A Rational(ish) Argument for Being Emotional
Scientific studies have long shown that people who express emotions tend to live longer, report higher levels of satisfaction and, in general, do better at life. So follow the science and be emo. Thank you. Till next time! I'd say 'okay, I kid', but I'd hope your field of vision isn't so narrow that you're unable to see that there's a lot more text that follows, so you'd know that that wasn't it. It's all about getting inspiration to write poetry. Finding muses in your emotions and…okay, sorry. I stop now. That's not it, either. And no, there aren't going to be any references to any scientific articles - not because I doubt they exist, but, you know, for one, I like to just talk and 'synthesize wisdom' (guys I've done ward rounds with can vouch for this - the trick to sound convincing is to lower your volume by precisely 2.43 dB and pronounce your 'e's and 'z's heavily while going light on the 'a's and 'j's), and for two, I'm not yet that person. The one who does proper research and knows to a T what she's saying. Also, if scientific studies actually convinced people, 'anti-vaxxers' wouldn't be a thing.
Which is a lot of words to say that this is mostly anecdotal / reflective and not really 'rational' in the strict scientific sense of the word…and if you cared enough you'd have stopped reading already, so I really should stop giving you reasons to quit now. Basically, there's a day I made a friend listen to this song (tap to open link!) which has lyrics like, 'all I do is get over you, and I'm still so bad at it…I let myself hope, I let myself feel things I know that you don't' - and she commented that she thought it was so brave how people express their emotions so freely. Which implicitly expresses the notion that it's difficult to be so open. Now the thing is, a younger version of me would have wholeheartedly agreed, but over the past couple of years I've come to identify as one of those overtly openly emo people (yes, really - and if you're surprised, that's actually another point in favor of my argument that you'll see soon) and I honestly think it's actually so much easier. Which is why I'm advocating for it. (#lazypeoplethings)
If anything, I can only think of how there's people who showed me so much kindness and grace, even when they had no reason to, no basis to think that I was actually alright and just going through something (hello MM, LO, LB, JS…). And if there's others that judged me and cut me off - I can't actually remember who, which goes to tell you that that's not really a loss, is it? A couple of times, the reaction I've gotten is one of 'OMG, I thought that I was the only one, but I'm so glad you think so too!' - and that really makes me question where we collectively learned to be so…you know, paranoid. If both you and I feel the same way, how, specifically, did we internalize the message that we shouldn't express it? Which ties into the thing I'd alluded to earlier, about how I actually do think I'm a pretty emotional person. If you're surprised, that's my point - it's really not taken that badly! It's easy to imagine that people will react soo badly, but…it's just your imagination. Trust mee, haha - I'm yet to actually be ostracized for it, or to get rebuffed or reprimanded for it.
The other 'domain' of objections to being openly emotional relates to when you're feeling ashamed or embarrassed about how you feel. Whether you just need to learn to accept that part of you, or whether it actually is a problematic thing that you really 'ought' to work through, lemme say this - trying to hide it is definitely not going to make it easier. All you're doing is adding more to your plate, because you're still going to feel what you're feeling, and in addition now you've got to deal with the guilt/shame. Let's say it's an emotion you don't want to have, or a reaction you've habitually had, and you know it brings nothing but grief to you. Like perpetually overthinking something and getting anxious about ABC. I actually think the best way to get over it is to just keep working through it, and step one is to acknowledge what you feel.
If you feel shame about it, let it course through you - in a way, it'll help you not have that Undesirable Emotion in the future, because your subconscious really won't want to feel that shame again.
If it's something that brings down your spirits by 'immersing' in it…I don't care. Okay, that's not true. It'll actually be harder to get through this, because you're going to have to kind of schedule time to feel this, leave a bit of a safety margin for you to fully spiral and descend…and then you'll come out of it.
Note, I'm not advocating for this as a therapy for depression - if things are going down and you're feeling shitty, please go get help. Don't wait until you're on the brink of ending your life or till you've absolutely crashed out of school/work/everything else. This 'suggestion' pertains to the more 'benign' emotions like anxiety and jealousy - not mental illness, which is a different beast altogether.
My reasoning is, when you put off feeling a certain kind of way, your subconscious builds it up as a big scary insurmountable hurdle, and every time you find yourself at that point, you're just…paralyzed. You don't know what to do about that feeling, and you're just overwhelmed by a lot of trepidation and negativity about the emotion, because you think you can't 'handle it'. I promise, once you go through it a couple of times (I dare not say ' once' because I'm not one of those people who believes those who say 'I was shown it once and now I know it forever'. Spaced repetition is where it's at, in my opinion. On a semi-related note, you should totally use Anki), you get better at it.
And if it's an emotion that you just want to stop feeling, even if you're not necessarily ashamed of it, it still works. The more you get through it, your psyche internalizes that it's an absolutely useless emotion and not worth your while - or you just get better and running through the full cycle and getting to resolution faster. Either way, life becomes easier. Those are actually the main 'issues' that came to mind, actually. But your peripheral vision is still intact, so let me launch into the last thing that I wanted to throw in - this one is entirely a personal reflection. Way back, when I was on the Other Side, I'd journal about pretty much anything other than how I truly felt - or I'd just skim the surface, because I somehow thought that if I minimized it on paper, it'd become less real.
That didn't happen, and now I honestly regret not writing about that stuff, just because my old entries are SO bland. The best, most fun parts, to revisit, are when I'm writing about being extremely sad/manic/anxious - just because I know now how it ends, and with hindsight, I'm also probably able to reflect on whether or not those feelings at those time were 'called for', or not. So we could argue that it might have made me a little more emotionally intelligent (that skepticism is valid and I am not offended if you think that I should have put those words in bold and underlined them while I was at it), but really, the main regret is just because emo entries are more juicy. And now we're done. Or I am, anyway. If you got this far, thank you! And if you've got any thoughts, comments, or even other 'objections' that I didn't think of, please do tell me. I'd love to be made to think about it further and see if I've not just successfully deluded myself!
Till next time!