How to tackle feelings

Feelings are those things that come on to you with a rush. The sort of thing that happens when you cannot but burst out laughing even when you know it is impolite to do so or to wipe the tear that is threatening to drop on to your checks in a little while.

            What can we do about this sudden deluge of feelings? Can we not, rather should we not, keep them in check for a more private or sometimes more appropriate occasion?

            I do not believe so, For that is what we have been doing all the while for the last few decades, and somewhere along the way, lost our on ‘something’. That something scientific research says is the capacity to feel, the capacity to emote, and consequently, the capacity to feel with others, and to feel for others. It is time we lifted all the barriers, opened all the floodgates, and let our body in its entirely (mind plus heart) experience all the feelings totally and fully.

            The first step in dealing with feelings is to express them appropriately. That means doing something physical speaking, writing, crying, shouting, laughing, or otherwise, acting out our emotions.

            Let us take the first alternative- speaking. Do question yourself as to how many times in the past two weeks you have made one of the statements expressing your feelings to yourselves or to someone else like “I am angry today” or “I am happy today.” Recognizing those feelings and accepting them as natural is half the battle words won. Knowing that you have these feelings can help in dealing with them.

            Expressing feelings is sometimes best done physically. Calmly saying “I am angry” does not express the feeling. If you speak angrily, it releases more of the emotion. This can be done in private in a closed room; In face one can get a little more physical by say, getting physical, another person should not be injured by your activity. While punching a pillow is okay, punching or hitting another person is not okay.

            Likewise, one can let off steam but yelling, crying, running, dancing or whatever and then relax to analyze the situation that triggered off the first hostile reaction, This physical activity is a temporary means of dissimulating your anger, and not a solution. The analysis that follows the “working off” of the anger is likely to yield results. Situations or the reaction of two human beings to the same situations are ever the same situations are ever the same.

            Sometimes, the negative feelings keep returning. This is a signal that you need to reassess the situation and maybe, a confrontation is necessary. This is a story of the gentleman who was angry with his wife- and as a true discipline of various stress relieving strategies, would dig a hole in the garden every night to relive his anger. By the end of the couple of months, he had a hole big enough to make a swimming pool. He had a physique to be proud of he was in superb physical fitness- but he was still an angry man! He worked out his anger, but when it kept returning, what he needed to do was confront his wife with what it was in her words/actions that was making him so angry. We will, in later chapters, go into details of how to deal with resentment and conflict.

Strategy to deal with an emotion:

1. Recognize it.

2. Own it: accept that you feel it.

3. Verbalize it: express it in word to yourself or to someone else.

4. Express it: take part in a physical activity to express your emotion, In short, act it out.

5. If a negative emotion persists or return, reassess the situation. A confrontation may be necessary.

In all of this, a predominant feeling of “I” is happening. Here “I” denotes and encompasses “self knowledge” or a very distinct understanding of the working of one’s innermost core. Self knowledge does not come from birth. While there may be small inputs from a very young age, It is basically a process of practice a practice of questioning yourself, time and again and coming up with answers. This process continues over a lifetime-in short, there is no need to this course of study.

Self-Knowledge beings when you ask yourself, “who am I? you can answer this question by saying. “I am Saugat Adhikari.” You may further add that you are a man or woman. Than go on to add physical traits like your height and weight, age, occupation and go on, But beneath all this, is the lingering question.

            “who am I really?” What are you most intimate secret thoughts, needs, values and feelings?