Singin' the Emo Blues

Singin’ the Emo Blues

I’d feel fine if I didn’t feel so bad.

Sounds like the chorus of an old blues song, doesn’t it. Oh, the blues. Oh, dark nights, lonesome days, feeling bleak or doomed or useless or invisible.

How can I accept my experiences? How do my emotions support me? Why would I enjoy and respect my emotions?

Have you ever stopped to wonder why we have emotions?

Mine were so painful in the olden days that I figured they were just to torture me. A romantic notion, lots of drama, but so not accurate.

We think a thought in that meat-machine of a brain. That thought causes a lot of things to happen; synapses fire, releasing particular neuro-chemicals, which in turn cause certain hormones to flow. Every thought does that. This is the fundamental meaning of thoughts become things.

Now, have you ever had the experience of an adrenalin rush? Maybe you got startled, or missed a stair. You get a sudden flush of heat, your heart pounds, maybe your hands shake a bit. That’s one kind of hormonal flow. We have lots of different hormones and they have different impacts on how we feel; stressed, pain, appetite; the list goes on.

As we accrue habitual thoughts, we get into the habit of habitual feelings. We often don’t even recognize our emotions because they are so familiar. And when they are uncomfortable, it may seem easier to shove them under a rug.

How can I trust my emotions? What makes me accept my experiences?

When I have stuff happen that I don’t like, that I ignore or fight, I am effectively saying “no” to my life, I’m pushing away the very occurrences that could change everything. When I accept my experiences as mine, I stay soft, I stay relaxed. Saying no to life is a clench, and clenching hurts.

Accepting my experience isn’t the same thing as giving up. Surrender, letting go, is, in part, trusting that what is happening is exactly what I need to become my best me. One of my big lessons, one that shows up over and over for me, is owning my power. Why am I strong, capable, and competent? For you, it may be feeling lovable, or worthwhile, or right, or helpful.

Our biggest lesson, the fundamental one, will return again and again, as we learn our smaller lessons. I have emotions to let me know where I am. Am I on my right path? How do I feel? I will feel good on my right path, even if nasty crap is happening. I will feel bad on my dark path, even if lots of nice stuff is going on. Point of view, attitude, negative moral judgments, will all color my experience of the world. As I find ways to accept my experiences, to stop fighting, to stop complaining, to stop refusing, things will lighted and loosen, and I will be freer.

How have I changed from fighting my life to living it all the way?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 03242017

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I Second That Emotion

I Second That Emotion

You know all that woowoo stuff about how thought becomes things? Well, here’s a strange and interesting thing. Theoretical physicists are finding out that consciousness is a state of matter. Quantifiable. Like gases, or liquids, or solids. What do you think about them apples.

We’ve been talking here for ages about how emotions are the physical manifestations of thought. That each thought has a corresponding emotion attached, and that you string enough together and you get feelings. Well, it looks like thought may already be a thing.

We know we have a conscious mind, and an unconscious mind. We know that when we are feeling crazy, or overwhelmed, it’s often because we have so much unconscious stuff swirling around, or maybe just one big thing, that’s trying to be known.

Our unconscious thoughts, like our conscious thoughts, also make emotions. Emotions make feelings, and I gotta say, feelings are not my strong suit. I’ve had to work on them, identifying them, experiencing them.

Here’s the way it all plays out.

I have a thought, let’s say a “no” thought, like, “I don’t like this.” That thought produces an emotion; anger or fear or disgust. I don’t notice it, and the thought loops, and the emotion gets bigger turning into a feeling, that is, an emotion and thought loop big enough that I can notice. I ignore it, and it will get bigger. If I keep pushing it down, that feeling, it will manifest in my physical body. Lots of folks have mapped symptoms as feelings already. Each of us has our own body, our own feelings and our own maps, on the other hand, we share a lot.

Why do I trust my body? How can I know what my body is telling me? What makes me understand my own body’s language?

