free, and I yearn to feel that freedom. The way we have been taught to live is not right, we are human beings and I don’t believe we are the only species to have developed to be monkeys in a capitalist circus. I never have believed in that I never will. The business has taught me that we can be life long students, life long friends, life long servants and that will give you the best life one could imagine and that’s what I yearn to do, experience, be and feel and I have every intention to do so. 

Ok done for today. If you made it this far. Go take a walk, you’ve been staring at screen for too long. Muah! Love you!