Tag: feelings

The Emotional Body

In my morning readings today, two ideas really stuck out for me. The first idea is about “embracing the contradictions.” It is quite possible to feel opposite feelings about the same experience, all at the same time. This is particularly true during the major transition times in our lives which mark endings and new beginnings, such as graduations, weddings, births, moving houses, divorces, funerals, retirements, etc. We often stamp, “This is how I’m supposed to feel,” onto certain situations and then we sometimes feel shame if we feel some “relief” when we think we should only be “sad”, or we feel shame if we feel “fear”, when we think we should be “happy.” Contradictory feelings are messy. They bring about things like “happy tears” or “pride and melancholy.” Contradictory feelings are hard to sort, because perhaps, they are not really supposed to be sorted and ordered. We have a lot of volume available in our emotional bodies. We can feel all sorts of feelings all at once, and in no particular order. When we accept the normalcy of messy, contradictory feelings, we can remain the calm center of the storm. And we can let our experiences wash over us in every color and sensation which they are supposed to happen to us. We can experience what happens in our lives both fully and open-heartedly, knowing that we will be better and more evolved for doing so.

Similar to this thought, I read about the difference between the emotion generated by delusions versus emotions created by true perceptions. How many times have you gotten yourself into a angsty tangle because you believed a story that you created in your head about a person, or a situation, or an experience, which you later found out to be untrue? We do this all of the time. We have very good imaginations. “Our neighbor doesn’t like us.” “The house down the street is haunted.” “Someone stole my scissors.” And if we aren’t feeling all that imaginative, there are all sorts of “news sources” which can help us out, to spur on delusional thinking. And then we feel the same horrible emotions we would feel, as if the situations were actually true. Emotions require a great deal of energy. Emotions also have a tendency to spur on our minds to create more fearsome, troublesome stories, in order to support their ongoing turbulence. Emotions love to run hot and strong. Emotions love to be felt. Emotions love it when they even start to affect our physical bodies, with stomach aches and headaches, and other other aches and pains and chills. Bottom line, there is nothing wrong with feeling emotion. Just make sure that you are honest with yourself, by noticing if you are expending your emotional energy on the truth versus on falsehoods. Be as mindful where you put your thoughts and your emotions, as to where you put your other resources, such as your money and your time. Pay attention. Be in the moment. All of these things are what makes up the experience of daily life, which ultimately is the whole of your life.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1429. What is standing between you and one of your biggest dreams?

Within

I’m sitting here in a hotel room, in a hotel that was born in the same year as my eldest son. So this is a 28-year-old hotel room. Its current “look” seems to be a whimsical, boutique-y look, with prominent colors and unusual off-centered placements of mismatching artwork. I’m sure that this square room has had many variations over the years. The rule of thumb is that the average hotel changes and updates its decorations about every seven years. So this hotel is probably on the end of its fourth cycle of “changing it up”. I wonder if people are generally on the same 7- year cycle of updating our appearance, our homesites, our mindsets? Some hotels appear like they have never had a change-up. Some people are the same. When I was a college textbook sales representative back in the early 1990s, my main point of contact were the departments’ administrative assistants. There was one administrative assistant whose office remained stubbornly and firmly in the 1960s. She had a beehive hairdo, wore brightly colored cats-eye glasses, she smoked in her office (even though you weren’t supposed to), and all of the furnishings in the office were mid-century (before mid-century became cool again). It was like entering into a time warp. I found her office oddly fascinating and sometimes even reassuring. That woman was not about to let trends, nor time, take her away from surroundings that made her feel the most at home.

My husband read a story recently about one of our country’s earliest magnates. In an enormous romantic gesture, he traded their New York City home for a pearl necklace that his wife desperately wanted. (At the time, pearls were exceedingly rare because no one had yet figured out how to harvest pearls in an industrial sense.) Ironically, the necklace recently sold in auction for $165,000 and the New York City home that he traded it for is worth almost $300 million dollars.

Everything changes. What is valuable to you, or to anyone else, changes. What looks good to you at one time often loses its appeal overtime (to the point of laughing hysterically at you and your friends’ 1980’s glue-sprayed big bangs). Noticing what changes, makes it easier to pivot to thinking about what is endlessly timeless. Feelings are timeless. We all experience the different variations of feelings and sensations that our ancestors have felt for thousands of years. And the many generations ahead of us, no matter what their surroundings look like, will experience the same myriad of feelings and sensations that we do. The timeless stuff is all inside of us. Timelessness lies within.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1506. Do you think you could beat a lie detector test? (Me – no way, no how. I’m a terrible liar.)

