Let your fear politely inform your actions rather than completely hijacking them. RM
Most useful conclusion for me to arrive at in terms of freedom and authenticity could be that every emotion is valid at the time it arises, but is not and cannot be the totality of the experience. There are other aspects of the truth to be considered with perhaps the same weight and importance as the internal emotional response.
So when I find myself with a strong (or weak) emotional response to my circumstances, I politely say to myself, “Thanks very much for that useful feedback, now, what other information can I observe that might also inform my decisions?”
Sometimes, I am racing around expressing and responding to the emotion before this rationale appears. But it is so effective at quelling or reducing the “overwhelmingness” of an intense emotional response, that I frequently end up turning the experience into an exercise. Let’s give it a title: “1000 ways for returning to peace and making decisions from that space.”
I am naturally very curious, so redirecting my attention to an investigation works 99% of the time and I often take the precise action required to bring about a win/win or some other type of peaceful resolution. The other 1% of the time… be afraid, be very afraid if you were the person who did the thing that triggered the emotional response. You’re about to find out exactly how I feel about it and I’ve got 47 years of barely expressed rage to draw energy from.
Yeah, some people are messing with me and one of them will probably have a bad day soon, courtesy of yours truly. Nothing to worry about though, it’s actually kind of interesting. Still… I will be glad to see the back of it.
😉
Jambo Robyn 
So true. Well done
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Cheers!
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Emotions are like waves, they come and go. As long as we don’t let them define us and our actions, they don’t have absolute power over us. I find journaling to be very useful as a venting tool, or unsent letters – then you can really let it all hang out. Venting on another person is a waste of time because they’ll immediately go into “fight or flight” mode as they feel attacked and then nothing gets accomplished; they can’t hear what you are really trying to say. That’s not to say that it wouldn’t be fun to really let someone else have it – it just creates more distance and perhaps enemies.
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Haha! What makes you think that I would waste time with venting? No. That is an exhausting and futile way to go about things, no-one’s usually listening, plus the person is already trying to create distance between us. I understand there is a socially correct way to deal with nastiness but those ideas work in perfectly civilised company that would never get to that point in the first place. That’s not the kind of thing I am usually faced with. For example, I can’t use that approach with a bigot, nor do I give a flying kahuna whether a bigot wants to become my enemy, I just need them out of my face/space/place.
There can be a bit of ranting and raving because the energy of rage is wild, but it’s also free and has no use for propriety or loss via oppression or any kind of bondage. What is the truth of someone deliberately throwing their weight around and taking the negative path unprovoked and without regard for their fellow man? They are clearly not in their right/sane mind and turning the other cheek every time is providing tacit acceptance. Not on my list of virtues. Written venting has been just as futile as it is still allowing the emotion to establish a hold without resulting in effective action which undermines my sense of self. Powerlessness. No, when I decide to let my rage have a run in the sun, it takes effective action and takes no prisoners and reinforces to me that I am capable and worthy of survival. And it scares everyone half to death, including me.
Others may have their emotions organised differently, but this has been my experience, and from this position I can have access to all the power and all the peace I need.
Year 10 English teacher marked an exercise at 80% for me and 100% for a classmate with exactly the same answers. Yes my classmate copied my work and then we took both papers to the teacher and asked why the difference? She said that I was not trying hard enough and that I needed to come up with deeper answers than my classmate and put in more effort, blah, blah… It’s discrimination, lady! We should both get 80, 100 or 0, I don’t care which. So by next class we had told everyone and I devised a response… Interrupting the class with random explosive utterings of “bucket” in a bit of a mexican wave pattern around the room. She thought we were swearing, and she tried to discipline us. Why? Because you’re swearing in class. No I’m not, just saying bucket. Well it’s a euphemism so it’s the same thing! Huh?! Whole room bursts into laughter, wtf is a euphemism? How much power do you have when you tell a student that you are giving them detention for a euphemism? The whole class wanted detention if that was the reason. The story was told for ages and yeah, we laughed all through detention. We used the time to uncover other ways to euphemise swearing, such as the way one may write the word FLICK. The plan was formulated during the headrush I got from realising she was deliberately messing with my schooling for personal reasons. Imagine if I’d been born evil…
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I guess much depends on: what outcome do you desire? And where do you truly want to direct your energies?
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I agree. That’s what the post is about. Mostly I prefer to let my emotions inform my decisions, but there are occasions, particularly those with physical repercussions, where a proper defense must be mounted and rage has the strongest energy for that. I’d rather risk the occasional enemy than be an habitual victim.
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I applaud your striving for a win-win situation or a peaceful conclusion.If that doesn’t work, then let ‘er rip!
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Hehe, love your response!
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Almost everything you write seems to speak to a situation I find myself in at the time.
Synchronicity, or just coincidence?
I feel like I am being exhorted by what you have written here. And yet, at the same time, I am sitting here thinking to myself, “I will never get to this kind of sanity. I am doomed to suffer as a reactionary, a complete nut!”
But you have given me something to consider! Thanks!
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I’m going with synchronicity because I like the idea and we’ll never prove the truth, so we’re free to choose. 🙂
You are so very welcome. You will find your own path my friend, just don’t be your own oppressor… I find the nervous system seems to be hyper-responsive to one’s imagination and it takes even better cues about what you really want from all kinds of dreams, stories and imaginings than self-talk. Self-talk only seems to have power due to it’s frequency of repetition. Dreams or stories are much richer, more engaging experiences, so each experience of that nature has an almost exponential impact on how we see and respond to life.
So I reckon I imagined myself to the point I’m at now and I consider this method effective for my purposes and enjoyable to undertake. I don’t know many people who can effectively redirect an habitual emotional response without suppressing it and crack up laughing at themselves when they fail – like I do. Sure, they exist. But what people most frequently do is pass it on to someone else who probably doesn’t deserve it, or slam the door shut on their own emotions so they are left feeling powerless. If the goal is freedom and/or peace – a third option is urgently required… so ages ago I submitted the request to my mind and asked it to let me know when it’s got a plan. This post describes the outcome so far.
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“You will find your own path my friend, just don’t be your own oppressor…”
My mother used to say to me, over and over again, “David, you are your own worst enemy!” I wasn’t listening, of course;-)
And she was right! So I take your advice, here, to heart and mind. There is much experience and wisdom in it!
I thought by now I would have had this all figured out, of course, when I thought this, I was in my early twenties!
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🙂 just shout. You will feel better after. I do it all the time. (Don’t laugh, here is my story).
Once at work, they called me a crazy black woman because I yelled at someone one morning. Hahaha. I thought I would get sacked, and I was so angry I was ready for it, but, they didn’t sack me – they knew I could do my job very well. GM knew I was pissed off that day. And, the vindictive, bullying culprit who drove me there (to that point) was running for help. All has been settled and that person thinks she is my best friend…and she does not try anything anymore.
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Haha! Good on you. As far as I can tell there is no socially acceptable way to say “get out of my face” amongst humans, which is absurd. I went to assertiveness training years ago and they said to me “you don’t need assertiveness training, you’re being harrassed.” Nice categorisation, but how do I deal with it in the workplace? Just sign up for a TribalMystic workshop where Joycelyn will teach you the ancient and mysterious art of shouting at annoying people…
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Hahahaha – I hope you do get out of there. I am trying to get out too. ❤
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