I’m calm enough that I often trick people into thinking I’m really patient, though few things could be further from the truth. I’m actually so impatient that I have trouble sitting still sometimes and often force conclusions just because I need closure. I need a decision to be made and the next move to be known. When things end, I move on immediately.
My general impatience is not something I really wish to fix; it means I have momentum and I’m excited about the future. Sitting still is overrated anyway.
But sometimes impatience is more of a defense mechanism than a character trait. It’s a way of avoiding my feelings. A way of making myself untouchable. You can’t hurt me, because I’ve already moved on. And it’s pretty effective until everything you’re running from inevitably catches up with you.
Some feelings demand to be felt, and the strange thing is that the more you avoid them, the bigger and scarier they become. I know this. It was a point made in the documentary, This Emotional Life. I watched it on April 30, 2010, and wrote this in my journal, “This is the paradox of emotions. The feelings you don’t want to feel you actually feel more intensely. As soon as you let yourself feel those feelings, they begin to diminish.”
If just feeling your feelings was an easy thing to do, then I wouldn’t have any defense mechanisms. I wouldn’t always have one foot out the door. The intellectual part of knowing what I should do was important, but it took a lot more than that to get myself to actually do it. Nothing I can point to easily. Some combination of getting older and having spent years trying to figure this stuff out. I only know that a thing happened and I didn’t run. Possibly because I had nowhere to go.
I want to say something ridiculous, like I’ve been communing with my feelings. But, truly, it kind of feels that way. We’ve been sitting together and going to work every day and having tea in the afternoons. Sometimes we go for walks and listen to Peter Gabriel. That guy really knows feelings.
I decided to take all the time I needed. And I discovered that it’s true what they say: when you actually face your feelings, they lose a lot of their intensity. Communing and drinking tea stands in contrast to the normal mind-spinning, angst-ridden way I handle my feelings.
Despite lessons learned, death has a way of forcing perspective, and I saw June coming and thought, “I need to let go of everything–I mean everything–and move on.” Then I had some more tea and realized that was stupid. So I am a bit weighed down by life right now, but I’m okay and I am moving forward. I’m just taking my time.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Please put be down as wanting to do a duet with you to “In Your Eyes” at Karaoke. Or maybe Sledgehammer.
Phil Collins also knows his feelings and I’d be willing to do a duet to “I Can’t Dance” or “Invisible Touch.” Maybe even “Against All Odds.”
Honestly I just love throwing 80′s songs at you knowing you will probably sing them with me.
Carry on.
Thank you for this post. You take all the time you need, friend. You know we are here if you need anything.
Totally agree. Sometimes you can distract yourself from the things you feel. That can help but other times it’s really important to face the feelings head on and accept that you’re feeling that way, otherwise you risk those feelings coming in out in other, very odd ways later on and that would be very difficult to deeal with.
Also, taking your time with things makes a lot of sense as it gives you the opportunity to fully experience, process and do whatever else you need to do with ‘stuff’.
Glad to hear you’re making sense of what’s going on in your own way and at your own pace.xx
We are a society that is taught to hide our emotions, to be ashamed of them or to be afraid of them. Regardless, we are born with them and must live with them. This means learning how to know them, be with them, and release them.
You cannot change or control your emotions.
People who have control and order in the physical world have conflicts with their emotional world.
Emotional baggage does get heavy so heavy you cant run anymore. Tea does wonders but I’ve never heard anyone say Peter Gabriel knows feelings. Once again I’ve learnt something new. Thank you. Oh and bye the bye your doing great. Keep working on you belief systems.
You’re so right, and this is something I’ve been learning too. Going through our feelings is part of the human process. We are allowed to mourn, to be angry, to be sad…just like you, I think I ran from those feelings often, thinking that life was supposed to gravitate on this level of being calm and happy and on one level. Turns out we are made for many levels.
Hugs, hugs, hugs. And lots of deep breaths. XO