Stuck Emotions
I once drove an old Honda Civic hatchback. A cute little reliable car, perfect for high school. My friend dubbed it the Silver Bullet—though it barely made it to highway speeds, much less that of a bullet. Given that it was an old car, it had its share of quirks. One of those quirks was it accelerated all on its own.
Truth be told, it was scary. I’d be traveling down a residential road and it was as if the Silver Bullet suddenly became possessed. Out of no where, the engine would rev and the car would pick up steam. Oh, and by the way, hitting the brakes did nothing to stop the engine from racing.
How did I stop the car from careening off the road at the next turn? Not by stomping on the brakes, but on the accelerator. Yes, the very thing that makes the car go faster was the thing that made it to go slower. I’d hit the accelerator and then magically the car would calm down again and act normal for a while.
Dealing With Your Emotions
Emotions are very much the same as my old car. Many of us, when our emotions start racing, try to tap the brakes. We try ignoring the emotion. We try thinking our way through them. We try maneuvering around the big emotion. And nothing works. Counterintuitively, what we really need to do isn’t avoid the emotion, but instead hit the gas on the emotion. Let the emotion out. Don’t try and contain it.
[Disclaimer: Do not do this with anger. Many fellas view anger as the only emotion that is appropriate for a man to have…and so everything comes out as anger. Do not give fuel to this fire. To deal with anger, we often times need to look at the softer more vulnerable emotion that the anger is preventing from getting out. That softer more vulnerable emotion is the true emotion, and the emotion that we need to hit the gas on.]
No amount of swallowing or bottling up emotions is going to help resolve the emotions. No, emotions need to be expressed with our bodies and with our words in order to be resolved. After we hit the accelerator on those emotions, they naturally resolve.
I encourage you to recognize your emotions in your body. Allow yourself to feel in your body what you feel emotionally. Honor the nervous butterflies in your stomach. Delight in the light hearted joy in your chest. Pay attention to the grief and dread that presents as a pit in your stomach. Our bodies are communicating our emotional state. And when we pay attention to our bodies, those hard emotions resolve faster and clear out of our bodies sooner.
I further encourage you to verbally communicate your emotional world. This is not an easy thing to do. Linking words to our physiological experience of emotions is somewhat artificial. It is natural to feel things in our bodies, but linking that to language is something that must be learned. And in learning how to do it, you increase your ability to process those emotions with your brain. What is more, you increase your ability to relate to others. As you language your emotions to others, you are increasing emotional intimacy with them.
If you have a hard time feeling what you feel, if you struggle to relate to your spouse in emotional ways, if you blow up with anger, if you want to tap into your tenderheart, call me and we can begin work at strengthening your truest self.
