Excellent essay, Barry. I find that the most difficult aspect in assisting clients to make progress in therapy is the task of being responsible for one’s own emotions. The belief that outside events control our feelings is endemic but accepting responsibility is freeing. Thank you.
Unfortunately when this feeling comes up while I’m in the office, I have to suppress it to maintain professionalism and really just to continue functioning in that environment. The frustrating thing is, later in the evening when I’m home and in a position to pay attention to it and try to feel and process it, it often won’t show itself, and I’m left with a feeling that I can only describe as the emotional equivalent of an aborted sneeze.
Someday I hope to have myself figured out. There are
days when I feel like that’s within my grasp, and others when it feels like I’m trying to solve the old text-based Zork computer game without the map or the InvisiClues booklet.
“You can’t have a feeling without having a thought first.”
I understand that this is normally true, but over the last year and a half or so I’ve been regularly experiencing grief-like feelings out of the blue when I’m completely engaged with what I’m doing and not thinking about anything. It commonly (maybe two or three times a week) happens when I’m at work writing code (I’m a software engineer) and am in or near a flow state; all of a sudden I’ll realize that there’s a physical upward-pressing emotional feeling in my chest and throat and that I’m on the verge of tears.
I don’t know if I’m having a mid-life crisis or what — I’ll be 50 soon, my oldest left for college last year, my middle child will be a high school senior this fall, and I’m struggling with the life change of them leaving home — and the point of this comment is not to try to enlist you to be my therapist and help me figure out why this is happening. It is instead just to say that I think the statement I quoted above is generally accurate but that it’s possible, at least in my experience, to find yourself having strong emotions that seem completely spontaneous and do not appear on any obvious level to be a reaction to a thought or a circumstance.
Absolutely. I have experienced such spontaneous feelings myself.
I call them existential feelings. My theory is that they relate to our unspoken and mostly unknown to us, sense of separation from all that is; God if you're comfortable with the word but other words such as Love, Light, Wholeness do just fine.
Here I go sounding like a therapist, which I'm not, but the feelings over the life change separations perhaps can be seen as a symbol of the larger sense of separation which we are mostly not in touch with.
Having them arise in a flow state is probably not an accident since the normal shields against these feelings are down.
You don't want to suppress these feelings allow them to be and keep being open to the Love that surrounds us all.
I enjoyed your essay Barry. One question: the essay focused on externalities that might trigger feelings of anger, depression, fear. Should we be equally attuned to externalities that make us feel happy, giddy, satisfied? I believe the answer is we should be assessing from the inside-out no matter what feelings are felt, but might be less inclined to do so when the feelings are positive. Why spoil a good thing!
Absolutely. In each case, we project what is within. Which is why when we attempt to recreate a great experience by recreating the circumstances, we often fail.
Anxiety is one I have struggled with, worse so in the past but still to this day. Mine comes in the form of fear over death and the pervasive belief that something is physically wrong with without any actual evidence that it is true. It may have a lot to do with shame or guilt over the abuse I've done to myself in the past despite knowing that it was "wrong". Smoking cigarettes in my twenties, drinking too much in school, eating poorly, not exercising, etc. It also seems worse when I bombard myself with sensory inputs - the very distractions I seek online offer a respite only as long as I am engaged with it them, engage too much with them and the sudden removal causes an increase in the intensity. I definitely also engage in perfectionism as a way to try to control my environment and outcomes, and the lack of control plays into the anxiety as well. It's a weird line though, because I definitely pushed away feelings in the past and therefore I suppose my responsibility for them but attempting to "control" them or suppress them - run from them - causes it's own issues. So you have to be aware of them then right? And accept that you have them and they are trying to tell you something, but understand then that the feeling itself is not indicative of anything other than a probable wrongness in your thinking? But then, careful not to take that too far because there is the inherent danger of descending too far into moral relativism. There are some external actions that are indicative of real evil, so being clear on your values and their foundation is also very important. This is a hard one Barry.
First the easy answer. Nothing I wrote should be construed to advise what you should or should not do in the world. Indeed you become more effective as the noise settles.
You have realized what many never do. All the efforts to control, suppress and resist the noise can never work. Keeping working with your insight because it is pointing you to what is beyond all that. I wish we could "get it" all at once. But for good reasons that rarely happens and so we must be patient with a process that yields real results but with setbacks too.
Fear of death is normal and we will eventually circle back to the Stoics on that. Something will eventually get us all but most probably not what we fear. So when those thoughts come up, merely try and be with them without compounding the fear with fear of the thoughts.
Saturday's Session may be relevant to your questions, too.
Understood man and appreciated on the advice point. I was on the medication for a while and decided that using that to suppress the feelings was wrong for me from the point of view that I was not dealing with something that needed to be dealt with. I knew that my mom's passing and the emotions around that were not something to crush away, but an opportunity if there ever was one to get a handle on my emotions. It was not long after that I stumbled on the first article of yours I read. Synchronicity in the universe indeed man. I had no idea the journey it would take me on and I wouldn't trade it for anything. This is the most important thing in the world for me right now, to embark on this path of learning and discovery because it cannot be we were made wrong. Wrong to the point that for thousands of years until the advent of modern pharmacology this past century we were simply wrong. It had to be something wrong in my perception or thinking or processing or handling of those feelings. That insight at least seems to have been on the right line. So thanks for having me for this ride Barry.
Excellent essay, Barry. I find that the most difficult aspect in assisting clients to make progress in therapy is the task of being responsible for one’s own emotions. The belief that outside events control our feelings is endemic but accepting responsibility is freeing. Thank you.
