Hello Beautiful Souls,

How often have you notsaidanything when you’re upset? Holding it in, doing your best to keep the peace? And then those times when you do say something, the other person gets upset in response!

Ouch!
Now you’re uncomfortable and they’re uncomfortable, too. Argh!

This means that not only do we need to get better at expressing our own emotions, but we also have to get better at handling those of others. As if the first was not hard enough!

Fortunately, lately, I’ve realized that the more comfortable I am with my own feelings, the more comfortable I am becoming with those of others.
Luckily the first helps the second.

But, why not just avoid the whole thing?
Why not just stick with keeping the peace?
Why let them know we’re upset in the first place?

Well, because you matter. And your feelings are telling you something is wrong.
Let me take a shot at convincing you how important this is, based on what I’ve been noticing in my own life lately…

First, if we’re upset, it’s often because we feel that something is wrong… some need of ours isn’t being met, or worse a boundary is getting crossed.

Second, if we don’t say anything, then the other person won’t know what’s going on. Even if they can tell that we don’t feel good, they don’t know why…

I might notice that you’re upset, but I might think it’s because you’re soaking wet from getting caught in the rain.
…until you tell me it’s because you felt hurt when I laughed at you for not having an umbrella.

Oh.
Ok.
Now we can change things.
We can change the right things.
I thought you needed a towel. (I was about to walk away.)
You need acceptance and an apology. (I will pause and give you that instead.)

No one can read your mind, guys.
Let that sink in.

Lot’s of us can read emotions, but telepaths are few and far between.
It’s pretty safe to assume that the person in front of you does not know what’s going on in your head! They have – at best – an educated guess about what you’re thinking.
For better or worse, you are siloed in your head.

I got a memorable taste of this with a housemate and fellow volunteer on a horse farm in central Portugal a few years ago. He got really angry with me one night, “But if you can read my emotions, like you say you can,” he seethed, “then you should have know that I was upset! You should have known that I didn’t want to eat dinner with you tonight!”

Ouch.
I just stood there stunned, plate in hand, staring at him in disbelief.
I felt like the Jabberwoky must have, through and through his vorpal blade went snicker-snack…
Ulp.

’Well, ok,’ I thought. I could tell that he was upset, sure…
He had a lot of things in his life to be upset about: his heart was shattered from a recent breakup; he missed his teenaged daughter who was alone, hundreds of miles away in Berlin, needing him; he missed his friends…
He was upset a lot.
He walked around in a funk most of the time.

If I wanted to know what he was upset about, I would have had to ask him, “Hey, what’s bothering you today?”

As you can imagine, that had gotten pretty repetitive after the first few days, so mostly, I just let him wander around brooding, unhindered by questions.
Why compound the misery?

As I stood there staring, I thought, ‘How could I know that this evening, he was actually upset at me?’
And then it occurred, my goodness, it’s so easy to get so wrapped up in our misery that we forget that it’s just consuming our world – and not everyone else’s.

Finally, a heart beat later, I snarked, ”How was I supposed to know?! You’re always unhappy! About everything!,” and went off to have dinner with someone else.

This is all compounded by the fact that most of us are crap at sharing our discomfort. We don’t teach each other how to deal with emotions internally, and we certainly don’t teach each other how to express them well. Often, we either repress them, or when we can’t hold them in any longer we blast them out with no compassion for self or other, sometimes with an added streak of meanness, like me and my poor, sad housemate above.
Yikes!

Ultimately, all of this means we’re not taking good care of ourselves.
First, we don’t say anything to the other person, even when it would help the entire situation for the them to know…
They could apologize for laughing at wet, soggy you.
They could eat dinner with someone else.

Second, when we do say something, now we have to deal with their discomfort, too…
They might feel angry, shot down for expressing joy.
They might feel rejected that you didn’t want to dine with them.

What a mess.

Like, if you were my miserable housemate, and once he finally got the courage to say something to me, or in this case he finally got angry enough to say something…
I was snarky back.
Beware the Jabberwoc!

This all seems pretty dismal.

But then the other day, I realized that
as I get more comfortable with my uncomfortable emotions,
I’m actually getting more comfortable with yours, too.
This is wonderful!
As I am able to handle feeling my anger with more and more self-compassion, that compassion also encompasses you.

I’m noticing that my husband’s mild unhappinesses are easier to deal with. I don’t get as spun out when he’s upset with me.
This is a slow, gradual process for sure!
And for some small things that I used to need him to recognize and talk about, now I’m able to let go of by myself. There is more compassion here, and that extends to both of us.
I still feel them.
I still take them personally.
But I’ve expanded enough that I feel bigger than they are… they don’t consume me like they used to.
I contain them vs them containing me.
It’s beautiful.

How to start or deepen this journey?
For me, it’s been years of different of types of meditation…
Of heading off into the tulgey wood…
Of getting to know myself, of deciding to accept myself and slowing doing it, of releasing charges around deep wounds, of understanding that I am somehow connected to and one part of a greater whole… of granting myself compassion over the years as I understand how freaking HARD it is to be here in this time-space…
And recently doing a lot of somatic practices, like doing silent screams for active emotions, to vent anger, rage, jealousy, aggression, etc. Or moving my body with the quiet emotions like sadness, grief, abandonment, and rejection.

These things help me get more and more comfortable with what I’m feeling. Instead of repressing them, running away, I’m inviting them to the surface, to be felt.
I invite them.
I want to feel them.
It’s incredibly liberating.

And as I get more comfortable feeling mine, I’m finding that I’m more comfortable feeling yours.
O frabjous day!

I hope that you feel encouraged you to play with expressing your discomfort.
You matter. Your needs and boundaries matter.
And we can’t read your glorious, messy mind.
Help us help you.
Please.

And second, I hope that you focus on expanding your comfort with emotions.
Your self-compassion will expand as you do.
You’ll begin expressing yourself in a more compassionate way…

And gloriously, my friends, all of this makes it easier to receive
what the other person presents in return.
What joy…

May we all stand in our power, boundaried and compassionate.

May we respond to each other’s feelings with grace.

And may our collective capacities skyrocket.

Callooh! Callay!,
Eléna