the heart as it is | courage • grief • beauty

Today’s prompt from Onsite is: What power do you see in embracing and collaborating with your emotions vs subduing and controlling them?

I can’t remember where I first heard this idea, but for some reason, it spoke deeply to me: how the west, with its rhetoric and history of dominance, conquering, and controlling, also seeks to ‘control’ emotions. As I learn about emotions and trauma, I’m coming to find that our emotions weren’t meant to be ‘controlled’ – that usually ends up in suppressing emotions, especially with more negatively viewed emotions such as anger and anxiety. Emotions are signals to pay attention inward to how we are reacting to external things, and they’re also usually signals for connection. Being alone in negative emotions is what is scary, not the emotions themselves.

Anyways, not that it makes experiencing the more negative emotions any easier, but I’ve found that at least being able to name a certain negative emotion makes things a little more bearable. Shame and guilt are usually the negative emotions I feel in more recent times, and it helps being able to name them and explore why I might be feeling that way. In all honesty, I’m still at a point in my life where all I want to do is make the feelings go away. If I can name the emotion and allow space for it, shouldn’t it go away?? Unfortunately, that’s not how our brains and bodies work. I’m still at a point where I need help providing space to hold the emotions – either with God and/or other people, and I think that’s okay.