Emotional Messaging
I was pissed off. The severity of how upset, and how quickly I had gotten there was just as surprising to me, and I could tell by my wife’s face, as it was to her. What started out as a fun discussion about possible vacation plans had suddenly and without warning, taken a very nasty turn. Like a seemingly instantaneous storm gathering over the open ocean, the jovial nature of our chat had changed into a fierce downpour with terrifying bursts and flashes, and I had no clue as to why. Even while unleashing my frustrations, I can distinctly remember thinking “Why the hell am I so mad?”
After stepping away from the conversation, and with some time thinking and introspection, it occurred to me that my issue was not with my emotional outburst, but why it happened in the first place. Addressing just my emotionality, and not looking further into why I felt that way, would be like treating a blister without paying any attention to how it was formed. It would never heal, and I would have moments of excruciating pain with no hope of a better life. A lot of times our emotions are like that blister, and they are trying to tell us that we need some specific attention, but it may not be clear why.
It was a bit of a shock to me to consider that emotions are a form of self-messaging that are meant to be cultivated and inspected, and not just annoying involuntary reactions that need to be ignored. So many emotions can make so little sense. Over time I have found that confusion with my emotions is usually a dead giveaway of my needing to tend to them. It can be especially tricky when dealing with them because they can be valid without being true. Like when I was upset at my wife for no reason, I honestly felt like she didn’t even have a clue who I was, and that is obviously untrue. So why did I feel that way?
By the miracle of realization, it dawned on me that the last time I went on the type of vacation that my wife and I conversationally stumbled upon, I had a nightmarish time. The whole trip was horrible, and it hurt so bad that, like the untreated blister, when I came into contact with the ignored hurt, it was surprisingly explosive and painful. The emotionally lazy option for me was to get incurably and mysteriously angry, and make odd and even childish attempts to avoid any and all contact with whatever it was that hurt me.
Through Love I was shown that there was another option though, that involved me being honest about the emotional impact that vacation still had on me, and allowing myself the space to deal with it in as peaceful and loving a way as possible. We do not have to be ruled by our emotions, especially when they are so devastating and seemingly unpredictable. If we can muster the courage to look beyond the messiness of emotionality, we can see them as an invaluable opportunity to learn more about ourselves, and not just as a painful chore to be avoided.