Being honest about our emotions is not always easy. Add a chronic or terminal illness into the mix and things always seem to get tougher. Sadness, self-pity (or loathing), denial, depression and, of course, our friend Anger, all come out to play.
Emotions can bubble up unexpectedly, violently, or simmer beneath the surface. They can trip a person up, derail a perfectly calm and pleasant morning, confuse everybody in the room and change just about any dynamic without a glimmer of grace or sense of appropriate timing. Emotions run counter to that thread of logic that many of us cling to for sanity, bubbling and popping and roiling all over our bodies like some adolescent’s acne. Yet, quite unlike the exquisite release of a properly ripe whitehead, venting our emotions can be done in decent company and in a healthy, scar-free manner — as long as anger does not get the upper hand.
The first thing to realize is that we are not fully in control of how we feel. We can work on our frame of mind constantly, quite successfully, and still not be 100% in charge.
There are environmental issues in play, chemical changes in brain chemistry, hidden messages that your body is still coaxing out, memory triggers, subconscious fears and longings, daily stresses both physical and mental, fatigue, anxiety, repressed agendas and the direct influence of nature and the other individuals in the room. With all those variables (and so many more) just on the obvious level, it is a wonder that any of us feels totally in control even when we are perfectly healthy and well rested.
The second thing to remember is that emotions are okay to exhibit. Nothing wrong there! We all have them. Dad may have appeared stoic most of the time, but that was how he was trained to behave; it certainly did not reflect his inner life. Babyface Cryalot might have been raised to be overly sensitive by his hippy parents, but the bottom line is that one person’s emotional reality is no less valid than another’s. You wear yours on your sleeve, I stuff mine in a deep pocket, but regardless of what we are wearing the full range of feeling still occurs. It is not shameful to be shocked, sad, confused, afraid, nervous, unbalanced, mad or even joyfully exuberant.
Repressing emotions, however, bottles up whatever turmoil is not being dealt with and pressure is going to build. Like a tea pot too long on boil, this could begin with some scattered whistles and steam seeping out around the edge of the lid. But keep that lid tightly stuck in place too long and the pressure will eventually blow it off. When that happens, the kettle boils over and. Someone is likely to get burned.
It is an apt metaphor, and those burns can leave lasting scars. Bursts of uncontrolled emotion, especially anger, can damage relationships, undermine self confidence and ruin a perfectly good morning. But training yourself to let off steam productively can prevent these burns. Preventing such behaviors can also assist in the physical healing process by helping to keep the focus positive and therefore being more open to what is good for you.
The process begins by embracing the roots of our emotions and understanding how they evolve. Why are we angry? What other emotions led us down the path to this overwhelming feeling? Whether it is confusion, resentment or the realization that every new door leads away from our goals, anger can quickly rise and take over if we are not aware of how our emotions are moving us. Stuffing them down, being embarrassed by them, even just ignoring our emotions will open the door to anger, sometimes quite unexpectedly.
It isn’t easy to take stock of our inner lives every day, especially when we are extra fatigued or bogged down with a nasty headache or upset stomach or the stress of bills piled on top of the stress of our physical health. But whatever is going on, the effort is worth it and it will pay off each time an outburst can be circumvented because we address the inner machinations of our emotional states. Just knowing what is going on in there is often enough to make you pause before spouting off a sequence of inappropriate epithets at an unsuspecting child or throwing something handy across the room. Remember: it isn’t anyone else’s fault, and quite probably not even (or not entirely) your own. Taking out your anger on another individual, however cathartic it might feel in the moment, will almost always be an action later regretted. So make the effort to take stock, to be aware and honest with yourself and with others about how you are feeling — then seek out the positives for balance, not to deny that you have doubts and fears, but to embrace them and move past them to a better place.
Accept the full range of your emotions. Accept that they are not all comfortable but that they are still all there and a part of you. Share what they mean to you, learn where they come from and embrace them as part of your experience. Then turn them into something better.
Of course, every blog owes its readers the opportunity for the feel-good emotional response elicited by a cat video. To honor that primal need we all share, this: