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.