Checking in (Part 2)

 Here's the problem with the checking in exercise: 

I don't even have to do anything about what I learn when I check in. I don't have to change or fix anything. There's a good chance there's not even anything to fix. I can just be feeling what I'm feeling.

I wrote that last week like it's a good thing(?), and today it doesn't feel good at all. Because I woke up, took a couple of deep breaths, and started crying. Today, I'm feeling many of the feelings in a much feel-ier way than is comfortable for me. 

In the famous words of Chris Evans's nephew, "I don't wike it..." [Scroll down for video.]

I learned at a very young age not to let the sun go down on my anger. Moreover, I learned that even feeling angry--or sad, or fearful, or disgusted, or generally bad--wasn't good. Which is really weird because I learned this as part of a Christian tradition, and Jesus himself exhibits all the above-mentioned "negative" emotions in the Gospels. I guess the religion of my childhood took from the sacred texts of Star Wars as much the sacred texts of our faith.

I was also taught that the secret to true J.O.Y. was putting Jesus first, then Others, and then Yourself. Yourself always came last. (Seriously, I made a J.O.Y. wall hanging at camp one summer that stayed on the wall of my room until I graduated high school.) And as a good girl / oldest daughter / evangelical / people-pleaser / Honors student / well-raised Southerner / Enneagram 3, I knew I always had to be joyful--or at least keep up the appearance of being joyful--so that no one could ever accuse me of not putting Jesus first.*

Ummm... Did you know there were
this many feelings? Because I didn't.

This means I allowed myself only two of the seven colors on the feelings wheel--happy (orange) and surprised (green). Actually, it's more like 1 ½ if you don't think you should acknowledge the confused, disillusioned, and dismayed side of green, which I didn't. If anything from the wrong 5 ½ colors started to creep into my mind, heart, or gut, I denied it. Just stuffed those suckers way on down, and instead busied myself with deeds, actions, and achievements that could prove how good I was, how strong, and how on the right side of right. 

I leaned hard on the busy-ness--my crutch to help distract from (at best) and suppress (at worst) the feelings I didn't want because I didn't think I should have them. And that busy-ness, that productivity, eventually came to define me and my sense of worth.

This may have something to do with why I bawled my eyes out watching Inside Out 2. (Five stars highly recommend)

So, yeah, even after a lot of unlearning (and a lot of meditating on what it means to "Be still"), I'm still more comfortable doing rather than feeling. I like keeping my brain occupied with others' voices so that there's less obligation (or even opportunity) to listen to my own. Which is why the checking in exercise is sometimes problematic and always necessary. The urgency of the assignment lies in the fact that, after five decades of this kind of behavior, my crutches just aren't doing it for me anymore. I think I've leaned on them so heavily that they are starting to break.

I will admit to being lucky in that my crutches are socially acceptable and don't get me labeled as having a problem, even though I use them in the same way that any "functioning" addict uses their crutches of choice:

• work
• travel and travel planning**
• my daily regimen of online NYT games (Wordle, Connections, Strands, Spelling Bee, Crossword--in that order every day except for Sundays when I do the Crossword first, on paper, and in ink) 
• audiobooks and podcasts
• self-help books about how to be better at feeling my feelings
• Instagram, including feeds about how to be better at feeling my feelings
• Netflix, Hulu, PrimeVideo, Max, AppleTV+, Disney+, and "Friends" re-runs on Nick@Night

And sometimes, for good measure, 1-2 glasses of wine "to unwind" [nay! to numb!] at the end of the day.

The goal in acknowledging these choices is to move toward [oops! almost wrote "to achieve"!] emotional sobriety--to learn to live with, regulate, and free myself from the least comfy feelings, not just today but over the long haul, without misusing these or more damaging crutches.

So here I am, audiobook paused, checking in instead of scrolling Instagram, still sniffling and super squeamish about how I feel. Per the wheel, I'm a little in the blues, a little in the pinks, a little in the purples, and definitely on the wrong side of the greens. [Cue Kermit.]

I will admit, however, that a couple of other things are happening. First, as I name the feelings, I find a couple of oranges mixed in with the other colors. Alongside my feelings of isolation from living in a city where I don't know a lot of people lives thankfulness and love for the five friends who will shortly be traveling here to spend a weekend with me. Alongside worry about the Thespian finding his way in college lives a sense of awe that he's attending his dream school. 

Second, I am giving myself tacit permission to have these feelings, which is the key to taking from them what I need and letting the rest go. [Cue Elsa.]

Maybe Yoda was right all along, as long as we read him through more of a Buddhist and less of a Southern Baptist lens. It's not the having but the holding onto that puts us on the path to the dark side. We cannot banish emotions without first being conscious of them, and that requires a calm mind.

To that I'll add my own: Being busy will only block things out for so long. And sometimes there has to be crying in baseball.***

“Remember, Sadness, wherever I go, you go too.” -Joy

*At this point, I would like to apologize to everyone in my world to whom I proselytized positivity. You never asked for Pollyanna as a friend or family member, and I'm sorry I showed up as her. If you want to give me a chance to show up better and are going through something hard, I promise to shut up and sit with you in it while you share. No matter what you are feeling.

**Note that when travel includes visits to or time with friends--especially the truth-telling types of friends mentioned in Checking in (Part 1)--then there may be a chance of some de-stuffing of the feelings. For example, last year I spent a weekend in the mountains of Colorado with Margaret (she of the "sweet pea" in my previous post) and Heather. It was two weeks before my birthday, and they surprised me by baking cupcakes. When they pulled them out of the oven and started to sing, I promptly burst into unstoppable tears. Not because I was sad about the birthday but because I was overwhelmed with gratitude for these women who have supported me along the roughest parts of my road. Apparently that kind of crying is a good thing(?). Yet another reason why I love my realest friends.

***If you don't know this about me yet, I love movie references and have no qualms about mixing and matching them.