State: unaltered

There seems to be three ways to respond to emotional events:

  1. Repress it
  2. Express it
  3. Observe it

Repression can take the form of a transmutation of emotion. You may laugh when you feel embarrasment, you may sulk when you feel angry, you may get angry instead of crying out of sadness. The other form of repression is more straightforward: you remain outwardly impassive while inwardly you are on fire.

This is the most immature way of dealing with emotion.

The second tier, expressing emotion, is what we observe in psychologically healthy people. Emotions are treated naturally, and if you get angry you express anger, if you’re sad your express sadness and so on.

The third option, while being the spiritually more advanced option, outwardly seems like repression, but it is actually a detachment from the emotion. “Oh, that made me angry, I’m boiling inside!” and one has the option to live through the emotion or to simply observe. There is no judgement about the emotion itself, you let it run its course and observe.

I write this because of the interactions with my family. It is funny how family changes the usual rules of interpersonal engagement. Where most people who know me would say I’m a non-judgemental and accepting person, my immediate family would say the opposite. I know I’m not alone in this, and a lot of people display this in even more pronounced ways.

I would say in my younger years my way of dealing this would have been #1, I would go into my bedroom rather than to have to deal with the emotional exhasperation. But nowadays I find myself at #2, expressing more disapproval and negative affect rather than shutting myself in. And I almost dislike myself by doing it, “why am I such an asshole”, I think, but at the same time it feels like I’m being honest by not concealing my emotions.

The direction of growth would be to move to #3, to observe my own emotion and to accept it without judgement, but not roll my eyes or blurt out something hurtful. It would be to have five seconds of silence and react with a degree of wisdom that a purely emotional response will not have.