I’m reading Glow in the F*cking Dark by Tara Schuster and she talks about work she’s done with her therapist to reach the truth, the reality of her emotions.  I didn’t realize how often we mistake one feeling for another, or how often we label what is really underneath as something else.  For example, the body stats expressing some form of frustration or anxiety when we really feel anger but we say that we are frustrated or anxious.  We are trained to not show what’s really underneath so we suppress it enough until other things start to tweak us out for lack of a better word.  We are trained to not express honest emotion truthfully and that lack of expression does weird stuff to the body, mind, and soul; there is also a socially accepted emotion to express, ie, frustrated is accepted while anger is not, because anger is irrational for women.  That is when we start to feel lost or feel a lack of trust in ourselves and the universe.  We are training ourselves that our instincts aren’t real, that what we feel isn’t real—the reality is we lie outwardly about the inward happenings and that is what creates chaos internally AND externally.

Schuster also discusses the work she has done with her therapist to identify the real emotion underlying our outward expression.  The exercise that stood out to me was backing up the current emotion until you can dig deep enough to see what the real issue is.  She specifically calls out that when we are anxious, it isn’t always because we are anxious.  IS there a physical reason (clothing too tight which makes our heart race, did we drink too much caffeine, are we trying to meet unrealistic expectations—ours or other’s).  Once we give light to what we actually feel, we have ground to process the emotion.  We can’t work with what’s really happening if we don’t see what’s really happening.  If we operate like that we end up putting band-aids over the wound instead of sutures and that wound will continue opening until we figure out how to fix it. 

My own example of finding the real emotion is the outward expression of intense anxiety.  I struggle with it every day, and we all know some days are better than others.  But last night when I was reading about digging to the root, the real issue, I had a breakthrough of sorts.  I’m anxious for logistical reasons:  my attention is pulled in too many directions and I’m operating under unreal expectations.  I am not exaggerating when I say I haven’t been able to finish a work project in a day in months because my teams are working on different things.  I am also anxious for soul reasons: I feel the essence of who I am has been ignored, and I am tired of being ignored.  That was the part I thought was ego at first (of course some of it is ego, there is no life and death reason in this day and age to NEED to be heard), but I realized it is from the soul.  The ego wants to be seen, but the soul NEEDS to be seen.  We need to be given the opportunity to show our highest self, and when that part of us isn’t heard, it’s devastating.  No wonder I’m frustrated outwardly.  Inwardly, I’m FURIOUS.  Why am I denying the truth of myself to be seen, why are people walking all over me?  Physically I feel invisible because of my stature—emotionally and spiritually, I can’t stand being unseen. 

It’s incredibly powerful work to find that root.  It was around midnight when I read the passage about this exercise in Schuster’s book and a burning warmth started spreading in my heart and stomach.  That is my sign that I’ve hit a point that speaks to me, a point that hurts but it’s a truth.  Knowing I’m angry and knowing why I’m angry allows me to redefine the issue.  Yes, I have very real cause for anxiety and that can be rectified with some new decisions about the direction of my life.  No one can operate under that kind of stress for long, the mind isn’t meant to be torn like that.  But the anger is what has done me in.  The anger has caused confusion and hurt, and not processing that I AM angry created chaos in my mind because I didn’t think I was allowed to be angry.  I confused the need to be heard and seen with ego.  It wasn’t my physical being that needed to be seen, it was my soul.  It feels much better understanding this now.  What are you really feeling?