Let's Hear It For the Little Emotions
By Alison Pilling
“All emotions are welcome.”
I’ve heard that so many times, often it’s an invitation for tears, vulnerability, rage. In many places in life, these emotions have to be suppressed at the risk of being called a drama queen or having to swallow anger when it’s too hard for the recipient to hear. In my trauma & drama years, I ranged through bigger emotions, loss, hatred, love, passion, witlessness, wildness, obsession, desire. I lost my reason and eventually I lost me, caught up in a mess of helpless and fury. I didn’t like it. Though I needed it.
It took being affirmed by a doctor to recognise that anger was a valid response to what I was going through. Otherwise, I thought I had to let other people do what they wanted as they were on their journey too. I believe in that much more easily and that is at the heart of tantric relationship. But I didn’t understand that anger was also required, that tears would have shown the depth of my passion. The best I could muster was contempt and self righteousness. Hmm. Either way, none of it worked. So what use anger or vulnerability if it’s for someone else?
As a person conditioned towards and desiring harmony, hearing loud or angry emotions is upsetting, and mostly I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than express weakness. It looks and feels like neediness and I can’t accept that in my need for self-reliance. As for neediness in others, I’ve struggled. It’s taken some work to learn that having needs is absolutely fine, we all do. And rather than feeling responsible, what I need to do is bear witness. My own neediness scares me. It’s been a great lesson. To move from being a lone wolf to receiving help that I never even recognised I wanted or expected. Being seen, being understood, being witnessed, have been the greatest gift of friendship. Feeling love in the mutuality. I’m less alone, the generosity of spirit, of holding space when I’ve been wobbly, of someone saying “that sucks” when my heart has had yet another little fracture line. They’ve slowly melted me.
I started this with wanting to hear it for the little emotions that often don’t get named. Are those ones also welcome? Indifference, contempt, boredom, intolerance, cynicism, skepticism, stuckness. If there’s one word that describes ‘can’t be arsed-ness’ I’ll find it. Meh.
And the little emotion I’ve come to appreciate most, steadiness. I love steadiness. If Brene Brown says ‘vulnerability is the first thing I want to see in you and the last thing I want you to see in me’, I’m going to demur. What I prefer to know is that you’re through the other side, that you’ve dealt with inevitable hurt, that you’ve attended to you, and have perspective and distance. I know you have been there, that we’re in the arena together though surely we don’t need to express vulnerability all the time?
In humility, there’s a recognition of how little we understood and a compassion for what we, and others, went through and are going through. Just how challenging this thing called Life is. The everyday fears, overwhelm and demands on us. So having places where we can express our not-knowing and uncertainty and doubts are vital. The days we’re not bossing it but are tired, hopeless and lost. That are natural. I didn’t used to believe that not having things sorted was acceptable. I used to complain a lot, taking stock of life and finding it wanting.
Taking my sexuality journey I saw that I’d lived my life within a narrow spectrum of emotions, stuck in a bland middle of low level okayness masking as happiness, moving to irritation or indifference and tolerance, while checking out. A tiny well behaved cage of repression. The invitation to feel my emotions didn’t help much. Beginning to notice they were related to sensations in my body has helped. Still it’s taken specific situations and Sexological Bodywork to bring my attention to my body where corresponding emotions reside, lurking in wait of a name badge. In Sexological Bodywork, we value subtlety as much as intensity. It’s a paying attention to what otherwise maybe overlooked. To embrace meh-ness as well as sorrow, see pleasure in tiny noticings rather than a sea of pain. What helped what finding a list of emotions and needs from Non Violent Communication, so when I’m confused, which was more often than I might imagined, there’s a whole family of words to describe that constellated in Doubt.
Doubt is an ocean I’ve swum in for years. It’s made me cautious, skeptical, slow, reckless, persuadable, open, mistaken, impulsive, anxious, experimental and wise. I heard the expression, “There’s No Truth in the Now” and I see uncertainty differently. A chance to be thoughtful and considered, doubt has helped me take time, to come back to myself, to slow down, to speak & act when I’m surer. To give 5 days for decisions. Using a pendulum is a great gift, to tune into a higher self that guides me to wait, not to rush in, to keep my own counsel, to not respond to pressure from others. I’ve learned I can hold tension, that doubt doesn’t need to stop me acting, but to giving due consideration. It’s grounding. Waiting is good, then patience is peaceful.