Emotional Authenticity: Rejecting the Concept of ‘Wrong’ Emotions
Can an emotion be wrong?
“No turkey for me, I’m plant-based.”
The anaesthetist turned and looked at me properly. “I’ve been flirting with this idea. What are you going to have?”
This was the week before Christmas, and I was about to undergo a mastectomy and Diep Flat reconstruction to rid my body of cancer for the second time.
We’d been talking about Christmas lunch as I stood by the operating table wearing the duvet-like wrap, aptly called a ‘Bair Hugger’ designed to keep my blood vessels warm.
“Well, we’d better get going.” He finally said after a chat about vegan food, “And I’ll give you something to relax you, although looking at your monitor, you hardly need it.”
I had also almost forgotten why I was there. But one of the nurses tutted, “It’s not normal to be so relaxed.” she hissed. “Most patients are scared.”
I was like many other times in my life, expressing the wrong emotion.
The Wrong Emotion
Have you ever been told what you should feel?
I told a friend that I wouldn’t be surprised if my daughter and her partner got married when they were on holiday for a month.
