In the LGBT community, we often talk about “drama,” and many of us do it very well! None of us wants to be a “drama queen,” and even if we’re not, we may still fear being called one. The problem is that we live in a culture that overall, is very uncomfortable with emotion. In the Western world, people are discouraged from feeling any emotion for too long, even joy, because the preferred state is numbness. In other words, don’t feel joyful for too long because someone might call you Mary Poppins. Don’t be sad for too long because you’ll be Debbie Downer, and people might say that you need Prozac. Don’t show your fear because someone might accuse you of being a coward or tell you that you’re over-reacting. And above all, do not, I mean never, ever, ever, show your anger because that makes you really scary, and for many people in spiritual circles, anger is UN-spiritual.
I would like to offer a different perspective which may be helpful in liberating us from our cultural and familial programming around emotion and may assist us in more deeply appreciating and celebrating our humanity and our capacity to connect with other human beings.
The Four Facts Of Emotion
First, let’s acknowledge that we all have a full spectrum of emotions. I have mentioned four, but there are many shades of each one. We were born with these emotions, and as a result, we need to question the assumption that any one of them is “bad.” We were born with sexual desire also, but despite the fact that many people have harmed others with inappropriate expressions of sexuality, that does not make sex evil. Just as there are appropriate and inappropriate expressions of sexuality, there are appropriate and inappropriate expressions of all emotions.
Secondly, let’s notice that we can use any emotion as a means of manipulation in order to get something or someone we want—or to control, shame, scare, bribe, cajole, distract, intimidate, seduce, or retaliate against another person. Many of us have come from homes where people did just that, and we may have decided early on that we were going to avoid a particular emotion so as not to hurt other people with it as we may have witnessed in our families of origin.
Thirdly, it’s important to notice that not expressing a particular emotion when we really feel it can also be harmful. For example, men have been taught not to show their fear, and they will often do anything, including putting themselves in harmful situations, in order to avoid revealing their fear. Women have been taught not to express their anger, so we often carry a pattern of stuffing our anger and being “nice” instead of revealing it. Anger can be used in a passive-aggressive manner to protect ourselves or to retaliate against someone. The problem with passive-aggressive behavior is that it is often unconscious and therefore very likely to harm someone else. A Mayo Clinic psychiatrist describes passive-aggressive behavior in this way:
…a passive-aggressive person might appear to agree — perhaps even enthusiastically — with another person’s request. Rather than completing the task, however, he or she might express anger or resentment by missing deadlines, showing up late to meetings, making excuses or even working against the task.
Fourthly, there are appropriate ways to express all emotions. Most of us were not taught these ways because we grew up in families where people either did not express emotion or expressed emotions in ways that harmed others. Both kinds of behaviors leave deep emotional scars on children and feel crazy-making to us. We may have grown up in a home where the father sometimes had temper tantrums, overturned the family dinner table, terrified everyone at the table, then stomped off in a rage. Or we may have grown up in a home where the death of a family member left deep scars of grief in everyone’s heart, but parents decided not to talk about it—to “keep a stiff upper lip” and “put it behind them.” Grief may have hung like a throng of ghosts in our home, and we may have seen other family members demonstrate bizarre behaviors in an attempt to ward off the deep sorrow that pervaded every room in the house and the hearts of all who lived there.
So what are appropriate ways to express emotions?
First, we must acknowledge what is so. Author and spiritual teacher, Byron Katie says, “You don’t get to vote on what is. Have you noticed?” And, “When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.” And yet again,
“I am a lover of what is, not because I’m a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.” When we don’t say what is so, we live in denial, which despite the fact that denial protects us, is a mild form of mental illness, and as Byron Katie states, hurts us and others.
Secondly, we commit to learning how to express emotion with compassion and always with the intention of facilitating dialog, communication, and deeper human connection—simple synonyms for love. For example, we say what is so using “I” statements so as not to communicate blame, and we let people know what we need from them, such as, “I’m feeling really scared right now, and I need to know that you will not abandon me.” If we are feeling sad, we might say, “I’m feeling very sad right now, and I need to cry. Will you stay with me while I allow my tears to flow?” In the case of feeling anger, we might say, “I’m feeling angry with you right now, and I just need you to hear me, and I need you to stop doing____and start_____.”
Our expression of what we need does not guarantee that we will receive it, but it communicates without blame or judgment what we need which validates the emotion we feel and also opens the door for connection with the other.
As we commit to becoming aware of our emotions and expressing them appropriately, we also become more skillful in responding to the appropriate expression of emotion by others. This allows us to deeply listen to them and hear what they are saying rather than assuming that they are saying something they are not saying.
“Negative” Emotions
As stated above, in this culture we are taught that certain emotions are “negative” because they evoke unwanted emotions within ourselves or within others. This is a distortion of the gift of emotion. No emotion, I repeat, absolutely no emotion is inherently negative. What makes an emotion negative is how it is expressed or not expressed.
A couple of years ago, my friend Andrew Harvey introduced me to a phenomenal book entitled Healing Through The Dark Emotions: The Wisdom Of Grief, Fear, And Despair, by psychologist, Miriam Greenspan. I have used this book personally and professionally on numerous occasions and have incorporated extensively in my own books, with her permission, Greenspan’s material. I am deeply grateful to Greenspan for showing us how to utilize emotions that we have previously disowned or judged as “negative” to bring forth incredible healing within ourselves and between ourselves and others.
We are currently living in emotionally challenging times in which we are confronted by unprecedented changes. Regardless of how we interpret these transitions, they are likely to be with us for a long time, and they evoke many emotions in us from day to day. Our work is to become emotionally resilient so that we can respond to and regroup from the impact of these emotional challenges.
If you would like to learn more about becoming emotionally resilient, please visit my website at www.carolynbaker.net where you can listen to a brief audio on this topic. I am currently working on a long-term audio series entitled “Mining The Black Gold: Healing Through ‘Negative’ Emotions which will be posted on my website soon.
