Emotions are fickle. Without much logic, I find that they control most things. Strip off the layers of logic—psueudo or real—and you will find nothing but emotional drivers.
My "I am woman, hear me roar/I can do anything boys can do, I can do it better" pride and shit-filled mantra from my childhood is usurped every day by my emotions, female emotions at that. I once said to my boss, "Give it to me straight. Leave the suger-coating off and give it to me raw." I cried the very next day in front of that same boss. Emotions are ran from and hidden, but they always play a starring role, whether it is in the conclusion or in the sequel.
All you males out there know, however, that emotions—though possibly different in flavour—are just as powerful. Whether it be ego, anger or envy, male emotions are equally as powerful drivers at the boardroom table and the kitchen table. Often masked more often with logic, the emotions are still just as powerful. Lucky for you, your emotions are actually socially acceptable in the workforce. If I have my way, however, emotional leadership is the next cultural wave.
Ironically emotions are fickle and forming all at the same time. While always a result of something real, and often logic free, they are filled with a power to form everything. They form our mood, our priorities, our work, our health and our relationships.
So the question is: how atuned are you to your emotions? Are you listening to them? Are they a priority? Do you sit in them, like one savours a cup of morning coffee, and feel them to the end?
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OK another enneagram inspired comment: Heart, Head, Hand. I noticed when Sterling was little that most of my interactions with him were heart related. My hand moved his heart. I picked him up and he woke up and cried. I pick him up when he is crying and he calmed down. This continued until he was about 6-7 when I started to see he was moving into more of a mind space. (I could, for the first time, really reason with him.) When he was 4 I could not explain things in a mind sort of way: the reason we do not allow you to drink juice at night is because the carbohydrates stimulate your body to produce excessive activity and thus you do not fall asleep, get sleep deprived, and become irritable the next day. No, it was my hand "No juice at night" that moved his heart "Noooooo give me juice" but in the end if my hand was firm my hand won out over his own juice 'addicted' hand. Now that he is older he can understand and I do not have to use my hand as much to control him. I can teach him and thus help him to learn (use his mind) to self regulate and thus exercising his own will (use his own hand to control his desires and cravings).
As adults I think it is harder to identify what hands are messing with our hearts. We have our habits (good and bad), worldview, history, addictions, preferences, bosses, things people have done and said to us, etc. we have all three in play all of the time and they often get muddled all up. But here is A way I have learned to help: use your heart as the way to test what hands are acting upon us. To work the heart needs to be soft and unprotected. (If hard, the heart must be broken so that it can become soft and feel again.) With a free heart we can learn a lot about what hands are controlling us (and thus causing us to feel the way we do). It is just as you wrote: emotions are "always a result of something real."
We ought not control our emotions, we ought control the hands (and there are many) that have access to our hearts. Open feelings are a window into what is really going on with us. First fully experience a bad feeling (wait until it is completely over). Next use our mind (preferably with the help of another person: minds often work better in pairs) to understand what caused us to feel that way. Then, diagnosis in hand, we can work to change the reality of the world so that does not happen again. This often requires many hands to get the work done.
Gut types often want to stop feelings as a way of changing reality. No, feel, think and then change reality. Then open up the heart once again and see if you feel that way again. If you do it means it is time to go back and think again and work and change again. Again and again until there is real change. But the key is to have honest feelings - to be brave and face the feelings as they come.
Anyhow, this has worked with me. But Jennifer tells me it is bad to write a blog post in the comments, so goodbye.
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