Diving into your Emotions

Many do not know this, but my New Year's Resolution this year was to become comfortable in silence. I have always been accustomed to living in a fast paced, loud, environment that anything less than this made me uncomfortable. Did you know that I am so accustomed to sound that even at nighttime I need ambient noise to help me fall asleep? Silence just never worked for me.

My decision to become comfortable in silence stemmed from my own realization that I was lacking in the emotional awareness department of Emotional Intelligence. In an effort to improve this area, I needed to be able to self-reflect and check-in. It's difficult to do so in a distracting environment so as a way to work my way up to emotional awareness, I decided to first get comfortable in silence and see if I can develop awareness in that process.

A client of mine turned me to Headspace. Headspace is a guided meditation app that teaches you how to meditate and helps you to turn this into a daily practice where you can build your meditative skills. They first give you a brief tutorial on how to meditate and then for your first session, you are guided through a simple 3 minute meditation. You are taught how to breathe comfortably, allowed time to let your mind wander, taught how to bring your mind back to your breath and how to relax your body as you get lost into meditation.

I remember the first time I watched "Inside Out". I have never felt so frustrated watching an animated movie. If you've never watched the movie and have no idea about what I'm talking about, all you have to know is that this movie personifies our emotions as little characters in our heads. See Exhibit A

Joy, my favourite character, is the leader of the pack. She ensures that her human, Riley, experiences joy in all that she does. The characters love seeing Riley happy. However, things go awry when Sadness messes with Riley's memories and turns joyous memories into sad memories. I became so frustrated every time Sadness did this. I was yelling at the screen, "STOP RUINING HER MEMORIES. JUST LEAVE IT ALONE". I could not believe how worked up I was getting.

Now that I'm a little older (and I watched the end of the movie), I can see the value in experiencing all emotions. This was further solidified in reading, "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom, which sprinkles life lessons taught by a man nearing his death bed.

Morrie tells us, "By throwing yourself into emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a minute."

The reason why I was becoming so frustrated with Sadness was because I, like many others, avoid feeling pain. I am accustomed to always push away pain and to never acknowledge it. Painful memories just don't exist in my library of memories. Yet, Morrie says the opposite. He says to feel emotions all the way through. Only then can you really appreciate happiness. Only then can you actually step away from negative emotions. It is no longer a demon that consumes you in the background. It becomes something that you conquer. How encouraging is that? To know that, yes, I do have control over this. Riley experiences the same. She recognizes she can only appreciate joy when it is contrasted with sadness.

It's like, how can you appreciate the warmth of fire if you have never been cold? How can you appreciate sunlight if you've never seen a cloudy sky? How can you appreciate the hug of a loved one if you've never missed them? How can you appreciate food if you've never been hungry? We need a little sadness in our lives to really appreciate the joys that come with it.

So, by that logic, invite sadness into your consciousness. Allow yourself to feel. Really feel the sadness because this doesn't last forever. Nothing in life is permanent. Not even your emotions. Once the power of sadness has left (and it will), there is joy waiting for you to experience.