Existing in Multiple States Simultaneously — Emotional Ambidexterity
Embracing the emotional complexity of human experience.
When I listen to people it often occurs to me that many are very binary in their thinking. It seems to be that such people believe that we are either happy or sad, ecstatic or depressed, good or bad. My experience tells me this is not the case. Experience has shown me that we can find joy even when experiencing the depths of depression. We can feel worthless yet still take pride in our appearance and grooming. We can want not to exist and yet still fight to survive.
Existence is complex is it not? Do we ever feel things simply? Especially as we grow older, wiser and more experienced. Time and age create a nuanced, layered experience that does not conform to any binary model of existence. We can live in the reality of several of these layers all at once. It is almost like different versions of ourselves are existing simultaneously, with one or more most dominant at any one moment in time. This sounds a little scary (like having some kind of multiple personality disorder), and perhaps some minds do completely compartmentalise these layers into distinct and separate personalities that manifest as such a severe mental illness. For the rest of us, I wonder if these layers are like currents in the sea that shift and change and sometimes mysteriously move us in certain directions when we are not aware of their existence and power?
Embracing Complexity
Being complex is not a crime. Any of us who have lived at all has a large degree of complexity that can both benefit us and create challenges. By complex, I do not mean complicated. Complicated people are uncomfortable in the extreme; they are mercurial, tricky and unpredictable. They are smoke and mirrors, shifting sands, unchartable territory, mazes with too many blind alleys. Complex people are deep, interesting and curious, ever learning. Their complexity forms the many columns that make a steady foundation that holds even during earthquakes and even if a column or two crumbles. They are rich and diverse landscapes, they are the labyrinth to complicated’s maze.
Realistically, we are all on a spectrum between these two extremes and may be at different places on that spectrum at different times in our lives. With complexity comes layers of emotion and experience; every joy, trauma, love and suffering adds to this layering that adds depth and character. We are what we experience but we become how we view that experience. We are a constant dance between head and heart. Ideally, they are equal partners and in balance with each other. But they can be at odds or in disagreement over how to think or feel about particular experiences. Inner conflict makes for rough seas and turbulant, murky currents.
We say that something or other has ‘triggered’ us when one of these currents suddenly comes to the fore and we react, seemingly, out of nowhere and in a way that might seem quite out of character. Perhaps the better acquainted we are with ourselves, with all of our currents and ‘gulf streams’, the less ‘out of nowhere’ do these events arise. Is an awareness of our layers of experience and motivations the beginnings of true mindfulness, perhaps even of true enlightenment? A state in which we are aware of and can control how we react to triggers. Does an understanding and familiarity with our layers of experience, a knowledge of the motivations behind, and origins of, these layers, lead to a more mature existence where we act and respond rather than simply react? Would an understanding of our multi-nature allow us to step back and deal with ourselves and our lives, and others, with more compassion, equanimity and understanding?
Surely it would be healthier to embrace the complexity of our multi-layered nature rather than narrow life’s beautiful experience into only two choices at a time, an either/or of experience? Cutting ourselves off from the full breadth of our experience sells life short. For sure, there are emotions that make us feel uncomfortable, those from which we seek to escape. There may be times when short term escape is a practical coping mechanism to manage particularly difficult times or traumas. Perhaps too, there are some traumas that are so overwhelming we can only ‘drip-feed’ our handling of them and otherwise must suppress them until we are strong enough to fully deal with them. We all have times like this no? But still, perhaps it is also necessary to at least be aware of these discomforting currents, to know they are there and where they lurk. Perhaps it is also necessary to know why they are there so that, should they become too unruly, too rough, we can see them for what they are and calm them so that they at least do no harm.
Embracing this complexity does not mean that we simply cease to work on those things that cause us, and those around us, pain. Some of the currents of our ocean of emotion and thought, can be truly troublesome. Some of those currents run amok and intrude on happier more contented currents. Some take over large parts of the ocean tainting our experience with rough seas and silt laden waters through which no light can penetrate to encourage healthy life.
Psychological House Cleaning
Life events, large and small, change us forever. There is no returning to the person we were, and yet, somewhere in us that person still exists on some level. This is especially so if a suffering part of us is not integrated with the whole. We can access how we felt as that version of ourselves although deep trauma can occlude that remembering. Having trained as an hypnotherapist, I have seen how some deep traumas can be buried and embed themselves in our psyche where they cause trouble for the whole.
