Emotional Dichotomy

Part 1 - The Set Up

Disturbingly, during an Emotional Intelligence Leadership Workshop, I realised that I had precisely none. Much to my humiliation, I was struck by the confronting fact that I had falsely mistaken a high degree of self-awareness with emotional intelligence. Since that fateful workshop, where I committed to the extremely uncomfortable process of sussing out my emotions, my entire life has changed. It wouldn't do anyone any good for me to explain it in detail because it wouldn't make sense. Emotions are rarely logical, and emotional work is profoundly personal. The adventure looks different for everyone. Suffice it to say the process ran as a rapid series of small shifts as I consciously engaged with how I felt throughout the day. Each shift taking place as I observed my emotions, learning to lay judgment at bay and cease the suppression; dealing with them in their raw form and acknowledging they had a purpose. At best its a masochistic exercise, but the end result is a liberation so joyful that it's impossible to regret.

For reasons I may get into in other articles, emotions have never been my strong suit. I grew up a torrent of worry, anxiety and panic. Even having the stomach ulcers to prove it. My emotions were little more than the contents of my being that I frequently projectile vomited onto anyone who would listen, and without consent from either party as I often horribly embarrassed myself by the things I said before I even realised they were out of my mouth. These emotions owned me, despite every attempt of my highly logical mind to control them.

And so began the inner struggle of the two voices, and what I now understand was the basis of my constant anxiety. One voice would tell me to relax, see how it plays out, urging me to consider how that person thought or felt before I reacted, or to simply focus on myself instead of concerning myself with things I knew to be out of my realm of influence. 'Leave people and their situations to themselves' it said, 'what others think and feel is none of my business.' But I never listened; I couldn't, I saw no other way. I knew no other way.

Trusting that voice was impossible for me. Why? Fear. Fear that led to an overwhelming compulsion to control. If I didn't control the situation by mulling over and analysing every possible outcome and how to manipulate it, then how could I be sure I'd get what I want?! There was no trust. Not in myself, not in others, and not in the Universe.

That inner fight, the power struggle between what I felt and what I thought, coupled with an complete lack of trust and need for control, kept me bound to a vicious pattern that I repeated for over 30 years. It destroyed every type of relationship possible: familial, vocational, romantic and friendship. Over time I began to think of myself as toxic, unloveable; broken. My coping mechanism became adopting a gypsy lifestyle, never staying in one place for too long, never letting anyone too close. BLEAK.

Of course, all of this completely eluded me at the time..... Oh, the gift of hindsight and confronting our own bullshit! Welcome to the adventure! 

For those who pathological suppress emotions, it's difficult to even realise that's what we're doing.

Part 2 - Nothing is Ever as Simple as it Seems

At the beginning of my journey I read all types of personal development books and thought I finally saw the bigger emotional picture; understanding the relationship between thoughts, emotions and actions on both a spiritual and psychological basis. Things were going so well that I all but forgot about the two voices and the torment I had experienced throughout my life. It's astonishing how quickly those types of things fade, and how rapidly our daily realities can change.

Until one day when I felt an odd sensation as if there was something I had to do. An intuitive compulsion to make a phone call, the thought of which made my brain say "Hell no! I'm not doing that!" All day, that unrelenting sensation. I was nervous and sweaty, my heart pounded, I even felt sick. It was as though my body already knew what would happen. At 6pm, a time I knew to be ideal from nearly two years of living with this extremely regimented person, I picked up the phone and dialled the number I remembered despite over a year of separation. I watched my fingers press the digits as though they belonged to someone else. Panicking a bit, I wondered what the shit I would say. But I knew, I had figured it out months ago, what I would say if I ever spoke to him again. He answered, saying hello and mentioning something about it being a nice surprise. I hesitated a bit then said "Hi! I learned how to flair my nostrils." Laughter, exactly what I expected. With one silly sentence I diffused a potentially difficult conversation, making it safe by addressing an intimate source of amusement we shared during our time together. All fear melted away and we had an easy, amiable and authentically pleasant conversation. The only thing I felt while talking to him was honest caring and interest in what he had been doing over the last year. I had no agenda, no interest in talking about what happened, why he had left me or the nearly paralysing pain I experienced afterward. In truth, I had called for reasons I didn't fully comprehend.