Tuesday’s Tidbits

Here are some more things from my current thought-a-log:

+ “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” —Haruki Murakami

“To find newer ideas, read older books.” – Ivan Pavlov

When I was little, I loved to read my mother’s old Nancy Drew books, from when she was a little girl. They were hardcover, had browned edges and instead of talking about “cars” in the books, they were called “roadsters.” There was something so much cooler and enchanting about 1930’s Nancy.

I am currently reading Parable of the Sower. It is a dystopian novel published in 1993 by the now deceased, Octavia Butler. Butler wrote it to take place in the “future”, which starts in 2024. I tend to read right before I go to sleep. I don’t recommend doing this, with this particular book. Unfortunately this is one of those science fiction novels, that you can too easily see becoming “non-fiction” in the not to distant future if we don’t get serious about change for the good of the whole, versus just focusing on the constant infighting of various powers in our country. Scary.

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” – Frederick Douglass

+ I recently read something that said that it’s a good idea to utilize this test for all of your relationships and situations in your life: Does this person/place/thing (thing could be an institution such as where you work, a club you attend, or a church, medicinal substance, etc.) “double my happiness and half my sorrows”? In other words, when I am going through a really good experience in my life, does this person/place/thing support me and share in my joy, and uplift me? And in times of sorrow, does this person/place/thing hold me, and help me through it to the other side of the burdens which I am carrying? If not, does this person/place/thing really deserve much of a placeholder in my life? You don’t deserve people who rain on your parade. And you don’t deserve people who disappear when times get tough, either. Maybe it’s time to get real and make a list . . . . A good way to know your “keepers”: Who are the people/places/things you can’t wait to go to with good news and bad news? Why? Are they the same lists? Why or why not?

+ And finally, this(!):

“Never apologize for what you feel. It’s like being sorry for being real.”

— Lil Wayne

****to J: maybe a wiser guy than you knew?! 😉

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1792. What three musicians do you feel have contributed the most to music?

Mr. April

“Have your feelings instead of your feelings having you.” – Ashwini Narayanan

I think that the statement above might be something which I will have to work on, for my entire life. I understand it, logically and rationally, but feelings have their own power like no other, right? When your feelings overcome you, you’ve been had, and it’s hard to tuck those swirling, whirling feelings back into their rightful place. Feelings “correct” place is that of being a helpful, useful navigation system.

I read a good piece by Cassandra Tyndall this week that talks about the difference between demolition and renovation, both in our individual lives, and in society as a whole. Today in society, it seems as though we have a lot of built-up, pent-up anger, and frustration, and pain that often explodes into a system (or even into our own lives) like a wrecking ball. (These are the moments when our feelings have us.) But very few things, need to be completely demolished to start anew. With a little tweaking, and updating, and making a few changes here and there, a whole new system, entity, (or person) can emerge. When we have our feelings, and we explore what they are telling us, most things (industries, ruling bodies, relationships, structures, etc.) can be adjusted and renovated, versus burnt to the ground and annihilated, precipitating a long, hard all new start-over.

I remember when I was teenager, and first learning to drive, I would move the steering wheel quickly and wildly, trying to shift lanes instantly, which made my father turn ghost-white more than once. My father would often remind me to just made small corrections all of the time. Big movements are not necessary when driving except in dire emergencies. When we are driving to our destinations, all it takes is small corrections to keep us safely on our path.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The Fire Alarm of Feeling

Yesterday, a dear friend gave me frank, logical feedback about something which I had experienced over the weekend. And I was fired up, and I was angry, and I was annoyed, and then, I was utterly grateful. Because once I got past the initial indignation, and once I stopped focusing on all of the fiery feelings that I was initially directing at her, I stopped to consider why I was so stirred up inside. I stopped, took a breath, took a moment to reflect, and I realized that our conversation and her honest feedback, made me understand that I still felt a lot of strong feelings about my weekend’s experience, which I clearly need to spend some more time working through. I realized that a part of my life that I thought I had moved on from, still needs to be worked through, just a little bit more.

My friend, aware that I was feeling defensive and miffed, apologized and she said that she should have just been a witness and “heard me,” but honestly, while that would have been kind, too, it probably would have been less helpful, in this instance. Her feedback helped me to pinpoint what was actually upsetting me about the whole situation. My friend has long proven that she has my best interests at heart, and so taking the pause, and considering the long-proven fact of my friend’s care, made me dig a little deeper into the situation, and to take my own honest, logical look at the storm that was swirling around in my heart.