We have sayings that lets us know we have stuff in common. We talk about carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders, and when we feel over-burdened, it’s often our shoulders that ache. Our neck aches, until we identify the “pain in the neck” we are having feelings about. Or the” pain in the ass”, which may show up as hemorrhoids. Seriously. Anger can hole up in the liver, bitterness and resentments in the gallbladder, being pissed off in the bladder, fear in the kidneys, and so on.

Learning to identify these is really useful. I know it’s a stretch for a lot of us, this whole concept. It took me a while to get it, but if I can warm up my hands just by thinking “warm hands,” well....And, just for the record, I learned that skill at the Mayo Clinic in 1976.

Issues around feeling supported can show up in the back: “Do you have my back?” Sensing a betrayal of sorts can “get our back up.” Knees often have to do with ego and self-worth, menial tasks being beneath us, for example, and hips can be letting us know we need some self-celebration. When we have a physical topic, identifying the feelings and emotions that our body is trying to communicate can be very healing. Emotions are like a road map, telling us where we are, what’s going on, and when we ignore them, they will amplify their message.

How have I changed from discounting my emotions and feelings to taking their messages to heart?

(c) 2014 Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 02122014

Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?

Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?

One of the amazing things about being a human is that we care. We care about a lot of stuff, we care about each other. We care so much that we will give things up in our own life to support the wellbeing of our loved ones. We will give away our stuff to support the wellbeing of strangers. We will bend over backwards for animals, plants, and planet.

Isn’t that lovely? Why do I care? What makes me feel involved? How do I know that I matter?

We will even sacrifice stuff, ourselves, our very lives, to support intangibles like ideas, values, even vaguely formed notions.

And, of course, like so many other things, it’s a two-sided coin, or multi-faceted gaming die, depending on how, um, interesting your life has been.

For examples.

Giving my dear ol’ dad three Saturdays out of the month is a big gift. I thoroughly enjoy it, he enjoys it. I have a couple meals with him, I read aloud for a few hours, we have a singalong with friends. It’s worth having to spread a whole day’s worth of errands, tasks and so on over the the week to spend time with him. Worth it.

Letting my friends drop away, giving up my activities, and releasing my self-respect drop by drop for someone I really cared about who was handsome, charming as heck, negatively manipulative, and mean, choosing subconsciously to sacrifice my well being for his need to feel in control was a useful experience, but not worth it. Not worth it.

Sometimes we think we don’t care, that we are indifferent, when we are really just Pissed. Off. One good clue is if what comes out from your mouth sounds like, “I don’t flippin’ care!” Indifference tends not to be impassioned.

How do I know what I feel?

As I have grown up, I have sorted out what is good, useful, and supportive for me to care about, and what is damaging, unsupportive, and hurtful.

I put way less energy into crappy caring, and a lot more into the good caring.

Caring feels wonderful. That wonderful feeling makes it easier for us to do it. Making a difference is a nice feature of our overall sense of well being.

You are out there, caring every day. I know that, because I know you. Some days your caring makes you crazy, and you wish you didn’t care so much. Some days, you do what you do, and have no idea that your caring totally made someone’s day. That happens more that you think, too.

When we relax into our natural lives, we accept that we make a difference, we accept that our nature is caring, and we are easy and comfortable in that.

We also come to see that we have to make choices, we can’t actively care about everything. It’s like coming to terms with the fact that we will always be missing something, even if we never sleep.

It’s a marvelous paradox: The more I recognize certain limitations, the more freedom I have.

How have I changed from discounting my contribution, to knowing I make a difference?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11152013

3-Part Feelings

3-Part Feelings

I was watching someone yelling at someone the other day, and started thinking about feelings, emotions, and validation.

I have learned some really useful things in all my years of training, research and practice. One of those is that emotions are universal, feelings are not.

Emotions are the physiological manifestation of thought, either conscious or unconscious. Everyone, unless there is some kind of damage, has the same set, like when the doc taps your knee and your leg jerks. Emotions are pretty much hardwired.

Emotions are, very simply put; happy, sad, angry, scared, contempt, disgust, and surprise. That’s it.