After hanging up I felt extremely proud of myself. How emotionally intelligent! I had held, and even enjoyed, a conversation that I never thought I'd be strong enough to execute without tears. I got on with my usual routine of cooking dinner, getting my running gear ready and puttering around my room. My super analytical brain started doing what it loves to do, dismantling and rearranging the conversation and looking for hidden messages. Before I knew it I was experiencing new emotions, mainly anger as I constructed false realities about what was, and was not, said and meant. Whoah, wait, wasn't I fine just a moment ago? What the hell happened? Where were these feelings coming from? Voices of ghosts. Ghosts that told me I was never good enough for him, that I was broken, that he never really loved me, that he is happier without me, and all the other hurtful things that he never actually said but I subconsciously believed. Those self-inflicted sentiments inspiring anger, anger needed to defend my budding sense of self worth. Ironically however, the person I was defending myself against was no one other than me; pain brought on by that damned voice. What a beautiful example of how I think myself into emotional pain.

A few days later, during one of my daily runs, the lightbulb came on in a flash so bright that I was literally blinded. That pause, holy shit, that pause between when we spoke and when I starting thinking about the conversation! I finally understood the true origin of the two voices! The first one borne of my innate intuitive emotions. Pure feeling, compassionate and wise. The other, what I think I should feel based on previous experience, my past and conditioning so deeply engrained I've never been cognisant of its influence over my emotions.

Prior to the epiphany that resulted from that fateful phone call, these dichotomous emotions seemed to arrive at the same time. I would become horribly confused and tear myself apart trying to decide which was real. How could I have realised that subconscious thoughts and voices of ghosts from my past were tricking me into feeling and behaving in ways that didn't serve me, keeping me in that vicious cycle. Indeed, I've dedicated an entire article to unpacking just how dangerous Listening to Ghosts can be to our sense of Self, Worth and esteem (links coming soonish). Now, I've begun to insert that pause. A pause that enables me to distinguish how I genuinely feel from how I think I should feel. These words are bolded as they are clues that we're selling out our authentic emotions for what our Human brains and/or society thinks we should feel, which are likely not real. 

The total sum of this article is to proclaim, and urge everyone inside my influence, that the optimal way to shift towards a more emotionally intelligent life includes:

1. Observe How We Feel - Paying attention to inner dialogue that uses think and/or should.
2. Be Willing to Learn From Emotions - If we're pissed, be pissed! All emotions have a purpose, even those that come from subconscious thoughts. It's a great way to learn about our triggers and the conditioning that led to them. For example, my Father bought me Goosebumps books for doing the dishes when I was young, and to this day I love doing the dishes because something insides me thinks I deserve a treat for my efforts.
3. Learn How to Support Ourselves Through Emotional Discomfort -  This is all about self regulation and managing our needs so our emotions aren't suppressed and eventually come spewing out at inopportune times. Like the countless times I've burst into tears in front of the wrong people.
4. Realise that Feeling Emotion Does Not Mean Expressing Emotion - FFS, if we're not sure how we feel, let's all agree to keep our traps shut until we can practice Step 4 and self-govern. Perhaps if more Humans did this, we'd stop shitting on one another to make ourselves feel better.

Zombie Fingers Part II: The Last Piece of the Puzzle!

Today I mentioned my finger/anaemia issue to a co-worker that I only see on my Sunday shift. They took one look at my blotches and said, "Well Mate, you may be anaemic, but those spots aren't going to go away with vitamins. That's called Chilblains, I get it too [showed me their hands], it's actually really common. There's nothing you can do about it but don't worry too much, you'll only see it in the Winter." WTF?!

Apparently I should be wearing gloves 24-7

Two seconds on a Google image search confirmed their diagnosis, and once I read about the condition using the link above there was no denying that's what is ravaging my fingers. I wondered why the Virginian MD failed to mention this dermatological scourge, but I assume she thought the anaemia was related, if not the cause, so addressing that issue took precedence. Interestingly, all the information about this malady comes from sources outside of the US. It doesn't seem to be a popular topic there, probably because it can't be cured by something made by Pfizer.

