Being Happy - Accepting Emotion

[ianvass]

Emotion drives everything we do, and I do mean everything. Logic is important, but logic itself has no power to bring us to a new place and create change. Just look at all the people who are dying of heart disease that know they need to change their diets in order to live, but refuse to do so. Logic says, "Eat right or die", and they respond with

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[vesper_evensong]

I love this actually. It goes along with all the things I've been saying for years. My mother taught me a bizarre thing that helped along the way, she said, "Feelings are not right or wrong, they just are." This is not an excuse to do bad things because we are upset, but rather simply letting our emotions be what they are, acknowledging them, and choosing what we do (action) based on realizing it's just an emotion, and we still have control. I don't block emotions anymore - that's how I landed in depression so many times, I blocked feeling pain, but I needed to feel that pain in order to grow, and to learn, and to be human.

When I lost my baby in September - I was not prepared for how deep that pain would go, but I had rough guesses as I am already a parent and know how deep that love goes. I promised myself that in my grieving process I would not shut off my feelings, and I would let myself feel whatever it was whenever it was in order to heal properly and not go "numb" and depressed. I have not been in a state of depression at all during this though there are times I have been deeply sad and grieving - I let the pain do what it was intended to do in my life, to forge me into something more.

Anger is something that can be destructive, and when I feel anger, I don't shut that off either, but instead I voice that I'm feeling it, and go to be alone and think a little about what I'm feeling and where it's coming from. I will often withdraw from a heated situation so I can deal with the feelings, and examine them closely. Anger always has a root in something else, often pain. But I don't shut it out. Bottled emotions like that have a tendency to explode in an uncontrollable way, and I don't want to hurt people around me by doing that.

I realized when depressed that I was praying a lot... and I knew I was heard, but I couldn't hear the spirit in return. I had shut out my ability to hear it.. to feel it, because I had shut down all forms of feeling anything, even positive. I learned so many lessons through my depression, about emotions, about growth and being human, and also and most importantly about where God was when I was that way, and that He waits for us to ASK for help. I was at the point of taking my life once before I was married or even knew my husband, and instead ran to my knees and for 2 hours I catalogued for the Lord everything that I had kept inside.. all the pain. The outcome was an amazing experience where I felt huge quantities of Love and empathy. I was told very clearly that He was right there with me all the time, but his hands were tied because I had not asked.

All my negative experiences have been for my good in the end. And years ago when my dad's receptionist passed away after a horrible battle with cancer I heard a poem from her funeral that helped me get through the hardest times of life...the most difficult emotions. YOu may have heard this before, but it's something I memorized because of it's value to me...

The Weaver

My life is but a weaving,
between my Lord and me.
I cannot choose the colors,
He worketh steadily.

Oft times He weaveth sorrow,
and I, in foolish pride,
Forget He sees the upper,
and I the underside.

Not till the loom is silent,
and the shuttles cease to fly,
Shall God unroll the canvas,
and explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful,
In the skillful weavers hand,
As the threads of gold and silver,
In the pattern He has planned.

After all the things I have been through, though I have not suffered as much as some, I have gained more strength, more faith, more empathy, more trust in the Lord, and I have come to understand that adversity is not always a bad thing even if it's uncomfortable and sometimes downright painful. Emotions work this way too. There is a balance between them, and you're right. How can you feel the flight of joy, if you have not felt the weight of sorrow? One cannot appreciate the sun until one has felt the lack of it.

The real key is to understand how to use the negative emotions without taking them out on someone we love, and to come to understand them. It's quite a process, and one I have not yet mastered, but am working on.

Sorry. I think just rambled and verbally vomited all over this post.

[ianvass]

Heh. Emotion tends to be an (ahem) emotional subject, and when we have emotion, that emotion presses to be expressed, often in Wall o' Text.

You're fine. I enjoyed reading your thoughts! :)

[vesper_evensong]

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm still learning so much about it, but obviously we have emotions of all sorts for several reasons. It's an interesting journey - life.