say hello to the elephant

Emotions….. There a funny thing….

I don’t believe we can control our emotions. I do however, believe we can control our thoughts, our self-talk, our behaviour…. But our emotions…. Nope… They seem to be driving their own train.

They can flip from one track to another; they can be on an express line to “god-knows -where”; or they can be doing a “stop –all-stations” kinda trip!  As you know, they certainly can be quite exhausting to ride on, but the doors are locked, and there is no getting off – you just have to hold on tight.

This afternoon, I was riding an express train to “BOOM”Town!  (Not a great town, but one we all need to visit occasionally, because, we need to experience all the emotions on the scale remember – see previous blog).

I knew I had an elephant… or two…. in my room. I knew those elephant had been there for a while now. And I knew that their names were “Hello Frustrated that I don’t get a chance to build and work on MY business”, & “Hello Feeling Used, Unappreciated, & Stuck-in-rut.”

I sat with these elephants, I worked through my part in them being here, & I made friends with them. But the little buggers didn’t leave!! Because…. I had not made the relevant changes in my life, to let those issues go. I had invited these elephants in, and in order for them to move on, I had to talk about my needs, feelings, thoughts and coping strategies with Matt.  Only I could change this situation, I’d set it up for it to get to this point, so, I need to set it up different, in order to move away from this point.  This is my responsibility, no one else’s.

However…… why is it SO hard to express your feelings to someone else? Even someone you trust so deeply?  We are, after all, pack animals… we are actually meant to be living in tight communities with each and working together….. It’s in our genetic coding, YET, it is so hard to do sometimes!!  Aaaghhhh!

I knew what I wanted to say. I knew what my feelings were. I knew that it was my responsibility to change it, yet… I choked at every opportunity.  Why? Because my god-damn emotions got in the way!  I got scared. I self doubted. And then I bottle it up.  We all do this. And this is definitely not the first time it has happened to me, and I doubt it will be the last.

So what happened when I bottled up these elephant issues….. They became SOOOO much more intense than they really needed to be.  The pressure was building… and the smallest thing would push me closer to “BOOM”Town! Even the slightest question from one of the kids, or not being able to open the lid on the coffee jar!!  As I tried to keep myself calm, on the outside, it felt like I was IMPLODING on the inside!  Like one of those underwater explosives.  Me, disintegrating, falling apart, and no one feeling or seeing the shockwave, or even noticing my breakdown.

So this afternoon, I decided that being this cranky and ready to arrive at BOOMTown any minute, is not good for anyone. Especially anyone within a 500m radius of me! So, I will address this issue, even in my cranky mood, stop worrying about it being the right time, stop calming myself down with “fluffy” talk, and let the current, built-up pressure, BOOM out of me before it gets toooo volatile.   ……Of course, once finished,  I would make sure I apologised for scaring anyone in the processes.

So, I decided, that when Matt got home tonight, I would “talk”. But before he got home…  guess what happened!!!  My emotions changed! I didn’t change them – A silly TV show did!  A sad, romantic, love story, which flipped my emotions onto another track! Yep, my emotional train, did its own thing, again!

Watching that show made me remember how precious my life is, and how quickly it can turn.  It was like my inner BOOM pressure came out in the form of soft tears falling down my face.

I felt calmer. I felt slower. I felt no inner pressure and turmoil.  I felt grateful for all I have.

I still have elephants sitting with me, but they are, after all, on the train with me.  The elephants are about my feelings, not my emotions.

I still plan on addressing my elephant issues, because if I don’t, the pressure will build again. And this pressure is toxic. It makes me ugly. It makes me prickly. It makes me want to eat! It makes me ignore who I really am. It makes me miss precious days and wonderful moments in my precious life.

There are two things that I am hoping you might get from me sharing this in my blog;

1)      is that our emotions are almost impossible to control. However, our elephants are our feelings, & we can control them – we can make friends with them, and send them on their way.

But, our emotions…. They are going to come and go on their own accord.  They can change in an instance, and we should recognise them when they do. We should be ok with the fact that we can ‘flip’ tracks in a second. We should allow ourselves to “have” these emotions. I know I’m glad I let myself cry during that TV show, but I do wish I’d have expressed my cranky emotion earlier, before it got too intense. We should express, have, watch, and observe, our emotions, but …

2)      we should always discuss our feelings, our elephants, our issues. We should take responsibility for them being there, after all, we let them in, so we are the only ones that can wave them goodbye. As soon as we see our elephants, we should talk about them, regardless of the emotions we are feeling. Yes, this is easier said than done, but we have nothing to lose right….. Except our elephants.

Happy emotional expressing.

Enjoy your train rides.

And say Hi to your elephants for me.

Cherlisa x