The Great Pretender
“Don`t cry!” - said mum to 5 year old George. “Everyone will laugh at you! You are a little man, you are supposed to be strong!”
“Don`t be angry with your brother! - said mum to George`s sister Amy. “Be nice to him. He just wanted to play with you”
Both George and Amy grew up very strong and nice indeed. 🙂
The only thing was they also developed a habit of ignoring how they felt for the sake of fitting in.
George and Amy`s mum is a great mum. She is caring and loving and did everything in her power to raise her children in the best way she could. And she did. Both George and Amy are very successful individuals and good people.
Whether you have children or not, I bet you can relate to this story as a parent or as a child. Either you have advised your kids directly or indirectly to ignore their feelings at some point or you were asked by your parents, a relative, your teacher, your line manager in one way or another to disregard your feelings. And even if you can still not relate to that, you have certainly heard a story, watched a movie etc. that in one way or another was implying that acknowledgement of feelings will make you weak.
We live with this message for centuries and we pass it on and on and this makes me very sad. It makes me sad because:
“We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.” -Brene Brown
We tend to be very good at pushing away our anger, frustrations, fears under some kind of social pressure, the pressure at work etc. We ignore them in our life for years and then, this amputates us from the pleasant once as well. There are so many occasions during a day to be happy, joyful, proud, thankful but it is somewhat difficult to experience them when we have trained ourselves to push our feelings away.
The word emotion means: external motion and it lives much better out than in. ;)
If you do not trap it in but you let it out, it is quick and you are able to move on to something else after 2, 3 seconds. At the same time, if you trap it in your body, it results in some kind of suffering and for example, the brain transforms it into unhealthy thoughts subconsciously. So, the more you push your emotions away, the more they come to you as a bomerang.
I felt some pressure in my throat today as I was writing this which normally is a sign for me that there is something I am not acknowledging and expressing. So, I had a choice:
I ignore my sadness. I start thinking that I am helpless, that I am a bad mother as well because I also told my daughter on various occasions not to be sad, that I can not do anything, that it will always be like that and as a society, we will keep ignoring our emotions which leads to so many troubles.
I acknowledged my sadness and moved on. I now feel hopeful. I am hopeful because in the last couple of years, there has been so much attention on this topic. I am hopeful because there are so many people that dedicate their lives to reverting this habit of ours to ignore our emotions: authors, psychologists, therapists, coaches. I am hopeful as well because there are so many great leaders who are willing to contribute to that effort. I am hopeful because parenting has become so much more conscious these days and thanks to that ripple effect and all that support around us, I do not feel helpless anymore. I feel powerful and empowered!
How about you? What will be your role to play in this? Are you in or out?
If you are in: start/ continue acknowledging your emotions throughout the day:
Check your body for any signs of holding in-motions: tension in the throat, a slight chest pain, a headache, a pressure in the jaw, hips
Connect to your e-motions. You can download a list of emotions for free here: https://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/learn-nonviolent-communication/feelings/ or if English is not your native language, you can google to download a list in your own language. Try to use a diverse vocabulary. We tend to use words frequently as I am happy, sad, and angry. However, in order to be able to fully experience the emotion, try to use the most accurate word for it for maximum benefits.
Observe any motion in your body and thoughts based on simply acknowledging your emotions on a regular basis.
I wish you an emotional day!
