Most destructive behavior is the result of emotional baggage that’s been stuffed; you may not even be aware that you’ve suppressed a chunk of your feelings that don’t settle into the feel-good pile.
People react in all sorts of ways when confronted with difficult emotions. Some overeat; others drink too much, and still, others may pop pills or have complicated sex lives. Maybe you’re someone who hops from relationship to relationship when the real issue is not that you’re a relationship junkie, but that you’ll do just about anything to keep yourself from feeling your feelings. You seek out diversions with the same tenacity that moss clings to the north side of a rock. Let’s be honest—there’s no better high than a new romance, but the high only lasts for a short time and then it’s on to someone or something else. People behave in all sorts of ways to avoid feeling anything other than good—regardless if it’s artificially induced or not.
Here are my top 3 picks of emotions that people have a hard time managing with grace:
1.) Betrayal
2.) Anger/Resentment
3.) Fear
With most of them, it all comes down to accepting that we can’t control other people places and things. It also helps to remember that hurt people, hurt others.
Betrayal:
One of the most difficult and least discussed emotion is betrayal. Betrayal is a punch in the gut because it can’t happen until we decide to trust someone. It’s heart-wrenching when someone you thought you could believe in seeks to honor their own selfish desires ahead of the relationship. It can be a family member, a lover, a friend, but the feeling of disbelief and angst is all the same. Betrayal is about dishonesty. In almost all cases, the person who betrays you is a liar, and often a thief. They may leave you feeling shocked, worthless, or grieving the loss of who you thought they were while struggling to accept the reality of who they are (reality can be ugly). It’s quite difficult to reconcile the fact that the person we thought we knew and loved is not at all the person we knew and loved, but instead, they’re someone who is capable of ruthless selfishness and that they are self-serving to the nth degree.
Anger/Resentment:
People practice any number of vices when they are angry or caught up in resentment. For those in recovery, we know that we cannot live with these poison emotions—but many people who don’t have addiction issues still struggle to find their way out of anger and resentment—and to move past these troubling emotions without sinking into depression, anxiety, food, or sex comas—as many so often do.
Being an adult is learning how to deal with these taxing emotions in a healthy way. To stay angry at the boss who passed you over for that promotion will only hurt you in the long-run. We have choices: we can stay stuck in the problem or find a way to move on. If that means finding another job, so be it, but we have to be willing to take whatever action we need to take in order to ax toxic people from our lives.
Another example may fall in the arena of parenting: A parent may feel angry or resentful toward a wayward or difficult child who usurps more than their fair share of time and energy. Then, to have to deal with the guilt you feel for feeling angry and resentful toward your child that you’re supposed to love unconditionally. Hey, we’re human. It’s okay to have these sorts of feelings; it’s what we do with these feelings that matter, and what matters is to feel the feeling and then start to look for solutions. It’s okay to take it easy on ourselves and ease up on the expectations that we “shouldn’t” feel a certain way. People have a way of deciding in advance how they think they should feel or react, and when the reaction is different than expected, they judge themselves. We need to let go of the “should” and act out of a place of love not only for ourselves but for the other person.
Strong emotions can be scary to confront so it’s easier to ignore them, stuff them, or, eat, screw, & drink at them. I’ll show you—I’ll hurt me.
Fear
People are riddled with fear: fear of not getting what they want, fear of the future, fear of losing something they have—how can anyone live in that state of dis-ease, and not reach for a vice to quell the committee screaming in their heads? Fear can be crippling for many, so they turn to self-medicating to ease the discomfort.
Emotions drive behavior. When I look around it seems that people operate from two different emotional phases: the reward phase of the numb phase. It’s hard to find people who can actually feel and deal without the need for adjuncts. Emotional maturity doesn’t just happen—coping skills have to be taught, and if we don’t already possess them—we can be willing to learn. After all, life is too short to live our days in angst, but in order to get a different outcome and to have better relationships in our lives—we have to change. We can learn to set healthy boundaries; we can search for constructive ways to relieve the inner pain, and we can heal.
There is no one so deserving of your time that they get to live rent-free in your head!
Lisa is the author of the multi-award winning book, Raising the Bottom: Mindful Choices in a Drinking Culture. After short stints where she trained polo horses, worked as a flight attendant, hairdresser, and bartender, she revamped her life and settled in as a registered nurse. For the past twenty-nine years has worked with hundreds of women to overcome alcoholism, live better lives and become better parents. She was prompted to write Raising the Bottom when she realized after twenty plus years of working in hospitals, that doctors and traditional healthcare offer few solutions to women with addiction issues. You can start reading for free on Amazon. Follow her on Twitter @LBoucherAuthor and Instagram.