So, Chilblains afflicts people with poor circulation and therefore experience frequently cold extremities. The majority of people get sores on their feet, but hands and even earlobes and noses are also common. Though my feet seem to be fine, my hands haven't been warm sine 2007 (seriously, that's when I broke my internal heater my burning off it's fuel source; aka, lost weight). I believe the most likely cause in my case is, again, poor nutrition; going back to my anaemia and related issues.

Anyway, something squirrely happens to the underlying vasculature when people, like me, have cold extremities and they touch something hot or otherwise warm up these areas too fast. When I read that statement I thought back to the first time I noticed my sore spots. I was in the lab at Hospira, and my favorite way to pass the overnight shift was to load and unload the dishwasher. The dishes that came out of this washer were no less than a million degrees, and since my hands were always freezing I loved putting them away fresh out of the washer. Coincidentally it was also dead Winter and I'd run out of Vitamin D pills, a disputed remedy for Chilblains. Interestingly, I'd been washing dishes for months in that lab, but never developed the sores until then. Flash forward to my NZ migration. I can pin-point the reappearance of the blotches and precisely two things come to mind: One, I had ran out of both my Vitamin C and Multi-Vitamins, and two, I had started doing a protocol for Total Ash almost every day. This particular protocol requires me to heat silica crucibles to 600C. I'd always wear an oven mitt when removing them from the furnace, but people marvelled as I frequently took them in and out of the 105C oven without any gloves to weigh them to obtain my result. Not to mention that since my hands are perpetually cold, I love to submerge them in hot-as water or just rest my hands on top of heaters, ovens and steam baths. I've even been known to place them in my toaster oven for a bit when I'm particularly desperate.

So, we've now identified the cause, what about the treatment? Amongst many debated remedies such as vitamins and ointments, the only real treatment for Chilblains is to stay warm and not allow the extremities to experience intense temperature fluctuations. What kind of fucking treatment is that?! It presupposes that I'm cold and/or have poor circulation by choice. If I stayed in an environment that was maintained at my optimal temperature I don't think I'd like my other companions, because surely I'd be in Hell. Shit, sometimes I actually think that my high heat tolerance means I'm the Mother of Dragons, or at least have Targaryen blood! I've said it before and I'll say it again, shedding my insulation and thus my ability to keep myself warm is the only thing I regret about losing weight. It was an unforeseen consequence. The only time I feel authentic internal warmth is after 15 minutes of high intensity cardio. It's no wonder I'm a gym-junkie! Anyway, the only remedy I plan to try is to stop picking up things that would melt the skin of an ordinary person and hopes that helps. 

On the bright side my outbreak, painful and ugly though it may be, is nothing compared to some of the more severe cases I saw on my image search. Be thankful that I didn't share them, but if I wanted to inspire nightmares, I could have shown some. Though images of Chilblains aren't nearly as bad as 'Black Hairy Tongue.' (Note: WebMD link does not immediately show a picture, give it serious consideration before actually looking at an image; it's impossible to un-see.) 

Thought of the Day 04-Jul-15: Zombie Fingers

A: Hi, I'm your diseased digit, can you please go see a doctor before I fall off?!

I'll be the first to admit that I tend to worry about shit that isn't really a big deal while ignoring signs of legitimate concern. See exhibits A and B, respectively. I had been trying to hold out for a Permanent Resident visa status so that my health insurance would kick in, but yesterday I finally gave in and had my slowly dying fingertips looked at by a doctor.  Suspecting I had contracted some sort of flesh-eating bacteria or fungal infection, I made the call when I noticed new spots on my other hand which meant it was spreading. I would never have guessed, not in a million years, the nature of the underlying issue.

B: If you're fingers look like this, it is NOT NORMAL!

