Dancing Emotions
Do you ever feel like you are having a harder and harder time being nice the older you get? That to express what you truly think and feel gets harder and harder to hold back, or even do diplomatically, when you are unsure how it may come across, sound, or be received, whether it will be accurately understood or misunderstood/twisted by the recipient? Maybe I'm just getting more neurotic, but verbal exchanges with family members and people at large feels like a dance to me, and I'm not particularly good at dancing. I often worry I won't know the appropriate or proper steps, that I'll accidentally step on the other person's foot without meaning too, or that I'll cause offense when no offense was intended. Of course, no matter what you do, even if you think you are dancing as carefully as possible, you are more likely to make a mistake when you're worried about making a mistake. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that. Anyway, probably not the best comparison but it always comes to mind when I think about human communications and how messy it all truly is with sending and receiving messages. It's honestly a miracle any of us can make any sense at all out of one another.
Which leads to this random post. I'm having a hard time knowing what I should write about specifically. I'm worried about stepping on toes. I am dying to explain everything that I feel in my heart, to explain the truth, but not brave enough to not be afraid of the consequences. So, I feel like I'm stalling for now. It always comes down to the basic question of balance. Where is the balance in telling the truth and not being cruel/mean/petty? In the end, I just follow what feels right. But then I wonder if what I feel is right is actually right.
Which can lead to this further thought: I often find that I am on a constant reel of feeling emotions and then feeling the critique of those emotions. There's actually a term for that, I found out a while ago: primary emotions and secondary emotions. As far as I understand it, primary emotions are what you feel in reaction to any given event/person/thing/etc., and the secondary emotions are how you feel about those primary emotions. For instance, let's say you are summoned out of Sunday School because your son's ostomy bag has started leaking during nursery and it needs to be addressed ASAP (because, it does). And you're holding your youngest son who was just starting to dose off in your arms when this suddenly happened. And you are spiritually thirsty, fatigued, and were really taking in the lesson (while also being a bit troubled by it-that's another post for another day). You feel a bit annoyed at being interrupted even though you understand the merit but find yourself being irritable with your son while replacing his ostomy bag. Those are the primary emotions- annoyance/irritation. Then shortly after, you start feeling bad (a.k.a. shame/guilt) about feeling irritated with your son for popping his ostomy bag. The guilt or shame is the secondary emotion. Based on a true story from today! Not sure my example is the best one but it came to mind.
Basically, these primary and secondary emotion reels are constantly running all day, as it does for everyone, and needless to say, it can get downright exhausting when you are assessing everything you are feeling and doing for the appropriateness of it, if that makes any sense. BUT. I like to ponder over the whys of the primary and secondary emotions because you can learn so much about yourself and where you're at in that moment. It can be eye-opening and get you to the heart of you. It can be painful. It can teach you important lessons. It can lead to further understanding. And other times it can drive you absolutely nuts that you think so much about this inner-self stuff that you just want to turn it off. Maybe you are afraid it just makes you more likely to misstep if you over think it; or worse, it's simply hyper self-consciousness, which may just be a symptom of self-centeredness.
Easier said than done when it comes to turning it off, I'm afraid. So, it's a tool that's meant to be used for our benefit. Just don't let it run off with the reins.
Which leads to this random post. I'm having a hard time knowing what I should write about specifically. I'm worried about stepping on toes. I am dying to explain everything that I feel in my heart, to explain the truth, but not brave enough to not be afraid of the consequences. So, I feel like I'm stalling for now. It always comes down to the basic question of balance. Where is the balance in telling the truth and not being cruel/mean/petty? In the end, I just follow what feels right. But then I wonder if what I feel is right is actually right.
Which can lead to this further thought: I often find that I am on a constant reel of feeling emotions and then feeling the critique of those emotions. There's actually a term for that, I found out a while ago: primary emotions and secondary emotions. As far as I understand it, primary emotions are what you feel in reaction to any given event/person/thing/etc., and the secondary emotions are how you feel about those primary emotions. For instance, let's say you are summoned out of Sunday School because your son's ostomy bag has started leaking during nursery and it needs to be addressed ASAP (because, it does). And you're holding your youngest son who was just starting to dose off in your arms when this suddenly happened. And you are spiritually thirsty, fatigued, and were really taking in the lesson (while also being a bit troubled by it-that's another post for another day). You feel a bit annoyed at being interrupted even though you understand the merit but find yourself being irritable with your son while replacing his ostomy bag. Those are the primary emotions- annoyance/irritation. Then shortly after, you start feeling bad (a.k.a. shame/guilt) about feeling irritated with your son for popping his ostomy bag. The guilt or shame is the secondary emotion. Based on a true story from today! Not sure my example is the best one but it came to mind.
Basically, these primary and secondary emotion reels are constantly running all day, as it does for everyone, and needless to say, it can get downright exhausting when you are assessing everything you are feeling and doing for the appropriateness of it, if that makes any sense. BUT. I like to ponder over the whys of the primary and secondary emotions because you can learn so much about yourself and where you're at in that moment. It can be eye-opening and get you to the heart of you. It can be painful. It can teach you important lessons. It can lead to further understanding. And other times it can drive you absolutely nuts that you think so much about this inner-self stuff that you just want to turn it off. Maybe you are afraid it just makes you more likely to misstep if you over think it; or worse, it's simply hyper self-consciousness, which may just be a symptom of self-centeredness.
Easier said than done when it comes to turning it off, I'm afraid. So, it's a tool that's meant to be used for our benefit. Just don't let it run off with the reins.
I'm sorry you had to leave class when you were fully engaged. I'm sure that happens more often than anyone would like... including Peter. :-P It probably feels like you never get a break ... even when you're at church. It would be frustrating.
ReplyDelete