Thank you for the kind note!
Unfortunately when this feeling comes up while I’m in the office, I have to suppress it to maintain professionalism and really just to continue functioning in that environment. The frustrating thing is, later in the evening when I’m home and in a position to pay attention to it and try to feel and process it, it often won’t show itself, and I’m left with a feeling that I can only describe as the emotional equivalent of an aborted sneeze.
Someday I hope to have myself figured out. There are
days when I feel like that’s within my grasp, and others when it feels like I’m trying to solve the old text-based Zork computer game without the map or the InvisiClues booklet.
I understand. Yes, trying to feel and process will leave you with as you say an "aborted sneeze."
“You can’t have a feeling without having a thought first.”
I understand that this is normally true, but over the last year and a half or so I’ve been regularly experiencing grief-like feelings out of the blue when I’m completely engaged with what I’m doing and not thinking about anything. It commonly (maybe two or three times a week) happens when I’m at work writing code (I’m a software engineer) and am in or near a flow state; all of a sudden I’ll realize that there’s a physical upward-pressing emotional feeling in my chest and throat and that I’m on the verge of tears.
I don’t know if I’m having a mid-life crisis or what — I’ll be 50 soon, my oldest left for college last year, my middle child will be a high school senior this fall, and I’m struggling with the life change of them leaving home — and the point of this comment is not to try to enlist you to be my therapist and help me figure out why this is happening. It is instead just to say that I think the statement I quoted above is generally accurate but that it’s possible, at least in my experience, to find yourself having strong emotions that seem completely spontaneous and do not appear on any obvious level to be a reaction to a thought or a circumstance.
Absolutely. I have experienced such spontaneous feelings myself.
I call them existential feelings. My theory is that they relate to our unspoken and mostly unknown to us, sense of separation from all that is; God if you're comfortable with the word but other words such as Love, Light, Wholeness do just fine.
Here I go sounding like a therapist, which I'm not, but the feelings over the life change separations perhaps can be seen as a symbol of the larger sense of separation which we are mostly not in touch with.
Having them arise in a flow state is probably not an accident since the normal shields against these feelings are down.
You don't want to suppress these feelings allow them to be and keep being open to the Love that surrounds us all.
I enjoyed your essay Barry. One question: the essay focused on externalities that might trigger feelings of anger, depression, fear. Should we be equally attuned to externalities that make us feel happy, giddy, satisfied? I believe the answer is we should be assessing from the inside-out no matter what feelings are felt, but might be less inclined to do so when the feelings are positive. Why spoil a good thing!
Thank you, Neal.
Absolutely. In each case, we project what is within. Which is why when we attempt to recreate a great experience by recreating the circumstances, we often fail.
Anxiety is one I have struggled with, worse so in the past but still to this day. Mine comes in the form of fear over death and the pervasive belief that something is physically wrong with without any actual evidence that it is true. It may have a lot to do with shame or guilt over the abuse I've done to myself in the past despite knowing that it was "wrong". Smoking cigarettes in my twenties, drinking too much in school, eating poorly, not exercising, etc. It also seems worse when I bombard myself with sensory inputs - the very distractions I seek online offer a respite only as long as I am engaged with it them, engage too much with them and the sudden removal causes an increase in the intensity. I definitely also engage in perfectionism as a way to try to control my environment and outcomes, and the lack of control plays into the anxiety as well. It's a weird line though, because I definitely pushed away feelings in the past and therefore I suppose my responsibility for them but attempting to "control" them or suppress them - run from them - causes it's own issues. So you have to be aware of them then right? And accept that you have them and they are trying to tell you something, but understand then that the feeling itself is not indicative of anything other than a probable wrongness in your thinking? But then, careful not to take that too far because there is the inherent danger of descending too far into moral relativism. There are some external actions that are indicative of real evil, so being clear on your values and their foundation is also very important. This is a hard one Barry.
First the easy answer. Nothing I wrote should be construed to advise what you should or should not do in the world. Indeed you become more effective as the noise settles.
You have realized what many never do. All the efforts to control, suppress and resist the noise can never work. Keeping working with your insight because it is pointing you to what is beyond all that. I wish we could "get it" all at once. But for good reasons that rarely happens and so we must be patient with a process that yields real results but with setbacks too.
Fear of death is normal and we will eventually circle back to the Stoics on that. Something will eventually get us all but most probably not what we fear. So when those thoughts come up, merely try and be with them without compounding the fear with fear of the thoughts.
Saturday's Session may be relevant to your questions, too.
Understood man and appreciated on the advice point. I was on the medication for a while and decided that using that to suppress the feelings was wrong for me from the point of view that I was not dealing with something that needed to be dealt with. I knew that my mom's passing and the emotions around that were not something to crush away, but an opportunity if there ever was one to get a handle on my emotions. It was not long after that I stumbled on the first article of yours I read. Synchronicity in the universe indeed man. I had no idea the journey it would take me on and I wouldn't trade it for anything. This is the most important thing in the world for me right now, to embark on this path of learning and discovery because it cannot be we were made wrong. Wrong to the point that for thousands of years until the advent of modern pharmacology this past century we were simply wrong. It had to be something wrong in my perception or thinking or processing or handling of those feelings. That insight at least seems to have been on the right line. So thanks for having me for this ride Barry.
John, It's been my pleasure. I have been inspired by your commitment and insights. Thank you!
Thank you! Much appreciated.