Your feelings are always about you. Your responses, your reactions, your actions, are yours. What other people feel, and say, and do, and how they react, are about them. If you get past your initial emotional surge about anything and any situation, you can learn a lot about yourself. An emotional surge is like a fire alarm for your body, screaming, “Okay, pay attention!” I could have responded to my friend’s frank feedback in many ways. If I had truly moved past the situation which I was discussing, her feedback would have had no emotional charge for me. I would have stayed emotionally even, and might have said, “Thank you, but that’s not correct.” Or if she was truly just being mean and trying to hurt me, my intuition would have suggested that I need bigger boundaries in this particular friendship. But in this case, my longtime friend knows me well, and she knows all about the particular situation, and she was trying to get me to some clarity and peace. And after my emotional fire alarm got turned off, I was able to see the light at the end of the hallway, away from the fire of my emotion.

I can’t believe that I am in my fifties, and I am only now getting more and more comfortable with these truths about my emotions and my responses. Instead of being afraid of, or instantly reacting when I am feeling strong emotions, I am getting better at taking the pause, and really exploring what my emotions are trying to say to me. Our feelings and our sensations are our built in GPS system for navigating our lives. Instead of being afraid of our emotions, or worse, being a slave to them, we need to realize what our feelings and emotions are made to do for us. Our emotions are not the whole of us, just as our brains/minds are not the whole of us, nor are our bodies the whole of us. The whole of us, is that spark/soul of Awareness that resides in each of our bodies, and Who is the one who actually notices our bodily sensations, and our thoughts, and our feelings. We have everything that we need, contained within us, to navigate living our lives fully and capably, and with daily awe of the wondrous experience it truly is, to live a life, in a body, for a short while, here on Earth.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Automation

Last night, our middle son showed us something on the internet called “ChatGPT”. It’s an artificial intelligence that appears to make Siri seem like an inexperienced child and apparently, ChatGPT is only in its own infant/rudimentary stages. To show us an example, our son asked ChatGPT to write a poem about a lonely turtle. In less than a minute or two, the ChatGPT wrote a four stanza poem that rhymed perfectly and was quite clever and added a lot of details about a forlorn little turtle. Our own kids, who are still college students, admitted that some kids use this tool occasionally to write their required essays. I like to believe that those “some kids” are not mine.

As a writer, I find this new technology heartbreaking. I’ve often curiously questioned technological advances in the past, and their moral implications, but this is the first time something that I am fully passionate about, is being touched by and taken over by automation. Will the kind of writing that I like to do, become some quaint relic from the past? Will we grow to assume that everything that we read in newspapers, magazines, on the internet, and even in books has been written by some algorithm/artificial intelligence? Will anything be original and human anymore, or will everything that we do be handled and created by robots?

My son reminded me that artificial intelligence only works with what we “feed” into it. He said that he could ask ChatGPT to write a poem about a lonely turtle with more of a Shakespearean feel to it, and he reminded me that AI could only do that because Shakespeare existed first.

I fear sometimes our need for perfection. I fear that we worship at the holy grail of getting everything done quickly, easily, and flawlessly. We disdain the imperfections which we find on our faces, so we have filters for that. A machine can do surgeries precisely. Who needs a human touch? Are those science fiction shows about babies being birthed into labs in order to mine them for replacement organs going to really come to fruition?

Sometimes when I write, I think to myself, why do I do this? Everything that I write about has already been written about, by other people, at least 100 times over. But then I remember reading an article by Anna Quindlen, a great writer and teacher, who told her students that we all can write about the same thing, but nobody brings the same “voice or soul” to any one topic. Like fingerprints, each writer has their own intrinsic voice. I believe that this individual voice from each creator/artist/writer is connected to our deepest souls, and that’s something that machines don’t have – they don’t have feelings or passion or a true connection to Creative Intelligence, which is the true source to all things alive and wonderful. Machines don’t have souls. In my mind, Creative Intelligence dwarfs Artificial Intelligence any day. The most beautiful creations in the world, whether they be natural, or manmade, are beautiful because they were created out of passion and longing and feeling and desire. Feelings are messy. They are not perfect. Feelings are jarring, and fleeting, and overpowering, and intense. Feelings are not analytical and systematic and perfect and predictable. Feelings are human. Feelings come from our souls. The best creations in the world come from harnessing the chaos of the fervor and the zeal of our feelings and of our intuitions and of our passions. Intelligence without feeling is aptly named “artificial.” Creative intelligence is as real as it gets. We humans are the channels for Creative Intelligence. I hope and pray that this never changes.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

(D)anger

I love this meme. Of course, it makes it seem so simple and easy, though. Just intellectualize your angry feelings and then calmly, explain and express them. You know, just stay rational. Ha! Anger has a ton of energy. There is a reason why anger is often symbolized by a raging fire. Anger often torches everything that comes in its path and makes no apologies while it is doing it.

