Your Emotions Aren’t a Guide. They’re a Gauge.
In a world obsessed with our feelings, how can we use them for our benefit instead of holding them up as the only thing that matters?
“It’s ok, the first time I went to therapy, I wanted to hide behind the couch.” The woman had her back to me, her blond curls short and soft, filling up a cup of water. I took a seat in the middle of the sofa and talked myself out of the thought of tears.
You’re ok. You’re ok. You’re ok.
It was the last place I expected to find myself. The last place I wanted to be. My hands were in a tight knot in my lap, and I took a deep breath while Heidi set the glass down on the coffee table in front of me. I never thought I would be in an office, sitting on a couch, talking to a stranger about my life. And more-so, I never thought I would be so shaken by it.
“So,” she said. “Remind me, how did you end up in Iowa?”
I told her: my last year of college choosing not be a student athlete anymore, a break-up and a hefty course load, picking up a new job. The words came easily enough. I continued on with the story, about graduation, and the guy I was dating long-distance, and living at home with my parents for a summer before taking the leap and moving in with my sister in Des Moines.
“Wow.” She said as I gulped down some water. “That’s a lot of change at once.”
Not much of that story really lent to why I ended up there — in that particular counseling office — and in need of help. I myself wasn’t even sure why. The life I knew and understood evolved and I faced much of this change more alone than I should have been. Something heavy was there too that I hadn’t learned how to deal with yet.
First, it was a little fear about my identity after school, where I was headed, and wondering if I was enough. Next, it was obsession over what I could control in my life. Then, as the fear grew and the ground continued to move, my level head turned my thoughts against me.
There was no way to see it coming until it knocked the air right out of me.
“Do you think there was some anxiety there?” Heidi asked.
Yes. I would eventually tell her through the next few sessions. You have no idea.
On the tracks
In a workshop once, I was handed a sheet of paper with a cheesy clip art train chugging down a hypothetical track.
“This is you.” The speaker pointed out.
Each of the rail cars linked together, each symbolizing an area of my life. In the empty space on the front of each link, we were supposed to fill in pieces of ourselves: “family”, “faith”, “duty”, “work”, “goals”, etc. What I realized, after labeling a few cars, was that the order to this train — the order to myself — was paramount.
It’s not cheesy. In fact, it’s spot on. Because at the front of the train is an engine, the giant locomotive that burns fuel and not only determines the speed of everything I do, but also the the direction of where I go.
If work was first, that would determine my motivation for everything. If family was the caboose and brought up the rear, then that would say a lot of where my priorities were. We tossed around words left and right, filling in boxes, until the word “emotions” popped into the equation.
My relationship with “emotions” is complicated. After spending time with a counselor and learning more about my mental and emotional habits, it’s plain for me to see. Many of us face this same reality, right?
It’s attractive to stuff feelings down, keep internal dialogue in, or be so busy we don’t take long to consider what’s happening to us. We don’t want to feel too much, and we definitely don’t want others to know that we feel too much. Our emotions end up pulling up the rear of our lives.
Conversely, some emotions cannot be stuffed down. Some emotions demand to be felt, cannot be avoided, or simply have been boiling up for so long that we cannot avoid them anymore. They are just there, no matter how differently we want to feel, and maybe they become the engine. They burn the fuel, pull us along, lurching onto a different course.
Knowing your engine
I have known both tracks. So busy, I don’t take the time to really process what is going on inside of me. So flustered, I don’t know how to control what is going on inside of me. Neither really seem to be the best option.
An engine led by emotions is full-speed, sparking tracks, sharp turns, and running out of steam. Loneliness and homesickness can keep me in a funk all day long, or fear of the future makes my stomach feel crunched up and strained, or love has me trying to dance on the treadmill. It’s whiplash — high one second, low the next — when our lives are pulled by what we feel in the moment.
Especially these days, I’m really tired of getting yanked around.
But what led me to Heidi, to seeking a professional to talk to, was months and months of ignoring what was really going on behind the scenes. We don’t always recognize it, but being busy, or being surrounded, or even reaching for things and people to fill holes, all are coping mechanisms. I studied and went running and went to work and did everything I was supposed to, just to pretend that I was handling all the shifting sand beneath me.
Emotions are volatile. They are attention whores. They make horrible guides, flaky sources of energy, and also heavy weights to bear if never dealt with.
I get anxious. The anxiety, the overwhelming parts, are going to be there no matter what. But what if instead of dragging us along, or holding us back, emotions had the right place in our lives on the tracks? Could they actually do good in a space where they belonged?
Hoping on (or off) the crazy train
Right after you cry — really cry hard — and your eyes are like gravel, so much weight seems to have come rolling off of your shoulders…
The sun is out, and energy soars, and you connect with every person you meet on the street just because you are sharing the same bright pavement, the same breathable air…
Sweat slicks the back of your neck, and you step to the podium, your hands shaking, to see a crowd of faces looking up at you in anticipation…
We wouldn’t be human without these moments.
Never will I take for granted the ability to feel. I love that I can be sad for an entire day over things that are worth my sadness, or smile ear to ear after my boyfriend sends me a text message at work, or get freaked out at the weight of a heavy decision, because it really matters.
As a gauge, emotions help us understand ourselves, how much fuel is in the tank, or when we need to take a step back and process things for a while.
But the steam of life — the steam of my life — simply cannot be my emotions.
There is what we feel. Then, there is what we know. What we feel changes, but what we know holds fast. Despite circumstances, despite decisions or mistakes, despite peril or joy, these things can be the strong and steady engine pulling our goals, our dreams, what we feel, what we choose, and the things we love to do.
I need to be reminded constantly of these things. Every single day.
I FEEL useless. I FEEL broken. I FEEL scared. I FEEL unloved. I FEEL alone.
But hold up. Instead…
You KNOW you have worth.
You KNOW that you have potential, even in mistakes or messy places.
You KNOW that fear does not last forever, that confidence builds with time, and that you can be brave in this moment.
You KNOW you are loved. Why would you doubt this?
When it feels like you are running off the tracks, no way to steer in another direction or slow down, let this ground you. Take a minute today to change the way you are thinking, to sit on a couch in an office you never imagined you would be, or to pull a friend aside.
It’s time to switch tracks.
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