In the last blog I introduced discernment and how our values determine what is right for us. I had readers do a, “drop in” with themselves to say how they are discerning, physically, what is right for them as an individual in these times of COVID, vaccines, and a lot of questions surrounding our own personal rights and sovereignty with our physical vessels.
In this part of the discernment series I will be discussing emotional discernment. As is typical for me; I typically go through a period of what it is I am meant to write or create right before the, “breakthrough”. This happened with my last post in my home with my husband, which I discussed. This entry has to do with me and my own practice of emotional discernment. I will discuss with you how it is that I am able to best discern and act from a place of emotional discernment, in all of my beautiful imperfect ways.
Emotional Discernment
Once upon a time there was a little girl who felt EVERYTHING and the world always seemed to be so loud. This little girl lived in a world that kept her pretty safe. She lived in the country, far away from the city and didn’t even really understand what the loudness of society was really like. But, slowly, this began to change. Her mother had a psychotic break not long after she was born and because those close to her told her she was so much like her mom, as she got older she believed she would, “be crazy” too. She was so strongly connected to her mom that she felt like she should be able to help, rescue, or save her mom from as early as she could remember. No one actually told her this, but it was a belief that she grew up and into. Especially when it came to being so, “different” from her family. Her childhood was spent hiding her emotions as she was told she cried too much or that she was, “too loud” or “too…” she then began to believe that she was, “too much”. These two values created her entire belief system around emotions and that it was not O.K. to fully feel her emotions or to be herself and so she spent the first 30 years of her life masking herself and trying her best just to fit in and be, “normal” that it was literally killing her spirit and her soul. She used all types of things to run from her emotions or to numb and suppress them, but nothing seemed to work.
As I am sure you figured out, this little girl is me. At age 31, 10 years ago now, I came to my emotional breakdown point. I had just come from a relapse that had been the final straw to really destroy an already tenuous marriage. I was starting over, at nothing, and knew that something had to change or I was destined to repeat this same cycle again and again. This was the start of my true soul journey, which was the scariest thing I ever had to do. See, because of that, “wound” as a child I always believed I was too broken to fix and so it would be best just to focus on, “fixing” or “helping” other people in whatever ways that I could… if that were even possible. To be honest I thought I would be dead by the age of 30 and so this “rebirthing” process was just that, a time for me to truly start over. I remember two very potent and powerful things at this point. One was my AA sponsor asking me, “who are you without your labels or roles as a wife, employee, etc.?” Well shit, I didn’t have a clue and was truly scared to find out that I was going to be, again, too broken/shattered to fix. The other thing was a book that, to be honest, I don’t even remember the name of now. But the most important part of the book was where it discussed that most people are too scared to feel their emotions. That they believe that it will be this black hole that will suck them up and they won’t return (something along these lines). I realized that my whole life I had witnessed my mom’s mental illness and the other adults around me not providing me with good examples of how to express emotions and so I had no clue how to do this, and at this point I had a BA in Psychology and years in the AA program.
So I started with what I had and did my best. I got attuned to a Reiki Master to have tools to help me with learning how to fully be in my body and to understand my energy. I started meditation (both sitting still and through running and at the gym). I went, “all in” on my recovery. I got my Masters in Counseling and I started counseling others. What I came to understand is that I have high functioning anxiety. When I learned about this and had a name for what I had been experiencing my whole life… underneath the distractions and addictions, I finally felt like I had the, “missing piece” on how I can live and function.
For the most part high functioning anxiety is something that I have learned to thrive on, which also means that when I am too still or there isn’t a lot going on, I don’t feel comfortable. (Which is also why sitting still for meditation, without a voice or music to guide me, is often impossible). It also has meant I have had unhealthy relationships with food, sex/men, alcohol/drugs, and caffeine/stimulants – something I am still working on today. All as a meant as a way to try to control my emotions. However, none of these things ever controlled my emotions, and, in fact, usually made things worse as I was adding layers upon layers of things to me that weren’t actually ME.
How to Practice Emotional Discernment
The discernment, for me, comes through the acknowledgement, acceptance, and then action. As you can see, avoidance never worked and just created more issues that I needed to address. For some this leads to intense mental health conditions and for some it can even lead to suicide, which I had thoughts a lot in the darkest of my times.
Acknowledgement comes from a state of detached awareness. This is the part where meditation is such a fantastic tool. In the beginning I could never detach from any of my thoughts or my inner dialogue so my mind was running the show day in and day out. I was physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually unfit day in and day out. STOPPING is how I had to learn to do this and I am still not always good at this. Again, as mentioned above, “stopping” sometimes meant being active in a way that would set my mind to a rhythm of meditation, like running or working out. One you can really acknowledge the emotion than you can let it fully come.
Acceptance of the emotion can be difficult if you have had a difficult time with a particular emotion. An example for me is anger. Because I would avoid confrontation that I believed would lead to anger I typically ended up being more angered in the situation rather than just confronting the issue to begin with. I will internalize anger and will start being down on myself which becomes a cycle of self abuse that I have gained a lot of awareness and insight into. Accepting that anger is an emotion that I GET to have and that it can also be a powerful tool of expression, when channeled in the right way has helped me in my discernment with this emotion.
Action is always key with emotions, particularly powerful emotions. If I get triggered by someone and have an emotional response often I want to immediately place blame on the other person for, “making” me feel this way. This is where the power in RESPONSE over REACTION is so beautiful. I had a mentor in my life teach me about this a few years ago when a close relationship started to change and that person was leaving my life. I could not control anything about the other person, which, in the past, I was always hoping that I could somehow fix, manage, or control someone else to best suit me and my needs. This was never serving to either of us and so I had to learn how to let someone leave. Which, for someone who has been co-dependent my whole life, this was acting in a way that was totally new and different for me. My “action” was to do nothing… and as this whole post has stated, this is NOT my natural predisposed state. My step in discernment here was learning to not act, when everything in me wanted to react.
So in summary I would like to say that emotional discernment can be tricky, because, as I tell my counseling clients, “Emotions are like slippery fish, just when you think you have a hold on it, it slips out of your grasp.”
If you are interested in learning more from me about discernment or would like to chat about your healing journey, please feel free to book in a free 15 minute call with the link below and thanks for reading!
https://calendly.com/amberkwentus/15min