What the meme is really expressing is to explain your anger as it comes, when it is still a little campfire, made out of just a little pile of kindling (frustrations). Of course, the hardest step is admitting to yourself that you are angry. We have turned anger into a mean, bad, crazy, hurtful, ugly emotion, but that’s because we bottle it up too much. Any emotion that is bottled up comes out ferociously. Rarely, does a bottled emotion just dissipate and evaporate. Instead, it eventually uncorks and overflows. Even bottled up happiness can look a little crazy and unhinged when it is finally expressed.

A great way to truly get to understand your own emotions, is to explain and describe them. This does not mean to explain and describe what situation that you think created your emotion, it means to describe and explain the actual emotion which you are feeling.

This morning I feel serene. Serene feels peaceful. My body feels rested. I don’t feel rushed. I feel “in the moment.” I am slowly and easily breathing. Having described what the feeling of serenity feels like, I can then explore what got me to this moment: a good night’s sleep, my husband bringing me coffee, an unscheduled morning.

This thoughtful exercise can work for any emotion, even anger. We notice physical pain in our bodies. In this same way, we can notice what emotion feels like in our bodies. By doing this, we get really familiar with ourselves, and our reactions. We can better control our emotions, when we understand them. We can better respond to situations that we understand, versus just randomly reacting with bottled up emotions that finally just explode outward from the pressures surrounding us.

Emotions aren’t bad, not even anger. They are just signals for us to explore our needs. If we treat our feelings with interest and dignity, they help to guide us to what is best for us, and for our relationships. We just have to remember to use our emotions as telling, introspective tools, versus maniacal, out-of-control weapons.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Rhonda Real

I have a good friend who reminds me of so many of my other good friends (and even myself) . She is generally upbeat, positive, excited and always looking for the silver linings, but lately she is struggling. Her life is feeling somewhat “exhausting” and overwhelming at times lately, and she is upset with herself for not feeling like her usual chipper self. When we had lunch the other day, she apologized for being “Debbie Downer.” I said, “You are not Debbie Downer. You’re Rhonda Real.”

Why do we women apologize so much for the moments in our lives that we don’t feel 100 percent amazing? Why do we feel so responsible to be happy and cheerful all of the time? Every time I have a friend who is going through a tough time, I notice a trend (and I notice this in myself, too). She puts on a brave front and expertly covers all of her cracks, until she finally breaks down. She takes forever to admit that she is going through a tough time. Next, she apologizes profusely about going through a hard time, and then she apologizes even more so, for venting her emotions about what she is experiencing, as if she has control over either experience. And then she finally clams up, like a little crab that is embarrassed to have shown her vulnerable little legs of emotion. Why do we women feel like we have to apologize for being human??? I read something recently that makes a lot of sense. Negative emotions are only poisonous to us, when they are blocking out all other emotions. But most of us feel all sorts of emotions, all day long. There is no shame in feeling negative emotions. There are four general states of being: glad, sad, mad, or scared. Ideally, we would prefer to stay in “the glad” category all of the time, but that’s not realistic in a healthy (versus numbed out) human life. Sadness is necessary to process grief. Fear alerts us, and it keeps us safe and anger inspires us to do something about a situation that we perceive as being wrong or unfair. Anger actually has a lot of energy. Bottom line, if you choose to block or numb out all of your feelings, you block out the good ones, too, and that’s not the goal. The goal is to experience our feelings in the “glad” category for a lot of our times.

