Hi Friend,
Let me first start out by saying this week we had a major database fiasco that caused us to wipe this email program clean and start over. Which means I must apologize if you are getting this and you previously “unsubscribed”. When we reloaded the names available it was from a list a couple of months ago. Believe it or not, people DON’T want to receive this weekly letter!! (Kindly unsubscribe again or send me a nasty email and I’ll make sure to have your name/email removed). I’m sorry.
Whew… ok, now back to you, who wake up early Sunday morning just so you can start off your day with a smile. This week brought a correction from last week. I told you I was done traveling for work. Fortunately, that got changed and I am headed to NYC in the middle of December. Shocking fun news. I LOVE NYC, especially around Christmas.
Last Sunday night I got to see Arcade Fire in concert for the first time. It was a fun show at the Armory in downtown Minneapolis. I’ve been here all week. It snowed every single day! It’s been in the teens, twenties and lower 30’s. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen snow accumulate, stack up and simply stay put. It reminded me of growing up in Ohio.
Do you have moments where whether your eyes are opened or closed, you are transported back in time to your childhood? When that happens I find myself in 5th, 6th or 7th grade living on Walnut street in Ashland. I wonder if that’s because it concluded my age of innocence? That feeling and belief that we’re no longer “kids”. What age range do you most associate with in your flashbacks?
Time Traveling Minds
Being at the concert does the same thing. I flashback to other shows I’ve been to, whether Rick Springfield in 1984 or the Revivalist just last year. Hopping time through memories is quite a treat if the recollections are good; Quite painful if the memories are hard. The accompanying emotions that are seared with those experiences are just as real now as they were then. How fascinating.
What if somehow we could predetermine an emotion within an encounter in real time? Or heck, just determine it on the spot. How significant could that be? We’re having a conversation with a loved one and our feelings get hurt. Instead of automatically attaching the emotion of “sad”, “irritated” or “mad” to that exchange, we said “That hurt my feelings but I’m going to attach Joy to this moment because I’m hopeful we’ll get it resolved and I’ll be happy when we do.”
Can we have emotions contrary to our feelings?
You and I are accustomed to hearing or talking about “You can choose your response.” One of my good friends Stephen Covey was famous for saying “In between stimulus and response there is a space.” Instead of choosing our response in that space, what if we chose our emotion? That would not only impact our immediate reply, but give us a memory that serves us in the future.
One of the practices I’ve incorporated into a personal relationship is sharing everything in my mind. I don’t leave any relevant lingering thought unsaid. It eliminates the possibility of me creating a story about a situation that isn’t true. And much to my benefit, that practice removes room for negative emotions to attach themselves to the situation. Honestly, it’s been transformational. In my previous marriage I had fashioned so many stories that carried so much discouragement that confirmation bias was inevitable.
Those stories seem to be a magnet for negative emotions. Each one acting as a petri dish that grows hurt and disappointment over time. I’ve come to use “Covey’s space” to simply articulate my fears. All negative emotions are a ripple out from fear. Beginning sentences with “I’m afraid…” or “What scares me…” or even “I fear…” has enabled me to access the root cause of the unwanted emotion.
Instigating Ideas…
1. Share with someone a fun childhood memory.
2. Commit to go to a concert of any kind in the next 3 months. (Live music regenerates the soul)
3. Consider how you could assign a positive emotion to a negative feeling.
4. Reveal a story in your mind that you haven’t shared before.
Like all internal undesirables, expressing it out loud eliminates much of the power it holds over us. None of us want to be controlled by our emotions, but rarely do we consider we can control which emotions we even let remain. Our efforts usually attempt to mitigate the damage an emotion does, not alter it altogether.
The “share-every-thought-in-my-mind” approach to life has been freeing. However, the person receiving those thoughts needs emotional durability as well, because what I say can be extremely painful to hear.
That’s the momentary price to pay, so we don’t carry compounding hurtful memories into the future.
What I haven’t considered is how you and I can return to a previous encounter and extract a negative emotion, replacing it with a useful one. I suspect grace and forgiveness are the only tools capable of amending an integrated emotion/memory combo.
I would love to hear how you navigate thoughts, feelings, emotions, transparency, memories and the like. Have you found a way to insert your will or wishes over the flood of emotions that happen quickly and unexpectedly? Please Share!