Pathwalking 242
Ultimately, when it comes to how I feel, I am the only one who has any say.
For a lot of people, this seems hard to believe, I don’t doubt. Why? Because things happen that elicit an emotional response we have no control over.
Which is not true.
I agree that things happen that cause an emotional response. Yes, we get into car accidents, we spill food on our clothes, we get hurt by someone we love, we do something we feel bad about later. The immediate emotional response is a thing that happens, and that we cannot necessarily alter.
What we can change, however, is the emotion after that initial response.
The real issue I see in both myself and in others is how long I let that initial emotional response take hold of me. Yes, I might feel sad, or angry, or insignificant, or hurt, or whatever negative matter you care to insert when whatever happens, happens. However, it is what I do with that initial response that is important.
There are several ways in which we can and likely do handle that initial emotional response. The challenge is in whether we gain control of the emotion, or let the emotion control us.
Most people simply go with it. They feel whatever emotion has come up, they probably dwell on it for a time, and eventually it fades away. This process will take variable amounts of time depending on the person, and how they manage themselves and their state of being. There is nothing wrong with this response, and it’s pretty natural.
Some people, however, let that initial emotional response become a downward spiral. She broke up with me! I am obviously no good. Clearly I don’t deserve to be happy. I am worthless. I am unlovable. The downward spiral leads to deeper negativity, sadness, and quite possibly depression.
Depression is bad enough. But what’s more problematic is when people allow their negative emotional responses to dictate their lives. They suffer from depression, they have panic attacks, they might even allow themselves to become a victim.
I want to clarify the meaning of victim in this context. I am not talking about someone who has been attacked or raped or otherwise victimized in some way. I am talking about emotional victimization. I am not even talking about emotional abuse, I am talking about when a person allows themselves to be victimized by their own emotional response and the downward spiral it has triggered.
To be fair, almost everyone goes through this at some point in their life. Someone hurt you emotionally, you got upset and felt bad about it, but then you got angry and started questioning why me? and over time you were the victim because of how that person hurt you. Probably this happened when you were still in middle school or high school.
Some people, however, do not learn a better response, and they continue to be victimized emotionally every time they get dumped, lose a job, don’t get invited to a party, and so on. They let their hurt become their life, and they are constantly a victim.
After we have the initial emotional response to whatever situation we are facing, we get to choose how we will handle it from there. Yes, I am upset or hurt or sad, but what do I do with it now?
This is why I say that when it comes to how I feel, I am the only one who has any say. I can linger in the initial negative emotional response of whatever situation I am dealing with, or I can choose to find a way to let it go and move on.
No, this is not easy, in especial if you are an emotional person. When you are the type of person who lives more in their heart than in their mind, I suspect that this is particularly challenging. Yet ultimately I am the one who feels what I feel.
Additionally, people who have clinical depression and anxieties and similar issues have this challenge further magnified.
Nobody else feels what you feel, or how you feel it. Period. Oh sure, we give common names to feelings like happy, sad, love, hate, fear, joy and whatnot. But how they feel is different for each and every one of us, which is where how we understand the intensity of emotions between one another gets particularly broken down.
This is why after we have that initial intense emotional response to a situation, it is important to check in with ourselves and determine if we really want to hold onto it, or work it out in some way.
This is not about forgetting something bad has happened. Life is full of ups and downs, and I do not deny bad things happen. But how long we hold onto those bad feelings is entirely under our control. We need to develop coping mechanisms that will help us to release those bad feelings, and move on with our lives lest we become victims of our own emotions.
How? That’s a challenge worthy of further exploration. The short answer is that we need to choose means to release the way we are feeling so that we can change it. Meditation, crying, screaming, taking it out on a punching bag, kicking a can across the lawn can all work, depending on intensity, and what the emotion is and how deep it runs.
This does not make the emotional response go away, but it does make it easier to not hold onto it, and be ruled by bad feelings. Next week I will further explore means to change our emotional responses.
How do you handle things that make you feel bad?
GOAL LOG – Week 32:
Note – I did not maintain my goal log during my vacation. Restarted it this week, so it will be back next week.
This is the two-hundred forty-second entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.
If you enjoy Pathwalking, you may also want to read my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.
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