After a 2 hour wait at an urgent care facility because my immigrant status does not allow me to schedule regular doctors' appointments, I was (embarrassingly) relieved to be called by a doctor with an obvious American accent. For some reason knowing that she was trained in the States (even in Virginia, Zing!), put me at ease. Also, becoming qualified to practice medicine in New Zealand as an immigrant is damned-near impossible, so I was fully confident in this doctor's competence, despite her Southern origin, haha. I immediately launched into the tale of my zombie fingers: The first appearance of these strange, red, sore, dry, hardened, blotches on the fingers of my right hand occurred about ten months ago in the US, shortly after beginning work in a chemistry lab. When I left that job and moved to New Zealand they went away, but reappeared about four months after taking up similar work here. Surely I had some kind of hand dermatitis, an allergy to a chemical ubiquitous in such laboratory environments; right? Wrong. 

Dr. Daisy Mae took my hand, turned it over to look at my fingernails, then asked me to looked up towards the ceiling as she inspected the white areas of my eyes. She then asked me if I was a vegetarian, to which I proudly proclaimed "hell no." Yet with 100% certainty and without hesitation she stated that I was anaemic. Uh, no, sorry; she must have thought she was talking to someone who did not meticulously analyze and plan everything they put into their body, taking in the perfect portions of protein, fat and carbohydrates to keep their preciously well-oiled machine in ship-shape. That is the person I am. Not too mention the fact that the primary sign of anaemia is fatigue and lethargy, qualities I disdain above all others, and had certainly never experienced. Shit, I'm a bundle of energy at the worst of times, if I'm anaemic now and correct the issue, I may well spin off into outer-fucking-space!

After hearing her out and seeing the images of anaemic fingernails (see below), however, the evidence was irrefutable. Dr. Miss Virginia went on to explain that the patches were caused by a lack of oxygen to my extremities; my fingertips were, in fact, becoming necrotic and the tissue was dying which in turn causes soreness from inflammation. Awesome. That's also about the same time I realized that both times these red spots materialized were instances when I went off my otherwise extremely faithful regimen of abundant vitamins (both multi and extra vitamin C). The most recent lapse being that I had run out of my US supply and I simply refused to pay the exorbitant price of vitamins in New Zealand. Well guess what the current treatment was to be? A daily high potency multivitamin as well as an iron-vitmamin C combo supplement. Over $100 bucks later I just hope they kick-in in time to stop my fingers from craving brains.

My nails have looked like this for a very long time; how could I have known?

Imagine my shock when I saw (what appeared to be) my nails on an anaemia diagnosis website.

More concerning, though I may eat plenty of iron and other essential fuels thanks to my fastidious eating habits, that doesn't necessarily mean my body is absorbing them. Thus, this anaemia is likely a sign of a bigger issue, but that investigation really will have to wait until I have insurance. I suspect that the ultimate diagnosis will also link to both my chronic constipation and struggle with low blood sugar levels. Clearly, my body is not properly absorbing or responding to nutrients.

So, not consciously realizing that this news affected me on any real emotional level, my flatmate made the observation that I was acting a bit more abrasive than normal. And oh the beauty of my filterless mouth, speaking the truth that had been eluding my Mind until I heard its own words: "I don't want to be anaemic! I do everything right, eat all the right foods; so why is my body still broken?! I lost weight to be healthy, yet ever since I did my body has been in a slow decline." Sad though it may seem, this is how I view my current situation. 

In comes the difference between knowing versus believing. I know I am whole, I know I am a good person with good intentions, that my Body is not completely failing me; but I don't believe it yet. Hearing this medical report reminds me that I am very much fallible, and it's frustrating. Another reminder that I can't control how my body processes what I eat. Still, I'm grateful that I don't have a flesh-eating bacteria. It's also easier to accept given my naturally optimistic tendencies. My one glimmer of hope is that this anaemia, which has been longstanding without my knowledge, has been causing other issues that I did not attribute to an actual medical problem such as moodiness and persistently cold extremities. As such, the treatment may bring relief of ailments I didn't even know existed, realized only in their absence. Yes, that is where I will place my focus, because choosing the positive isn't always easy but it is certainly better than feeling sorry for myself. I am no victim, it doesn't suite me; I'm going to take my supplements and use the iron to kick this anaemia in the nuts!