The Emotions Game
Ok, so, I’m not going to write anything you’ve probably haven’t come across before. Nothing earth shattering here. Honestly, what I have to say is an amalgamative approach to this topic. I’ve been immersed in this emotions game for the past 10 years now. What I’m going to say here is going to be as fresh of a take as I can offer; well, it is as this is the first time I’ve put down in writing where I’ve come to on this. So, grab whatever you need to: glass of water, cuppa tea, readers (not judging), a helmet?…and let’s get to it.
Emotions. So, if I were to ask you how well you manage your emotions, what would you have me believe? How much of what you would say to me would you actually believe? If we were all honest with ourselves, we’d probably recognize that there’s always growth needed here. Emotions are a lot. Emotions overwhelm. Emotions drive reactivity. Emotions cause the “haymaker” statements. Emotions can also be freeing. Emotions can also offer knowledge of self. Emotions can also inspire change. Emotions can also help us understand how to respond when something is or isn’t working for us. It’s all about emotions, y’all. How emotions drive any one of us will remain the single greatest exploration any one of us could undertake in this life.
There are our most powerful tool. Quite literally. Everything is born from our emotions. Think of all invention and convention we have today; that has ever been at our disposal. Ok, yeah, thinking of all the things? Good. Cause all that and I mean all that was born from emotion. Yup. Someone in their rationally needy brain felt, felt, compelled to create that thing. Think of a moment when you were able to speak eloquently or confidently about something. Guess what was there guiding you? If you said emotion, then bust out some chicken for dinner. (I mean, even if you said “fuck, Tim, yes I get it. It’s emotions. Yeah, wow.” then still have chicken just maybe easy off on the salt with the chicken, alright?! haha) Emotions drive us. Emotions inspire us. Emotions motivate us. Emotions stagnate us. Emotions overwhelm us. Emotions do all sorts of interesting things to, for, and with us. Aaaand if we are going to do this work thoroughly, then we must include “unchecked” and “recognized”. Unchecked emotions overwhelm. Unchecked emotions cause reactivity. While unrecognized emotions can wreak havoc, acknowledged emotions offer freedom. Recognized emotions can inspire change. Recognized emotions help us understand how to respond. That kinda changes the approach here. Because what I see makes anyone more capable and able to navigate life with as much agency as we all would like to have. It’s honing in on and realizing that emotional stability, aka emotional health, is the “cheat code” to this game that allows anyone to experience life as more manageable.
So, when I say this is the greatest work one can do in their life, what I mean is this: pursuing the necessary learning curve, the necessary knowledge of self, understanding what it means to develop awareness of and attunement to the emotional self…while still being able to remain “level-headed”. (Please define level-headed for yourself. A good starting point would be: the ability/capacity to maintain outlook and mindset on a steadied horizon, where movement is directive and focused; as opposed to looping and habituated.) In Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), the skill Wise Mind is what captures this outcome best. Wise Mind, in my professional interpretation, is developing such capacity where I am able to feel any given emotion and still act in congruence with my values while serving my purpose. Think about that statement. Then think about that one emotion that has any one of us say “and then I just lost my shit”. Not that easy to do. And thus, the reason for my statement: the greatest work one can do in life.
I recently looked up the etymology of the word emotion. If you care to, please do it; interesting stuff there. What I find fascinating is how the word has come to its current context. Being derived from the Latin words for “out” and “to move”, with an accent of “stirring”, the concept is not lost on how we talk about it today. Emotions do move. Emotions do stir. Emotions find method in how they are expressed (outwardly positioned; vs. impressed: inwardly experienced). Now, we could argue some semantics here and I would welcome that. I would contend here and in that discussion that even emotions impressed (inwardly experienced) do find methods to become outwardly positioned, or rather: moved out. That is because of how our bodies experience these forces of divine nature. The way I tend to explain to those I work with when we come up to this topic is this: if our brain is a series of electrical impulses, firing and wiring synaptic pathways together to create predictable behavioral patterns, then that means that electrical impulse must find its way out from the mind and into said behavior. That’s where our body comes in here. Based upon the impulse (aka thought), our bodies then move as specified by the synaptic messaging. That electric impulse instigates our muscles to move and action to be taken. So, what happens then when thought still happens (through the synaptic pathway) and there is no action to be had/ to be taken/ to be performed? Where does that electrical signal go? (I’ll give you 3 guesses!) If you said something, “those signals still go into the body” then please make sure to have some chicken tonight b/c that’s the winner!
What somatically-based modalities teach us is that the body then wears, holds, stores that energy. Neuroscience backs that fact as it highlights that our bodies cannot differentiate between what is actually happening to us from a/any thought of a situation, occurrence of such a thing happening to us. Our body still receives the same electrical output from our brain. Seriously, give that some thought: our bodies will always receive the energy output that the electrical signals from our thoughts produce. That’s one helluva’n ask. So, it might, might, be worthwhile to consider then: how well do I manage my emotions? And at what cost am I willing to keep up my “status quo”?
