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:
- Observe How We Feel - Paying attention to inner dialogue that uses think and/or should.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.