Sessions With Self
How I Transformed Sadness and Anger Into Beauty
The gift of negative emotions on your spiritual path
Sessions With Self: Entry 7 To learn more about this ongoing series and read past editions start here.
“No crying. Don’t ever let anyone see you cry.”
When I was around 7 or 8, a classmate punched me in the face. I cried and that was the message from the men in my family.
They vehemently pulled me aside: “no matter how bad it hurts, don’t ever cry. Don’t ever let someone see you cry.”
A year later, I attended Catholic school and a nun screamed at me because I couldn’t script my name legibly within the lines. As punishment she made me stay after school and write my name 50 times on the blackboard.
To voice my frustration I abruptly slammed the chalk onto the floor and yelled back at her: “I’m not doing it!”
While waving her finger in my face she yelled: “Don’t get angry with me young man. You have no reason to be angry.”
Then a few years later, I joined the basketball team, and when a teammate teased me for wearing “girly” sneakers, do you know what I did?
I giggled.
Not because anything was funny. I was nervous. It was that awkward laughter out of self-preservation to conceal your unpleasant feelings from the outside world.
By the time I was a teenager, there was a very clear expectation of what being a man was: strong, assertive, tough, and doing things like fixing your own car, cracking misogynistic jokes, and watching football.
Lots and lots of football.
And if you didn’t like football and preferred activities like writing poetry, painting, or even talking openly about your “softer” emotions, uh oh good luck to you.
You would likely be told to “man up” or called something worse.
Hiding Our Emotions
When I started walking the spiritual path a few years ago, I began to examine many of these experiences. As I look back, it was clear that my life became one giant attempt to hide my emotions and true self from the outside world.
The years of doing this resulted in:
- Shame and embarrassment of who I was.
- Fear of being myself around others.
- The belief that I must hide who I am, otherwise I will suffer ridicule or worse rejection.
While coming to this realization was sobering and sad, it was also eye-opening, to say the least.
So, why do we do this?
Why do we hide our feelings? Even as adults, why do unpleasant emotions frighten us?
For one, dealing with our hurt is something we are taught very little, if at all in school. If anything, society teaches us the opposite. We’re trained from a young age to mask and hold back our pain.
We are told anger is a bad quality that leads to bad things. And when we are feeling sad, we are told old cliches of “put on a brave face” or “turn that frown upside down.”
Or in my case, “Don’t ever let anyone see you cry.”
In most cases, it’s all well-intended advice, but it only encourages us to deny and bottle up our feelings. As a result, we turn into adults that shame and judge ourselves for having so-called “bad emotions,” like sadness, anger, and even grief.
Then we inadvertently repeat the cycle, passing on these feelings to our loved ones. If a child, friend, or partner is upset, we might automatically say “don’t worry” and try to quickly find a solution to their problem.
I know I have been guilty of this.
Through observing my interactions with others, I realize when you are so practiced in hiding your own emotions, the slightest sign of someone else’s discomfort can cause you to become uncomfortable — making you want to diffuse the situation as quickly as possible.
It’s as if other people’s pain is too much for us to bear because it reminds us of our own hurt.
However, when we bypass these emotions we see as “negative,” we rob ourselves (and others) of the wisdom they can offer. Emotions, whether good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant are inherently valuable.
Tough emotions are one of your greatest assets.
In his beautiful poem “The Guest House,” Persian mystic Rumi tells us to welcome every emotion as an “honorable house guest” who has been seen from beyond to teach us a valuable lesson.
It’s not about keeping negative emotions in check but instead inviting them in for the gifts they bear.
Here are four mental reframes to shift your relationship with unpleasant emotions.
- Emotions carry a lesson. Right behind every feeling lies truth.
- Emotions are feedback on what’s really going on in your life.
- Emotions are insights into what you need to work on in life.
- Emotions and understanding them are key to the spiritual path: they are a window into your very soul and the lessons it needs you to learn while you are here on earth.
Psychologist Susan David goes deep on some of these ideas In her famous Ted Talk, “The gift and power of emotional courage” by saying
Emotions are data, they are not directives. We can show up to and mine our emotions for their values without needing to listen to them…
Our emotions contain flashing lights to things that we care about… If you feel rage when you read the news, that rage is a signpost, perhaps, that you value equity and fairness.
Emotions are a beautiful part of our humanity.
Our souls came here in this physical form to experience this beautiful, thrilling 3D experience called life. Feelings and emotions are part of the deal that comes with taking this adventure. They are just one of the many beautiful facets we get to experience like eating food, having sex, falling in love, moving our bodies in marvelous ways, watching a sunset, etc.
This also includes even the toughest of emotions — because life’s splendor and loveliness are inseparable from its messiness. Everything we get to experience is beautiful.
Duality is the essence of our experience as humans in physical reality. We can’t experience and understand the light without experiencing and knowing the darkness. And from our soul’s perspective, the spiritual path entails experiencing both ends of the spectrum along with everything in between.
Back to Susan David to close this edition out:
Only dead people never get stressed, Never get broken hearts, Never experience the disappointment that comes with failure.
Tough emotions are part of our contract with life.
You don’t get to have a meaningful career Or raise a family Or leave the world a better place Without stress and discomfort.
Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.
Until next time.
Thanks for reading. 🙏 Anthony
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