In hypnotherapy, returning to the closed off parts of who we once were is part of the therapeutic territory. The therapist takes the client back to the origin of a cycle of events, emotion or trauma. In having the courage to look at and reexperience this trauma or event, healing occurs. Why does healing occur when we open up that traumatic Pandora's box, take out its contents and work through the pain? I do not know exactly. Perhaps it is a form of cleansing, like a cleaning out of an old attic or cellar. Like going through old boxes in which we have stored our memories, precious things and those painful things that we wished to hide form our consciousness. Why can these boxes not just stay closed and cordoned off, safely unopened?
I think that these boxes are never fully closed. They are never really safely locked away. Quite the contrary. I believe that trauma has tendrils that escape the confines of the boxes we construct and infect other parts of our lives, consciousness and existence. Therapy allows us a safe place in which to open the boxes, unpack their contents and extract the tendrils from all the places they never belonged and should never have had access to infect.
Be honest, how many times have you lashed out at someone or something, somewhere in you knowing that the anger, impatience and fear was uncalled for with that person in that moment and yet still you took it out on them? These are the tendrils of buried trauma, rage and hurt that infect other parts of our lives and they can wreak havoc. They can break things that cannot be fixed.
In truth, although it is hard and takes courage to go into the attics and cellars of our minds and souls, to go through those locked boxes, it should be part of a process of psychological housework. We improve our houses, our gardens, we buy toys to entertain ourselves but we, most of us, do not spend time in the dusty recesses of our own minds and hearts, clearing out the rubbish that no longer serves us.
Like regular housework, little and often is frequently the most expedient way to keep a clean and tidy house. When we have help, perhaps the occasional ‘spring clean’ is beneficial. We all have times when our house is a mess. This is natural, normal and just fine; we needn’t beat ourselves up when this happens. But we all know, sooner or later, we are going to have to deal with it, or get a professional in to help, not dissimilar to getting a therapist to help when it all piles up inside us or is more than we feel able to handle alone.
Like our annual physical check-ups, an annual mental/emotional check-up should be a normal healthy part of life; a way to make sure everything is in good working order inside and out. But, where we are quite comfortable with doing this for our physical body, we become discomforted when thinking of this for our mental/emotional ‘body’. Perhaps it is time to change this attitude?
Locked Boxes and Russian Dolls
We have a tendency to lock away that which is discomforting and to deny the intricate nuances of light and shade that make up life. Many times, the boxes are more like Russian dolls where, to open one is to find another layer of that box inside until finally finding the origin, the root, of the issue. Until we find that root or origin, the trauma cannot be fully dealt with and can continue to make mischief in our minds and lives.
Sometimes we only feel strong enough to open one layer of the Russian doll-like box, but progress is progress and the more we dare to look, make the effort to clean and clear, the healthier we will be. Who doesn’t love a clean, tidy and airy house full of light and love and opportunity; a house we would not be ashamed for anyone to see? How calm would the depths of our ocean of emotions be if we dealt with the rough currents? How much more profound would our lives be if we embraced all the beautiful complexity of our own emotions and experience rather than imprisoning ourselves in a binary either/or of emotional experience?
The binary view of emotional experience probably feels safe to many people especially if they identify themselves on the positive side of that coin. However, to have only two options of positive or negative is unrealistic and could be as dangerously extreme as the binary view of self and ‘other’ which allows for so much mistreatment in the world. This binary view strikes me as childish and overly simplistic. Surely as mature adults we can embrace the all that we are, knowing that we will find things we like and love, and other things we don’t like so much. There may even be things we are ashamed of. But when we have the courage to look compassionately at the things we are less proud of, we grow as people and, by comprehending how and why something came to be, we can often find new understanding and a path to being kinder to ourselves and others. Understanding that we all have parts of ourselves of which we are less proud and being prepared to deal with those parts, to put the work in, makes us stronger and more whole people.
We may not be able to single handedly stop war or climate change, but we can become aware of our emotional ambidexterity. We can embrace the multiple currents of emotion and trauma running through us and have the courage to deal with those emotional currents, those locked boxes and Russian dolls, so that they don’t spill out and hurt others. We may feel like we are broken, but we are more complex than that, we are all a mixture of broken, breaking, healing and healed, and we can allow all those parts to help us connect more successfully with others from a point of compassion, understanding and care.
If we all cleared out our emotional old rubbish and useless artifacts that escape their boxes to wreak havoc in our, and others, lives, perhaps the world would be a kinder, gentler, more compassionate place to be. If were all a bit more sorted and a bit less reactionary, fewer people would get hurt and we would all have less rubbish to unpack and deal with. In short, the world would be a better place.
