Emotions: The Gateway to a Loving Relationship | Book View
The trouble is that we are not taught how to healthily express our emotions
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Emotions: The Gateway to a Loving Relationship | Text View
Sounds strange doesn't it? Emotions -gateway to a loving relationship. Hang on a minute! Emotions! Aren't they what mess up relationships? All those crazy emotions, all that crazy behaviour that totally render us inept at healthy relating at all?
What has been constantly and continuously brushed under the carpet, over and over again, are these little buggers, emotions - well, come on … who wants to feel fear? Who wants to feel anger? They're not the most comfortable feelings on the planet.
Oh, some of you will be saying "Hey, that's what makes our relationship so passionate, so interesting!" I can guarantee you that there are other ways to create a passionate and interesting relationship than one that is stuck in the same emotions, same arguments, same, same, same ground hog day over and over.
It is the most hopeless existence to be repeating the same stuff over and over again. For women, it results in all sorts of secondary states - like depression or illness or just simply continual tiredness.
And what about the guys out there? They are probably saying, "God I don't need her to be more emotional! Come on!" Thing is that if your woman is overemotional, it is most likely there is good reason - she is not allowing herself to feel the deeper emotions or perhaps you are not supporting her to feel the deeper emotions and even more importantly, if the scales are tipped heavily in her direction in the emotion stakes, it is likely that you are not feeling your emotions enough.
Men, a generalization can often go into silent cyberspace, appear to be all 'fine', when really, he is feeling just as much his woman. He just doesn't express it in the same way. Think about it. Is a male child, before conditioning really sets in, less emotionally expressive than a female child? Not in my observation and in all my years of working with men and women, both have deeply felt emotions locked away in the unconscious.
So we've established that both men and women can be equally emotional - they just express it differently. In same sex relationships, the same dynamic can emerge - where there is one expressing the more masculine tendency to hide emotion and the other expressing the more feminine tendency to be overemotional.
The trouble is that we are not taught how to healthily express our emotions, especially the more difficult ones like anger or fear. More often we are scolded. We then learn, very young, to develop strategies to get a parents love or to be approved of. A child looks to the parent to feel safe, valued and loved. A parent's intention may be just that, but past conditioning from one's own parents, if not dealt with emotionally, will often unconsciously override good intentions.
Brandon Bays, mind body teacher and originator of The Journey Process TM says that our emotions are like little children. If we ignore them, they just get louder. And sometimes they scream through the physical body and its symptoms.
So what to do when it looks like World War 3 is rumbling in the distance? And emotions are closing in, pulling rank on each other and wanting to win the war?
First of all, sit down and make a commitment to each other that you 100% support your partner to feel all of their emotions and that you are willing to not, I mean NOT re-terrorise your partner by shaming, blaming and naming. Words cut like knives to the very heart and soul of a person. Learn how to communicate with compassion.
If you think of your partner as a small child inside this adult body, who is acting out some unconscious behaviour, then it is easier to feel from your heart and act from your heart, instead of your defensive self. Develop an attitude of kindness as number one for you both. If you are unable to do this, have time out and come back when you have had some time to settle or calm down.
In a functioning, loving relationship, you can become, for each other, the holder, the cradle that supports and nourishes rather than aggravates and diminishes.
Secondly, make a commitment to your self that you are willing to feel your deeper emotions - not just anger or fear, because they are in fact the surface emotions (that's another discussion). You might think this is just too hard and yes - sometimes it really is the hardest work you can do because we can become so immobilized by these feelings. Fear is an emotion that, by its very nature, is immobilizing, rendering the one experiencing it often unable to function.
When I speak of deeper emotions, I mean what we are avoiding having to feel is often deep grief, abandonment, unworthiness or utter powerlessness. If we are humble enough to truly and authentically feel these, it will bring us closer to our heart.
This is the path of the heart as while you are willing to feel what's really beneath these surface emotions, miraculously, it allows you to authentically feel the lighter, more loving, joyful, passionate emotions that bring you closer to your own soul, your own love.
And that's what we all want isn't it!! To feel love! Isn't that what all this relationship stuff is about?
Thirdly, make a commitment to honesty - firstly to yourself - owning up to what you are really feeling can be something foreign as we are not encouraged to be real and honest as children. Our feelings have often been invalidated so we come to distrust them. We cannot expect another to trust them and validate them if we are not doing that for ourselves. This is self love - to listen deeply to our felt experience and act accordingly.
Lastly, be willing to be compassionately honest with your partner - if your partner is unable to handle your honesty, it can mean one of two things. They are using their reaction as a strategy for control in the relationship, to shut you down (perhaps unknowingly), or you have not said it in a way that is loving or fully owning your own feelings. Use your inner knowing in assessing this.
Be careful here. Avoid using 'honesty' as a weapon - only EVER be honest as an expression from your heart. Be careful about your motivation for saying something and how you choose to say it. You could ask yourself, "What emotion am I really feeling that is motivating me to have to say this?" Once you have acknowledged and felt that, you may find that you do not even have to say anything and in your willingness to being honest with yourself, it just melts away and is not even an issue between you and the other person anymore.
This, I believe, is developing the conscious heart.
To commit to this path is a lifelong journey. However when both people in a relationship are willing to be vulnerable enough to feel, to be honest, to communicate about their emotional needs and recognize when unhealthy neediness or emotions arises, they will develop a level of intimacy that supports a loving relationship that will naturally seek healthy expression in their lovemaking.
So, emotions within relationships, are not something to run from or hide from or unconsciously dump onto another - they are rich ground for our emerging development as humans, as couples, as lovers, as custodians of future generations and our planet. Emotions are our pathway to a deepened unfathomable intimacy that truly can nourish your heart and soul, generating more peace, greater joy, greater fulfillment, and more happiness! Go for it!
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