emotions are expected

We've got a mid-week Bumper Sticker this week: Emotions Are Expected.

Does that seem like a statement of the obvious? For people who have had run of the mill experiences with emotions, it is an obvious idea. Emotions are generated within us and emanate from us naturally- just like our hearts constantly pump and our blood continuously circulates. 

People who've had difficult/scary/overwhelming experiences with emotions can get it into their minds that emotions "don't have to be" part of their lives; that if they could only be "smart enough" "clever enough" "strong enough" they could make it so they didn't generate (and have to then tolerate) emotions.

Part of the problem with this way of thinking/believing is that the person becomes very upset and critical of him/herself when she does feel a feeling- she thinks she's "failed" and is "weak" by "letting" the emotion exist.

But we continuously generate emotions, like we continuously breathe air. There's just no way around it. It's a natural human process. We have emotional experience for just about everything that happens to us in each day- whether it's a response to hearing the alarm go off in the morning, to thinking about going to work or school or taking care of our children, to making dinner (or trying to avoid dinner...). I really can't think of anything that I've encountered today where I haven't had some kind of emotional experience attached. It may be mild, strong, barely there, easy, hard... you name it, but there's some feeling happening just about 24/7 as far as I can tell. 

If we can learn to accept that emotions are continuously and naturally generated, we can stop "pathologizing" the experience (and consequently stop berating ourselves as failures for having feelings). As usual, the first step in the process is to simply allow the idea to exist- trying to not push it away instantly and calling it ridiculous and/or impossible. So: Emotions Are Expected.

Comments

[Super Egg]

johanna is quite the gal don't ya think?

[Courtney]

I notice I often get surprised by my negative emotions and shut down completely. I don't expect them. Or maybe I expect them all the time but either way, when they come I act like I've been caught off guard and I shut down extremely suddenly.

[Courtney]

how do I get past that? (see comment above). I don't even know if I want to which I know doesn't make sense but I don't often make sense.

[Ann]

Courtney, no worries, you make complete sense at least to me. I know exactly how you feel. I'm often ambivalent about changes.

[leanonme]

Emotions are crazy intense at times. Be them good or bad i supose. I guess its the ones we find most difficult to be with that are most prominent and cause us the most grief. How do we not want or be tempted to numb out or try to avoid those difficult feelings? I understand that it is human nature to experience an array of thousands of emotions. Do we just accept that there are some we would Wish Not to have? I just want to live life and experience life with all its JOY's and SADNESS .It seems like it should be simple and yet is so difficult all at the same time. Hmm...