Feelings, on the other hand, are not hardwired. They are not universal. They are sklooshy, personal, and often really weird and smelly, based on horrible mislearning, and awful beliefs.

I’m not always comfortable with my feelings, or with yours. And I’m not sure I want you to validate all my feelings, because some of them are pretty messed up.

I mean, if I’m telling you that I feel completely disgusted by what a bad person I am, or you are,  because I, or you, forgot a date, bounced a check, didn’t mail a letter, eat meat/gluten/dairy, ran out of gas, can’t sleep, have a blemish, and so on, do we really want that disgust validated?

If I am screaming at you about anything that isn’t a warning of imminent danger, do I want that behavior validated?

If I am wailing or blaming or shaming because something didn’t go my way, do I want that behavior validated?

Notice that feelings are often three-part; one part emotion, one part justification, one part behavior.

Often, when we ask for our feelings to be validated, what we are actually asking is for our outrageous behavior to be given a stamp of approval.

I was shocked when I discovered that I could feel sad without weeping and wailing and sobbing, that I could feel angry without yelling or cursing or carrying on, that I could feel scared without a panic attack. When I experience my emotions inside, noticing them, acknowledging them without the justification and behavior parts, they move through really quickly.

Experiencing our emotions all the way to the end is excellent. It completes our experience, and we end up clean. On the other hand, expressing them through extravagant behavior ends up creating even more trauma for us, because now we have feelings about throwing the whatever, or shrieking insults at our whomever, or any of a host of things.

The bottom line is this: If I want a happy, peaceful life, I have to be willing to give up the drama. My drama, and validating your drama.

How have I changed from indulging in emotional drama to experiencing my emotions?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights removed 10112013

Emotions 101

Emotions 101

Emotions are amazing things. They are the bridge from our virtual world of thoughts to the real world of our physical bodies. This is the beginning of how thoughts become things. We can see it happening now with brain scans, and it’s astonishing.

Every single thought we have produces an emotion. Every single one. Mostly, they are tiny emotions, and we can’t even feel them. Emotions are a simple way of saying that we have a complex set of physiological responses; things dilate or contract, go faster or slower, secrete stuff or stop secreting, to name a few.

Thoughts becoming things.

So when I have a scary thought, my pupils dilate, my heart and respiration rates go up, my adrenals start pumping out adrenaline. Over time, I learn to call that set of responses “fear.”

And when I have a peaceful thought, my body creates a very different set, with different heart rates, hormones and neurochemicals, and I learn to call that set of responses “calm.”

This is useful information when, for example, you are having your blood pressure taken.

Meanwhile, our brains are thinking thoughts at a mile a minute, most of which don’t even show up on our radar, that is, in our conscious mind.

When my brain is thinking scary thoughts a lot of the time, I end up with feelings. and call the set stress or worry. If I don’t change it, modify it by doing stuff to make other feelings happen, I can end up with physical symptoms. For example, lots of scary thoughts can make my adrenal glands work too hard, and I end up with a set of symptoms that  wrecks my sleep, makes me achy, messing with my stomach, and so on.

Emotions just happen, as a result of thought. Feelings are something we cobble together based on how we interpret what is going on around us, our long-term experiences, our beliefs. Is there a current events thing that, just the mention of it, you have giant feelings about? Or thinking of the smiling and happy face that belongs to someone you love, you get a woosh of feeling of another kind.

We have emotions to act as a kind of life-GPS, to let us know how we are doing, where we are at, and what we might want to do.

Our natural life is kind of like a fabulous candy bar, with nutty fun, and a peaceful nougat center. We can have a ball, and still have that centered stillness.

When we don’t feel that centered stillness, regardless of what is happening, our feelings let us know we have strayed. That wiggly feeling in our gut, the tightness in our shoulders or neck, the squinched up toes; these act as markers to let us know that we need to regroup, to calm down, to notice what we are thinking and change it.

Worry devours your well being and sleep, anxiety is a painful habit, anger can be so destructive. When we shift our thoughts, even just a little bit, it can make such a difference.

How have I changed from ignoring my thoughts and feelings to respecting their value to me?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 09282013