#generationalcycles

For generations, emotions have been misunderstood. These days, we are becoming more and more aware of the impact our emotions have on our lives and how important it is for us to feel; how important it is to give our children space to feel. Many of us though are still stuck feeling overwhelmed, stressed or afraid of certain emotions, especially when we first experience them coming from a child. Society teaches us emotions should be ignored; children teach us emotions should be expressed, however both sides tend to go from one extreme to the other. A child's experience of an emotion is usually loud, aggressive and/or seemingly dramatic. An adults experience (by societies standards) of an emotion may either be the same as a child's, denied, stuffed or forgotten. Most of us become obsessed with feeling happiness, and will try anything in order to experience that emotion on a constant basis. It's understandable. I mean, who wouldn't want to be happy all the time? And of course, we all want that for our children, right? But the truth is, it's just not attainable, especially when we run from all the other emotions that show up. Just like any other emotion, happiness too comes and goes, and although we can absolutely achieve happiness for the majority of our lives, we usually wind up experiencing mostly suffering instead. I'm sure it comes as no surprise to hear that life is all about balance. Well, the same rule applies for emotions and it just so happens that in terms of emotions, happiness is overruled with 'negative' emotions. That's just how our anatomy works. All emotions serve a purpose and our brains are designed to keep us alive, which means it's hardwired to look for threats, and therefore it also predominantly runs on automatic. Thought requires time, and time is a hindrance when it comes to survival.

Now, we cannot change our emotional reactions, however, we can let our emotions guide our physical actions in a responsive manner by becoming conscious. We have no choice in what actually makes us feel joy, anger, fear or sadness; it either does or it doesn't, but we can control what we allow into our lives and influence how often we feel these emotions. We may choose to immerse ourselves in what makes us experience happiness, or to punish ourselves by surrounding ourselves in negativity. Emotions we dislike cannot necessarily be avoided, but we can do our best to steer away from unnecessary harm. Over time what made us once feel scared may leave us, but it is not something we can simply just wish away. Doing so will in fact make it stay (with substantial consequences), but sometimes what happens with fear, is we can overcome them by proving to our brain (the part which is in charge of our survival), that there is actually nothing to be afraid of. Now that's not to say the fear was not real or it's invalid, I'm simply saying that just because it is there, doesn't mean it needs to be.

There's a difference between what's rational and what's irrational. Rational serves us, irrational does not. If you're standing in the middle of a road and suddenly a car comes speeding towards you, anyone would feel a rush of fear because a crash might result in death; your life is in danger, and so your instincts may instigate you to flee, which will lead you to safety. However, if you are standing in the middle of a stage about to recite a piece of writing for the first time, you may feel a sense of fear because the audience may not like what you have to perform. That experience may humiliate you, which of course won't kill you, but it may cause you to freeze. Your body freezes to protect you from being able to take a risk; if you don't take the risk, rejection is impossible to happen. From one perspective, community rejection can in fact lead to death because being a social creature, we need a community in order to survive. However, from a more likely perspective, being rejected won't lead to this extreme and therefore, this kind of reaction is no longer needed as it was for our ancestors, which makes it irrational. Despite drastic human evolution, our bodies haven't yet caught up and it often tricks us into thinking we are unsafe, when in fact we are not. This is exactly why it is so important to be conscious of our emotions, so we can make rational decisions in relation to them. When we notice an irrational reaction to an emotion, we can make a reflective decision to let it continue to consume us or to face it. We can choose to let our emotions hurt us, or whether we use them to help us grow. Emotions are never permanent; they frequently come and go. We can choose to let emotions linger or we can let them go.

I invite you to reflect upon a situation where you experienced a reactive emotion, one of which caused you to take an action automatically. Was this reaction necessary for your survival, or was it a false alarm? How could you prepare to take back control if this situation were to happen again?

~ Authentic Bloomers: Soulful Parent Revolution