Yesterday, we started the Safely Handling Your Emotions Series with identification. What do I feel?

Did you feel one thing? Or many?  Was it hard to distill it to one emotion?

Life is Jumbled.

Not only do we multi-task,  I’d venture that we multi-emotion.  We find a way to feel angry at our spouse and also blissed at the cat at the same time.  How do we do this? Is this a sign of our current age?

We like our emotions to be like our movies and our meals.  We like them predictable.  We like them to be on time.  We like them to be over in 90 minutes, tops.

Emotions Don’t Work That Way

It’d be great if they did. It’d be great if we could say, “Let’s pencil this sadness in on Wednesday at 8 am.”

It’d be great if we could order our emotions up like a pizza. “I’d like the joy with a sprinkle of ha-ha and an extra layer of irony.”

If we could do that, we’d feel things the same way we eat.

We’d have a lot more of the tasty emotions and very few of those difficult, but good for you ones.

What We Often Try to Do

We try to put our emotions off until a more convenient time.  If we are sad, we busy ourselves.  Sometimes this works.  But often it doesn’t.

Would you try something with me this weekend?

Make a date with yourself .  Take an hour to sit alone in your bedroom, or find a comfortable place outside.  Sit down.  Ask…How do I feel? And then feel it.

Feel the emotion until it subsides.  This could take an hour.

If an hour has gone by and you still feel the emotion as strongly as you did, turn your focus to another thing.  And then try this again another day.  Let’s not wear ourselves out.

You can write about it or record yourself too, after you truly feel it (but not during. I just want you to feel during this exercise.)

Sometimes this is scary.

Of course it is.

A perfectly acceptable cheat: bring some yarn to unknot or some laundry to fold.  Something you do with your hands that doesn’t require thought.

What if I am going to feel something really bad?

Then have your pit crew waiting in the wings with something to comfort you when you are done.  Nothing wrong with that.

What if I feel great?

Yay you! That’s even better. What’s better than an hour of just feeling great?

The Expected Outcome

Emotions are there for a reason.  When you truly feel an emotion, it often subsides, or it changes into something more obviously useful.

Please Hesitate to Fix It

Don’t feel it for two seconds and then pop up with the answer.   Be patient with all that is in your heart (thanks Mr. Rilke!).

Tell me about it

I want to hear about how making time for emotions helps.  Or doesn’t help.