Up and out.
"I feel this tightness in you, and that you will need to get stuff off your chest eventually. I feel like you're a little stuck in an emotion...but don't worry, it'll pass."
A dear friend of mine mentioned that to me this week. So dear, that I trusted her assessment implicitly. Typically, I let people think and assess me as they like, but I rarely let them know if they are right or wrong. As with most of us, I think it's easy to misunderstand or misread others in our efforts to put them into nice neat bundles. But every once in awhile, a friendship develops and you know you are seen. Possibly more than you like, but seen nonetheless.
She was so right. This morning as I reflected more on that conversation and some of the things going on that inspired it, I thought more about emotional temperature checking before truly coming to an opinion on anything.
Ever seen those cute little magnets people sometimes keep in their cubicles or on the fridge that allow them to mark off how they "feel" on this particular day? I try to do that in my mind before I take note of an event, react or come to any conclusion about anything. More and more, it seems that a great part of wisdom and emotional maturity is taking into account your feelings just before you make any assertion. The old...think...before you speak becomes feel before you speak.
Talk less, reflect more. It's a dangerous practice for me to go off rattling thoughts out to the universe, speeding through each event in haste to label, define and put it to bed. The emotion felt during a time of expression, largely impacts the clarity that goes along with that expression.
When I journal in particular, I begin my first sentence with the plain truth about my current mood. I am _______________, as I prepare to write this. I do that, to remind myself that all the content I am about to scribble may be tainted by whatever that feeling is. If I am angry, my intuition and sense will be blinded. I will speak of things to stoke my fire. To feed that emotion. Those things may or may not be valid, or even true. If I am jubilant, my sense of things may be exaggerated. I may come to expect too much too soon. And an excess of eagerness is usually followed by a dose of disappointment. Anger has it's value. As does jubilance. It's all about using them in their proper measure.
As important chapters close, even more important chapters begin. How those chapters unfold is largely determined by how I use my thoughts and the ways I choose to express them. Taking personal inventory of my feelings, and finding healthy ways to face them, so they can be retired at long last. Ignoring them, simply isn't an option. Repression isn't either. I envision myself right now, a simmering pot on a stove. My lid was removed a ways back...the bubbling is relaxed, but the water is still rolling. As the heat dies down, I try to imagine that angry steam evaporating. Because it is no longer repressed, there is nowhere to go but up...and out. All I have to do, is let it.
"Don't worry, it'll pass." She said.
I know that to be true.
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