No B.S Friday: We think about emotions differently now. But most of us haven’t caught up.
“The only good emotion is a dead emotion.”
I think that pretty neatly sums up the our approach to life right the way through the 20th Century.
Emotions were tricksy things that served no useful purpose, and just got in the way of good old rational thinking.
And that was a convenient approach to take because there was so much buried trauma, that if you popped that cork it was likely to go off like a massive bottle of misery champagne.
But time moves on and the narrative shifts.
Now, it is good to be in touch with your emotions. We recognise there’s a power there, not only to guide us in life, but to allow us to really enjoy life itself.
And that’s great.
But have you defused your emotion-suppressing mechanisms?
In particular, have you disabled “distraction”?
Most of us are running the distraction sub-routine we learnt when we were kids. Distract. Forget. Hope it goes away.
You can see how it happens. “Distraction” is an important part of every parents tool-kit. You’re crying because mummy won’t let you play with her I-phone. But look, here’s a set of keys.
It works with young kids (from 2 to about 55) because they’re easily distracted, and because their emotions are so off the hook. It’d be draining if you tried to address every emotional turn. Sometimes it’s easier to distract them with something else and just go back to your gin and tonic.
Trouble is, we never grow out of this.
We learn that the appropriate response to hurt, and to disappointment in particular, is “not to dwell on it”. Don’t give your feelings any attention. Focus your thoughts somewhere else, and eventually they’ll go away.
“What is Johnny Depp up to now?!”
You miss out on a promotion, don’t worry about it. Just pretend like it never happened. Stiff upper lip chaps.
Maybe that has a place when you’re a toddler, but as an adult, you’re creating an emotionally deadened life for yourself. What’s worse, you’re missing an important opportunity to see in detail what really excites your heart.
When emotions come, ideally, we want to take the time to be with them, unpack them, understand them in detail.
If we can do this, then we have greater clarity about what makes us happy and fills us with joy. We have greater clarity about what we are called to do. We see the path before us in more definition.
It’s all super useful stuff.
But if you’re running a distraction sub-routine, then you miss all of this amazing info.
And life just has less colour.
So watch yourself. Watch for the ways you distract yourself from the things you are feeling. Watch yourself closely.
We all have work to do here.
JG.