Learning to drive our emotions.
It's a growth journey for us all. And especially for our young ones.
An important, liberating, step for us all is to free ourselves from the concept of good and bad emotions. This division is damaging and unhelpful. It leads to Anger being misunderstood, and over-dosing on exaggerated Joy. In both cases, the end result is an inauthentic emotional response that will ultimately prevent us from living as deeply and fully as we might.
Instead, I'm finding the notion of High Energy and Low Energy emotions to be helpful. For our young ones, and for us, we can use the image of our inner world being like a car engine. Sometimes we need a shot of High Energy to deal with a tricky or dangerous situation. Sometimes we need Low Energy to gear down and get through difficult stuff. Both are crucial types of energy and both perfectly match the needs of the moment.
Anger is a wonderful example of the right energy for a difficult moment. When something is threatening or harming us, then Anger will helpfully super-charge us with the energy to change what is hurting us. That does not mean licence to harm others. Anger is energy to bring about change and to help us liberate ourselves.
Joy is also a High Energy emotion. When Life is super-fabulous, Joy super-charges us so we can be highly sensitive to the wonder that is around us. Joy is like emotional seasoning on a meal: it draws out even more of the goodness that's in there.
Similarly, Low Energy emotions play a crucial role. In times of danger, Fear can slow us right down. Fear alerts us in every way to the great need for us to be careful. Really careful. Grief and sorrow are also Low Energy emotions. They take us deeply into ourselves to channel our attention on the loss and the trauma. Concentrating fully and deeply on our loss is crucial for us if we are to process all that the trauma means for us.
Valuing all our emotions is wonderfully liberating. It removes us from unnecessary guilt and, in our parenting, it shifts us out of being judgmental into being a fellow traveller observing what our young people are experiencing in relation to the emotional landscape they are currently in.
Arohanui.
Contact me: Lorraine Dodd: Counsellor in Howick, Auckland 0221 874 057, through the contact section http://lorrainedodd.wix.com/lorraine-dodd by email nurturinghope@gmail.com or Private Message me through Facebook
