Emotional evolution

Along my emotional journey, I've noticed I'm partial to the good times and try desperately to change or "fix" the bad times. I'm sure this tendency is probably familiar to many. One of the biggest things I work on personally is strengthening my ability to cope through rough patches, so that I do not have this instinct to make everything instantly OK. Instead of turning to something else, or trying to ignore it, or even worse, denying what I'm experiencing, I've been increasingly able to sit with whatever it is, and have been opening up to a whole new experience of living. Suffering, to me, happens when I have a preference against my actual experience. If I'm feeling lonely or offended or guilt-ridden, I tend to want to feel otherwise, happier a lot of people would say. There is this obsession with achieving happiness and maintaining it, as if it is the only emotion to experience. What I want is to be able to hold out through the loneliness, through the offense, through the guilt, through the anxiety AND through the happiness.

I've currently been processing an evolution of emotions from a particular event that has been an opportunity to practice some different exercises and activities as a means of staying present instead of resorting to escaping or fixing. Initially I turn to my mindfulness practice with a walking or sitting meditation. A great resource in exploring this practice has been Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I'm also utilizing some techniques as presented in the books Buddha's Brain and Just One Thing by neuropsychologist Rick Hanson. I've also been working through The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Bipolar Disorder and have a couple other Dialectical Behavior exercises I learned from my previous therapist.

This last book almost demands an aside, but it is important enough to the story to tell it unparanthetically. While the book indicates it is for Bipolar Disorder, I very much recommend it for anyone for the Dialectical Behavior Therapy alone, though there is a workbook available for the general public. I've picked it up recently on a heavy suggestion from my current therapist because I have been diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder. The bipolar spectrum is largely misunderstood. When I hear the term, I usually think of a few friends with bp that didn't have their shit together, and life was typically chaotic for them and those around them, though I have many more friends with bp who do a healthy job of managing it. Other people tend to think of severe mood swings or erratic behavior and distorted beliefs. But really, the intensity of the symptoms and frequency of episodes fall on a spectrum. For me, I qualify as type 2 simply because I typically lie in the depressive phase and I've had at least one hypomanic episode--meaning I had symptoms that were similar to yet milder than mania that did not cause a significant decrease in my basic ability to work and play, and lacked the psychotic features of mania. I'll spare you the details and let you do your own research if you're curious, but I highly encourage anyone who has heard some of the stereotypes to find out more. One very powerful, both autobiographical and professional view on it is An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison.

Knowing this about myself is my greatest resource when processing this onslaught of varying emotions. Being aware and having a better understanding of the psychology behind my behavior and emotions gives me greater authority over it. I am not my emotions, I am much more than that. I am also the executive functioning that decides whether to act or not over an emotion. I am also the choice I make to sit with or try and escape the emotion. What I've discovered working through the grief, hurt, anger, confusion, and anxiety is the pockets of peace, letting go, compassion, love and acceptance. By sitting with all of it, I've experienced more fully and also am reminded that we are in a constant state of flux. That each emotion continues to change and morph as you feel it, that if you give it enough time and attention it will turn into something else. Pain will keep on nagging you if you try to ignore it, but if you sit with it, you give it the attention you might give a screaming baby. You soothe it, you nurture it, and you validate its existence. Then you work with it as it is, whether or not it stops screaming immediately. This goes for the positive emotions too, so I find myself trying more and more to savor those moments.

I find myself more curious and inquisitive about my state of being at any given moment. It's been fascinating to observe the evolution of emotions over time; to watch them emerge, grow, retreat and turn to something new. This observation has facilitated a new perspective: that I can sit with and experience an emotion at the same time I can be aware of it and its affect on me. By not trying to escape the discomfort, I find myself experiencing life more fully, more multifacetedly.