I’m at a Broad
Universe writers retreat this weekend with a bunch of friends, among them
the fabulous Rona Gofstein, who also writes
as Rachel Kenley. And in my all-important “procrastination before writing”
time, where I was glancing through Facebook, I saw her recent blog post, “Emotions
Don’t Need to Be Controlled.”
I gave a “quick” (i.e. 4 paragraphs long) response on the
post here, but that only dealt with one aspect that I think is important in
this discussion.
She said in the blog that it was probably an unpopular
topic, but I don’t think it should be. It’s a many-faceted topic that I had
about ten different replies to flying around in my head. In summary, I think
our relationship with emotions needs to be more openly and readily discussed.
Not just if we should and should not repress them or control them, but how they
affect us, how we create emotions, the physiological and psychological
importance of a good relationship with emotions…
Our relationship status with emotion, of course, is best
filed under “it’s complicated,” but I also think all good relationships are.
And as a writer, I love exploring those complicated relationships… and a good
blog response should pick one particular aspect and discuss it. And perhaps
save other aspects for future blogs.
Having had my surgery and a long history of period / hormone issues, though, what’s foremost in my mind and has been for the past year is
physiological causes for uncontrollable emotions. (Basically, almost the
opposite of what I ended up responding on Facebook.)
Our current culture in modern America, and many other places
across the world, takes the stand that we should “control our emotions,” as
Rona puts forward in her post.
I agree with her that we shouldn’t control our emotions and
that it is a problematic, if not dangerous, thing to do so. (She has a great
example of following her instinctual emotions on her blog.)
Emotions cause physiological effects in the body that we
cannot control—blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, tears or laughter are
some examples. (Breathing, too, but we
have some control over that, at least.) These are part of your autonomic
nervous system—the things your body does that you don’t have to think about,
and in essence, can only marginally affect even when you do think about them.
Because emotions have such a major physiological component
attached to the autonomic nervous system, as well as the endocrine system (your
hormones) and neurotransmitters, that means you can have physical triggers for
emotions that you also cannot control. The science of psychiatry and psychology
deal with those quite a bit. But consider when you have a health problem that affects
your body’s chemistry—you’re not able to control your body chemistry, so you
simply cannot control the emotions caused by these symptoms.
Many women suffer this dissociation with regular PMS—the butt
of far too many jokes. However, consider how society pressures people
(particularly women) to “get it together” and “control your emotions,” when she
literally, physically CANNOT DO SO. Not only is there this awful feeling of
intense anger, sadness, happiness, or what not because estrogen or progestin is
doing its thing, but there is this logical awareness that the emotion being
felt is not associated with any actions or events currently happening around
us. And we’re regularly told that THIS IS WRONG; YOU ARE WRONG.
And it’s not wrong. And it’s not controllable. And no one
should be punished for going through this.
It’s bad enough to be standing in the kitchen, filled with
rage and a physical illness of dissociation because there is no good reason for
there to be rage. Thought processes
and thinking about the situation aren’t going to un-flush our system with the
chemicals causing rage (or grief, or
elation). In fact, the discomfort or panic of that dissociation can enhance and
exacerbate the unwanted emotion. Add in feeling like a failure or like you ought to be able to control this
emotion, and you’ve added even more chemicals interacting in the body.
What to do?
Change starts within us. Within individuals. I’d love to
magically change society and society’s dangerious and poisonous views, but that
isn’t something any individual can do. But we can learn to create a better
relationship with our own emotions—and to forge more healthy relationships with
the emotions of others by our own reactions.
For each individual, admit and surrender to the idea that
emotions are not a thing to be controlled.
That’s a lot of work on its own.
Next, each of us should pay attention to your body during
emotions. How do I feel? What is my natural inclination for action while
experiencing those emotions? Is there a situational cause for the emotion? If
so, what? If not, that’s okay too; I notice and appreciate your body is going
through something physical and physiological that creates this emotion.
This is also a lot of work. We need to give ourselves
permission to take our time with this.
Then, then, after
we’ve acknowledged these things, we can look for the things we can control.
For me, the first thing is to learn how to communicate about
emotions. Let the ones I love know when I’m angry, that I need to do something
physical—walk, yell, punch or throw inanimate objects. Anyone I’m in a
relationship with—my hubby, my friends, my family—are people I could
potentially act out upon due to emotions, and none of us have psychic powers,
so it’s important to tell them why I’m acting out—what I’m feeling, what I
need, and so on. Of course, it’s important that if the emotion was caused by an
action that, once the uncontrollable need is met (time alone, being hugged,
pillows beaten up), the cause needs to be addressed. I’ve seen people (and it’s often shown in
literature, television, movies, etc) take care of the emotional need, but then
never address the issue—so it continues to fester and cause the uncomfortable
emotion—and that discomfort will grow, requiring the physical response to be
stronger and stronger. Communication is the most important thing in any healthy
relationship. Communicating with ourselves and others is key when it comes to
our shared relation with emotions.
Once we get communication moving, we can look at other
things that are within our control. Especially when emotions come at
inconvenient times. Rather than try to control the emotion, however, we can
control how we handle the symptoms of emotions. Rather than saying, “I can’t be
angry right now,” we can think, “I can’t tell my boss to self-copulate
painfully right now.” We can take time to pay attention to breathing and work
at controlling that to an extent. We can take time with responses, crafting
them so as not to damage other relationships. We can remove ourselves from
situations when we realize we are at a place where the physiology of the
emotions is not appropriate.
I don’t think I can say enough times that this is not easy,
and I, for one, am far from perfection in this practice.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. And try again. And
try again. (And apologize, communicate, and try again.)
The last thing regarding “control” over emotions is how we
respect and appreciate others’ physiological-emotional needs. Telling someone
to “get control” is, as mentioned above, not only likely impossible but
damaging, potentially making the situation worse. Find out what they need in
the moment to deal with the emotion, and later discuss the situation. Be
forgiving when someone lashes out; it may be a thing they physically can’t
control at the moment…
That said, suffering regular abuse from someone who “can’t
control their emotions” is a relationship not worth keeping. That is an
entirely different—but still very important—conversation that needs to be had.
Physical attacks, deep emotional attacks, any abuse is wrong.
Outside of abusive behaviors, however, it’s worth being
flexible, honoring the physiological aspects of emotion, and opening a channel
of communication. For ourselves, and for the ones we care about.
I hope this isn’t an unpopular topic, and that more of us do
start healthy discussions about what emotions are and what makes for good
emotional relationships.
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