The other day, my oldest child and I happened to come across a short video about emotions, and I wanted to share it with you.
In it, a cartoon character "gets" an emotion from the outside world, and the emotion begins bouncing around inside him. Then he gets another emotion, which joins the first bouncing around. Another emotion comes in. And another.
The narrator explains that when we don't deal with an emotion, it doesn't go away, it just keeps bouncing around inside us. So when we keep adding emotions and not dealing with them, we eventually have so many emotions inside us that we explode. (In the video, the exploding was quite literal!)
After watching this, my child turned to me and said, "I think this is the best video I've ever seen about emotions." I agreed that it was very to the point.
We've all experienced this pattern first hand. Right now, in particular, we are taking in huge numbers of emotions as our world is in upheaval. And in our daily lives and beyond, we witness many "explosions" as each one of us seeks some way - any way - to release it all so it doesn't feel so unbearable. Short tempers, impatience, blaming, saying hurtful things, stonewalling, etc. abound.
The fact is, emotions are simply "energy in motion". We're meant to let this energy flow: in, and right out again. But we try so hard to ignore, reject or deny certain ones...and they build up. And then we explode. It's not having the emotions that are bad - it's how we mishandle their energy.
What comes up for you as you consider all this?
What's your relationship with some of the more uncomfortable emotions - anger and loneliness, for example?
How do you typically react when you notice yourself feeling them?
What would it give you to let them go right away?
