Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board

...

(1/3) > >>

Ellie:
...

Ishana:
Dear Ellie,

Isn't it interesting how much our society frowns on displays of emotion when emotions are completely natural?  I think it's because people feel they are somehow supposed to "fix" it when someone is upset.  If they don't know how to respond to emotions then they try to force others not to have them.

People used to do the same thing with me.  I went through several years where I felt a lot of emotions and tried to suppress them but they still came out anyway.  I've had a few situations where I expressed anger or grief that didn't come out so well.  

So a couple of years ago I made a commitment to myself to not suppress my emotions anymore.  I recognized that I had residual emotional baggage from losing my mother at a young age, from many years of severe child abuse and from a failed marriage due to my ex's alcoholism.  I had exactly the feelings you expressed...mourning the loss of a childhood or fantasy of a family

So I started figuring out how to honor my emotions.   It might sound strange to you but it was such a relief to stop pushing them down all the time.  Now I am very familiar with my emotional self - it is almost a separate person to me...but very connected.  I feel that by accepting that I was going to have feelings and honoring my feelings by paying attention to them and using whatever information they were giving me to make my life better.  

I've stopped being afraid of my emotions.  I married a man who understands my emotional self and can deal with it.  I'm not angry anymore that I have them.  Funny thing, they've lessened.  I don't try to hide them anymore, I just listen to them.  I've become intimately familiar with my emotions...and somehow, they are healing.  I can actually tell how much stronger and confident I feel...not how I felt when I was overwhelmed by my feelings.  

Now I feel that if I have emotions I can deal with them in a wonderful way...I can take care of whatever needs to be handled so my emotions can be released and I can put whatever is hurting me into the past.  

I hope this will help you too.  If you can figure out what you are feeling and what you need to address the problem...or if you can address the problem...then you can heal your emotions.  Just take them one at a time!   :wink:

Keep us posted on how you are doing, Ellie!

Ishana

flower:
Hi Ellie,

(note to Ishana: What a beautiful reply, Ishana. I found it helpful.)

------------------------------------------------------

Thanks so much for your insight and support.
 It aided my healing. Too much of my heart
was in this post to let it remain here for posterity on the web.
The post served its purpose and now it is time to
edit it or gently take it down.
 
To every thing there is a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heaven:  Ecclesiates 3:1

------------------------------------------------------------

Anonymous:
Ellie,

It's sadly common to be shamed by others for any expression of feeling. Your family did it to you, now your husband is doing it. And you then internalize that and believe what you're told - that you are making a fool of yourself.

Here was something I learned - the difference between expressing emotion and venting emotion. Venting usually ends up with me feeling stupid, embarrassed, guilty, and needing to do damage control. Expressing feels more mature and I don't even care if someone doesn't like it. I try to describe my emotional state in a relatively calm fashion, even if it's not a calm state. But if I cry or get a little angry, too bad. I don't expect coworkers to tolerate volatile emotional states but I hope my husband will (he doesn't very well but he tries). And I do vent to my therapist.

We can manage our emotional states. Expressing emotions isn't the same as looking foolish. It's a learning process to manage it, and there are things you can practice, like calming yourself down, giving yourself time to think, phoning your therapist when you're upset.

bunny

mighty mouse:
Ellie,

I have learned the art of self-soothing. If you experience an emotion, it is possible to just sit with it for a minute and then process it without getting volitile. You can actually talk yourself through a situation.

Since you know yourself better than anyone, you can be the one to talk to you. You know what triggers anger and other emotions. If you think about your emotions when you are in a calm state, you will have a plan for when they (the emotions) come up.

Emotions in and of themselves aren't bad or good. They are just information. If you allow yourself some time to think about what you are feeling, you can actually make a decision as to what your response will be. And if you think about situations that come up that trigger negative emotions, you can think about when you were in the calm state to inform you as to what you might do.

Perhaps for example that something or someone offends you. Think about why this particular thing or person offends and why. It's the same with any emotion.....deconstruct it. Many times when we are in a more reasonable state we can see more clearly and decide that maybe the tapes we had that triggered that emotion are false. It might be a matter of changing the way you think.

For many of us who grew up around Ns, it's hard sometimes to know what we're feeling and why we feel it. Our emotions were bad or not convenient to the N parent or other N. So it's very difficult. Giving validation is immpossible for an N since they don't understand empathy.

I hope that helps in some measure.

MM

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page