Better Understanding Emotion, and why it matters right now

Over the past month, I’ve visited with a number of individuals, some I know as friends or acquaintances, others I’ve only met through happenstance or association with a task or two or three.

In the course of casual and relatively brief, but sincere and broadly reaching conversation, each of them shared insight into their day-to-day struggles, personally and professionally.

As we are all aware, this is a time of great instability, conflict and uncertainty. And, this global state intensely and relentlessly demands efforts to mitigate and re-stabilize in order to make life and living more predictable.

So, while striving to remain ever-thankful, we try to work harder, faster, better and more. We try to make time for family, friends and others. Find time for self-care. Try to even remember self-care. Be flexible, pivot quickly, lead, follow, or, get out of the way. And when we stumble and fall, try to bury our heads in the sand in order to, if only for a moment, seize a quiet pause.

In the midst of flu season and overarching implications of Covid… political, cultural, economic and environmental upheaval have many of us in a perpetual state of border-line panic, indecision, and urgent reactivity.

We're doing out best, but no one operates well in such a state. Thinking is impaired. Best intentions and efforts often find themselves stalled or skidding off the rails - complicating situations further. Of course, this phenomena is one that can be leveraged by capitalizing entities inducing, amplifying, or entrenching a long-term trend.

After nearly a year, we’ve begun to see an ever-heightening level of worldwide political positioning and economic restructuring. Yet, for those of us caught in the churn, the last thing most of us want, personally, is more of it... at least as it is currently unfolding... or, better said: unraveling.

In our rush, in our panic, in our state of debilitating frustration and angst, there is often an invisible component which we fail to see - sometimes, cannot bear to see, let alone embrace or employ toward beneficial, positive use.

Emotion.

While emotion is often manipulated by marketers, media, politicians and others with an agenda to steer us and others in a specific (or random) direction; emotion is something all our own, and believe it or not, can inform us of not only next steps, but how we can more soundly and roundly enact them.

Whether we are aware of them, emotions accompany our every intention and effort. As such, anxiety is now and for many permeating everything.

Our emotions arise from our every nuanced perception of what is and isn’t going on around us, and how well we can produce a positive outcome in our reaction to it. Emotions lead in our sense of personal ability to 'understand and handle’ something, and they follow our sense of ‘failure’ when we don’t. When that happens, that same last emotion, takes the next lead. Emotions compound and can become confusing.

All the while, pressure can overburden our ability to focus, plan or even act well on behalf of ourselves and others.

Our more extreme reactions to sudden situations or chronic circumstances can be abrupt expressions to jarring emotion: Emotion which can remind us of what we value, and indicate the need to acknowledge complexities; sort out complications and contradictions; and, discover how our spirit may be guiding us forward.

Always, harmony awaits. But it often requires first finding its opposite then, seeking to re-define itself through examined and embraced evolution of self.

We may not always recognize when we are operating beyond our capacity, because we may not be aware of our personal threshold, or what events or conditions in our lives may trigger an exceedance.

Not everything is easily sorted nor explained. Though, we may like it to be. Not everything can be explained in a sentence or with a graph, or a theory. Generalities and assumptions of norm can pre-empt access to more telling complexities, more illuminating scenarios and individual paths forward.

Not all outward manifestations are the result of the same inward cause. Not all anger is grief. Not all grief is loss of a loved one. Not all fear is a lack of courage. And, acceptance does not necessarily imply a full surrender.

Not all maps are current.

Sometimes, we are also grieving a loss of predictability, stability, infrastructure and invested time, a loss of hope or the loss of self-confidence to navigate, let alone find our way in darkness.

Sometimes we are grieving a loss of support, or, even a loss of self.

Right now, many of us - even when quietly wondering inwardly but loudly, "What the...?" - could benefit from every relatively stable and enduring guidepost we can find... every plausible model of understanding, however pat or incomplete in its scope and apparent relevance.

I recently and first came across "The Stress Continuum" infographic contained within the link below. Later and by happenstance, I stumbled upon a relevant quote by CS Lewis. In light of those revelations, I then pursued greater context and was aided, therein, by the now-classic "Five Stages of Grief".

All together, and at best, perhaps these tools may be helpful to those interested in different or perhaps better ways of identifying and translating the emotional realm, and even discuss these issues with someone who can assist.

Since I believe the 'why' happens for a reason, I pay close attention to the larger design of 'what' and 'how' and 'who' and 'when'. Here they are, again, in their order of appearance...

1) "The Stress Continuum" lives here: https://cohcwcovidsupport.org/?fbclid=IwAR31cO9SCoPgk4r5LzlDULnNJFPprxuD7-xpgTy2uefXJupmoMEXL4gJKfM

2) The Quote: “I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief” -- C.S. Lewis

3) And, based on the Kubler-Ross model, "The Five Stages of Grief": 1-Denial, 2-Anger, 3-Bargaining, 4-Depression, 5-Acceptance

May you find peace in further finding... whatever your personal path.

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Copyright 2021 Lisa Bracken - newflightbooks.com