My son asked for Mr. Potato Head stickers while at the store yesterday and because the less than $1 purchase seemed worth it in the moment, I agreed, only to learn that his stickers were actually a magnet that showed twelve different emotions and the idea is to frame the emotion that you feel at the given moment. I was pleased with this purchase! As I look at the magnet and all twelve emotions, I realize that less than half of the twelve emotions are those that feel good (silly, funny, cool, happy and brave) and the rest are emotions that do not generally feel very good (needy, sleep, arr.., stressed, shy, confused, bored).
We live in a society in which we are made to believe that the “right” emotions are the feel good ones but it really is an unreasonable not to acknowledge and sit with those more challenging emotions. I am not saying that being miserable more than half the time is what we strive for, but accepting those more challenging emotions is really important because accepting and using them as a cue really makes more sense.
So let’s think about how we move through challenging emotions…
Scenerio 1: Kaylee’s husband calls, ten minutes before she expects him home from work, to say that his meeting ran late and that he has to finish typing the notes to send out to his colleagues. She had a bad day at work and the kids had been fighting since she picked them up from school. She had planned to go for a run when he got home but at this point, it will be too dark. She starts to cry as she stands at the kitchen counter, and begins to think “He takes me for granted! He thinks because he makes more money, he can do whatever he wants with no accountability! I’m tired of this. Then he will come home and have fun with the kids and leave me to clean up dinner and get everything ready for tomorrow! I’m over this. He isn’t even the one who gets the kids on the bus. I do that too! Forget dinner. I’m taking the kids to get fast food and he can figure something out for himself. I’m texting him right now. I’m tired of keeping this to myself and acting like everything is okay.” ——— now here comes the text message…. “I’m taking the kids to get dinner. Figure something on your own. I do everything around here at least you can start taking care of dinner on your own.” Use your imagination to fill in the rest of the story.
Scenario 2: Kaylee’s husband calls, ten minutes before she expects him home from work, to say that his meeting ran late and that he has to finish typing the notes to send out to his colleagues. She had a bad day at work and the kids had been fighting since she picked them up from school. She had planned to go for a run when he got home but at this point, it will be too dark. She starts to cry as she stands at the kitchen counter. She goes into their bedroom, sits on the bed and continues to cry for a few minutes then closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths. She grabs her phone and puts on a 3 minutes guided mediation and does it. Then she gets out her journal and writes for a couple of minutes. She realizes, through writing, that the story that she feels overwhelmed with their schedule and guilty for going back to work. It feels like everyone is more disconnected and frustrated since she has been back to work. This is hard she tells herself but decides that once the kids go to bed, she will sit and talk with her husband about how she is feeling. As she writes, she realizes that he probably doesn’t know that she needs help because she never asks and she knows that he is probably as frustrated as she is that his meeting ran late.
What’s the difference? In the first scenario, Kaylee was feeling those tough feelings and she began to think and then do based on the discomfort she was feeling. Why? Because it allowed her to avoid those feelings and try to control them. Her response was all a reaction. In the second scenario, she sat with them and took care of herself so that she could move through them and respond accordingly. “I feel. I think. I do” changed to “I feel. I take care. I learn.”
Lauren =)