Why you would die without feelings
By: Aaron Mitchum
Feelings help us survive. Without them we would die. This is because feelings tell us what a moment means to us and what we need to do to adapt to that for the sake of survival. They alert us to how things are going in terms of biological needs. Let’s take an every day example: all of a sudden you notice the stairs you’re going down because they are kind of tricky and the normal way you learned to go down stairs, that’s become so automatic you don’t even think about it anymore, won’t work in this situation. Feelings of being off balance alerted fear which alerted you to the fact that you need to pay attention (i.e. think about) how you are stepping in order to not fall. Without our basic emotions we wouldn't know when we were in danger, or in love, or how to care for our children. But of course our complex lives don’t only make us feel one thing at a time usually. We feel a bunch of things at once which can leave us feeling conflicted. A classic example that Mark Solms uses in his book, The Hidden Spring, is: when someone enrages us but we fear social backlash and guilt if we were to act on our instinct to attack them. This is where thinking comes in. We use thinking to slow down our emotional instincts and instead imagine what the future would feel like if we acted on our impulses. We run virtual trial and error scenarios. Doing this helps us navigate what will work for meeting our competing needs and what won’t. In the case of rage it might require us to choose to channel it into less primal routes like: speaking up for ourself, turning it into art or music or letting it fuel us to make a needed change, etc. If we didn’t feel we wouldn’t know how to adapt to new contexts to get what we need to survive and surely we would die quickly. That said, we can’t live in our societies and with the ideals, values and morals we hold without adding thinking to our feelings as well.
Getting past the breakers: finding and taming your emotions
By: Aaron Mitchum
Growing up in Kansas, as a skateboard kid of the nineties, the southern California surf and skate culture was the dream. So it was no surprise that I set my sites on going to college in LA. When I arrived at university I became obsessed with learning how to surf. I went twice a week for two years. My friends and I would wake up at 4:30a Tuesdays and Thursdays and drive 45 minutes out to Huntington and Newport Beach to surf before class. Alas though no matter how hard I tried I never got good at surfing. To this day I suck at surfing. It wasn’t a loss though, I did learn something. I learned about getting past the breakers. The breakers are the part where waves crash. To surf you have to get behind that part to where the swells come in before they become waves. That’s where you can catch the waves as they form. Getting past the breakers can be really hard. They push you back. They push under. You take on water. You get disoriented. You get cold, it’s exhausting and a little scary. As you are ducking and diving the crashing waves everything in your senses is saying “this is clearly not a good idea”. It’s a lot like learning to access your emotions when you have really struggled with that or like learning to tame your emotions when you’ve really struggled with that. It just feels like going against the momentum and it’s hard to intuitively feel why it’s worth it.
When I finally did get past the breakers though it all became clear. I had a totally different experience. Things got calm. My perspective changed. I could see and feel why it was worth it. Sitting out past the breakers, taking in the sun rise and being with my friends are some of my favorite memories in life (this was all just before I would try to actually ride a wave and totally eat it in front of everyone, revealing my midwest roots). Getting access to your emotions or healing emotional overwhelm is like getting past the breakers. It’s not quite as final as that, we are always in a process (there are always going to be breakers to swim past) but it is similar in that you almost have to go through it to understand what it has to offer you. Finding the energy and vibrancy of a rich emotional life will help you feel alive and authentic in new ways. Likewise, finding the strength to heal emotional overwhelm leaves you feeling empowered to take on life in courageous new ways. Both require getting past the breakers though. So if you’re in the struggle (and the struggle is real make no mistake) know you are not alone and take hope, there is another side.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF EMOTIONAL AFFAIR
By: Aaron Mitchum
Having split off emotions and needs is like having an affair. Your vulnerable emotions and their needs are kept out of your regular life. You go on with your day, your friends, spouse, kids, job, etc. without your vulnerable emotions and needs being involved. In fact, the people close to you don’t even know about your vulnerable feelings. Those feeling are kept in exile, in hiding. They are not to be acknowledged. That said, you do visit your feelings...in secret. Just like an affair you meet them at the "hotel" for a rendezvous. The "hotel" in this situation are habits like: pornography, alcohol, drugs, eating, intensities like extreme sports or exciting adventures, shopping, watching sports, etc. In those spaces you can feel the permission to have emotions you can’t usually. These places help you feel things like: relaxed, loved, seen, alive, wanted, excited, confident, sexual, soothed, etc.
Side Bar: You might notice that a lot of those things can become addicting. In psychology addiction is often understood as an attachment disorder. Meaning, we have come to use these things to meet attachment type of needs (i.e. seen, soothed, safe, secure, etc.) instead of seeking those things through relationships (i.e. opening up to those we’re close with or seeking a hug, etc.) or self help (e.g. mindfulness meditation, yoga, massage, etc.). We establish these patterns out of stressful times (usually when we are young) in which don’t have the help we need. Eventually these things become patterns and happen automatically. In other words, without much thought or awareness we grab that next beer not realizing that we are doing that because we are hungry to feel loved in that moment.
Back to our metaphor…we may meet our feelings in the hotel and get a fix but soon it’s back to our regular lives (perhaps with some guilt in the background for behaving in a way, once again, we don’t really want to). And as long as those emotions don’t show up at our door where our friends and family live too (cause that’ll be shocking and painfully messy we fear) we continue to maintain our split lives: a main self that is non vulnerable and doesn’t trouble others with our messy needs (sure we can’t quite connect deeply with others but we compensate with just doing more) and our secret selves that meet with our “messy” emotions and needs on the side.
#emotions #emotionalintelligence #falseself #integrated #wholeself#coaching #selfhelp #vulnerability
Why I love being a therapist.
By: Aaron Mitchum
I can’t shake it. I just think I’m built to be an artist. The arts that I’ve chosen to work in are music and counseling/coaching (I’m bracketing for just a moment that there’s a whole important science side to counseling/coaching and a whole important math side to music).
In music I am passionate about song writing. Keith Richards has said, or was it Leonard Cohen?, I can’t remember, one of them said that writing a song was like putting your ear up to the hotel wall and listening to a radio that’s playing in the next room…you just kind of have to tune in and listen really hard. For me, the feeling of tuning into a song, finding words and melody that match and elucidate something from life that maybe had only been felt up until then is addicting.
In counseling/coaching it’s similar. We work hard together to find a way to harvest the sub feelings of life into words, thoughts, movements and expressions so that people can change in ways that help them feel better and liver fuller. It is truly something sacred. I absolutely love helping people. To get to be on the journey with someone as they: learn about themselves, believe in themselves, change old patterns and beliefs that hold them back, heal from wounds, find forgiveness and hope, etc. is a sacred thing and a gift.
Both song writing and therapy/training are chances to sit with the mysteries of life and bring them into a form that can be shared and thought and be changed by. I can’t think of many things more meaningful for someone like me.