joy #3

Phew..

The new year has been crazy busy and some where around the corner, it nagged me, that ive stopped writing.
And that i haven't really stopped to look for the silver lining I promised myself I'd look for, everyday.

Listening to a chirp on the radio today morning, about emotional health put me on a trail of thoughts.

We are conditioned since young to not feel our emotions. To bury the emotions deep down inside, in order for us to carry on unperturbed in life. up to a certain point, it is important and imperative that we bury them deep inside and put a tomb-stone firm over it. Because otherwise, the amount of thought process that goes into it becomes a burden

But the emotional energy that goes into burying these feelings never go away, the just lay around. Whenever we bury or suppress what we feel, we are merely adding to our set of emotional baggage. Simply because dealing with the emotions require us to acknowledge the presence of our emotions. That is what we all fear.

Fear, seems to be a very interesting term and something I've been pondering about for sometime.

We cannot live without the fear. For without fear, life looses its zest. Fear supplies adrenalin (you may say its th other way around), fear makes up behave the way we behave, fear in simple words actually make who we are, Us.

Fear can be easily broken down to 4 basic, Fears. And no they do not include fear of spiders or heights as in contrary belief. The very basic significant four are

1. fear of loss

2. fear of rejection

3. fear of feeling vulnerable

4. fear of feeling the full force of our emotion

Its these fears that drive us human beings and any other fear is merely the derivative of the above mentioned.

The fear of feeling the full force of our emotions are more often than not the major fear everyone has. We deny ourselves from feeling what we feel. Its more of a defense mechanism rather than refusal to acknowledge. We have conditioned our minds to not get too close or in depth with an issue so as to avoid emotional pain or scars when the issue takes a wrong turn.

We make our selves believe that if we ignore the emotion long enough or bury it, it will dissappear.
Its far and very far away from the truth.

Simply because the term energy, comes from the word' Energy in motion'.

The first law of Thermodynamics says '

'Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only change forms

In any process in an isolated system, the total energy remains the same'

We need to find an outlet for all this energy, for if otherwise they just build up in our system, till we get tired of it and eventually fall sick.

for example, if we have an issue at work place, we tend to generally shut up about it. Or, have a chat around the water cooler, with a colleague.

Having a chat is good, you may say, because we are expressing ourselves and feeling what we feel exactly. But that doesnt tend to diffuse the emotion. The one thing we need to do? To talk it out to the concerned person. But there kicks in fear again. Because we dont like confrontations, or conflicts or rejection or depreciation.

 And it comes back to those fears! for example if i tell my boss off, it way lead to conflicts and rejection and that leads to Fear of Rejection, and i fear i might be rejected! so its only reasonable for me to want to bury it deep down , but risk lugging a huge baggage.

But, emotions are feedbacks. They let us know what we are feeling  and if we ignore the feelings, we are ignoring a very significant part of our lives.

What can we do to address the situation then?

Journalism! That seems to come easy to most people. Where you sit down everyday, at the end of the day and reflect and pour out your emotions. Anything and everything that bothers you. You're taking the first and most crucial step of addressing and acknowledging the existence of the problem. And instead of ignoring the problem, you're reflecting over it.

But if that isnt enough, you'll need to somehow find an avenue to express your feelings to the person concerned. Because, they are your emotions and they are making you feel a certain way, in a way that you're feeling. Of which the society has taught us well enough, to find somebody else to blame. we can get all gung ho about yelling at the person and express ourselves to people, as if they are responsible for what we are feeling . But, technically  no one can make us feel the way we do, unless we give them permission to.

In some cases, having a mature honest exchange with an individual on how you choose to behave on their behaviour works. Because sometimes, people violate their boundaries on us. but if we dont let them know, why would they change? Because they dont realise they are trampling on other peoples boundaries!

Thats exactly what we need to understand. How to express our emotions and feelings in a matured, grown up manner. We need to understand that it is healthy to express our feelings!

And if i could inspire anyone to apply this in their daily life (includes me) i'd be honored!

For I, need to first, start recognizing and allow my emotions to take over me! To understand that it is OK to be vulnerable.

The moment I manage to do so (in personal life), i'll write a huge blog about it.

Till then, cheers!