Perhaps if we weren’t so horrified and judgmental and apologetic about our lesser emotions, we would suffer less. If we can accept that sometimes we will feel sad, scared and angry, and just notice these painful emotions and accept them (without wallowing in them), they can be used as tools to get us back to our better feeling “glad” state of being. What are our emotions telling us? If we are scared, what can we do to feel more safe and secure? Are our fears truly valid or have we exaggerated them in our minds? If we are angry, what action can we take or boundaries can we put in place, in order to not feel used and abused? (Another interesting thing I read recently, is that science shows that the physical effects of angry or scared emotions, only last 90 seconds in our bodies. If we breathe through the emotions, instead of feeding them more fuel with angry or scared thoughts, the physical aspect of the emotion will pass and we can make more rational choices about what to do next. So don’t count to ten, instead count to 90, the next time that you feel angry or scared, as long as you aren’t in serious, imminent danger.) If we are sad, we can nurture ourselves, like we would nurture our loved ones going through a hurtful moment, knowing that unprocessed grief will cause more damage to us in the long run, in the way of physical ailments and mental breakdowns. In short, if you get curious and detached about your own emotions, you realize that all of your emotions have their place in your life, and they are actually quite useful. And also realize that we all love Rhonda Real, because she authenticates our own living experience. She helps give us permission to be our fullest selves. And she is so lovable, no matter what state of being she is currently experiencing!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The Marathon

I recently said to my husband, “I feel like we are about to cross the finish line of a major marathon.” He said to me, “Well, we have been parenting for 26 years.” (Our eldest son turned 26 in April, and for those of you non-runners like me, who for the longest time thought that those stickers on cars that state “26.2” perhaps referred to a Bible verse, the stickers actually refer to the fact that a marathon is 26.2 miles long.)

Today is my daughter’s high school graduation. She is the youngest of our four children and she is our only girl. She has opted to start college in the summer, so in about a month, this empty nest thing will truly be our reality. When I am not feeling curiously numb about this graduation ceremony soon to happen, I feel this:

pride/shock/awe/sadness/happiness/confusion/clarity/relief/exhaustion/vitality/excitement/fear/emptiness/fullness/curiosity/wonder/reminiscence/hilarity/anticipation/gratefulness/longing/protectiveness/faith/hope/love/love/love/love/love/love/love

and all of this is happening in rapid fire succession, or perhaps these emotions are actually happening all at once. I really don’t know. Some experiences cannot be put into words, as hard as I try.

This is what I do know, though. This marathon has been completely and totally worth it. This marathon has been, and will always be, the most important, meaningful race of my life. I honestly had no way of preparing for what it would mean to be tasked with getting four amazing souls safely from babyhood into their adulthoods, but I kept my stride. I stumbled here and there, but I always kept on going. I caught my breath, and I kept on going. I kept the pace. And I held the hand of my husband, throughout it all, and so together, today, we will cross this finish line completely tied. It won’t even be a photofinish. We will do this crossing over the finish line together, completely as one, just like we did at the starting line, a little over 26 years ago.

“Of all the races, there is no better stage for heroism than a marathon.” – George Sheehan

“Ask yourself: ‘Can I give more?’ The answer is usually: ‘Yes’.”– Paul Tergat

“When you run the marathon, you run against the distance, not against the other runners and not against the time.” -Haile Gebrselassie

21 Awesome Running Motivational Quotes For Your Next Run

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

A Little Lost

I’m writing this on Wednesday night. We are leaving early in the morning again for yet another high school tennis tournament that could easily end up being my last big high school sporting event ever, out of the last 26 years in which I (with my husband) have raised four children and supported their schooling, and their activities, and their sports, every single year. Year after year. And this is blowing my mind. And it is blowing my heart. Into a million little pieces.

I never wanted my children to feel like I lived through them. I never wanted my children to feel like I was an endless blackhole pit of need, for them to fill. I always wanted us to enjoy each other as individuals, who are happy and fulfilled separately, but also eager to support, and to enjoy each other. Still, I dove in. I dove in deep into this pool of mothering. I love my family that we have created like nothing I have ever loved, and I love the friends whom my children love. I’m a natural mother hen. I protect those whom I love, and I protect those people whom my people love. One of my favorite boys on the team told me yesterday that it wasn’t likely that his parents would come to the tennis banquet. It wouldn’t interest them. This is a man-child who worked so hard to lose at least 50 pounds, and he worked endlessly to earn his number five spot on the team. All that I could think to say to him was, “Well, aren’t they stinkers?!?” And we hugged each other hard. And I thought, “Wow, your parents have missed out on so much, and they will never, ever get it back. And they will never know what all that they have missed.” And I thought that I am so grateful that I have savored these moments. Because now, “these moments” are almost done. “These moments”, that sometimes, quite frankly, I often wondered, in a frazzled state, if they would ever, ever end, are actually coming to what feels like a sudden, and abrupt close, and honestly, I feel a little lost. Honestly, I feel a little lost. I feel a little lost.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.