A couple things that have been on my mind today:

1. Shoved-down emotions

Last night a friend and I discussed the human tendency to shove down emotions, this after my blog post yesterday about how we so often keep our dramas and traumas unresolved by hitting the pause button on them instead of letting them play out by fully feeling and learning from them. I always think of my shoved-down emotions as being in a jar (an emotions jar), but that makes it sound like, you know, whenever you want you can take the jar down off the shelf and–to put it bluntly–deal with your shit. I told my friend, “I don’t mean to make it sound that simple.” It’s not. Well, my friend said they picture their shoved-down emotions as coins that have been dropped into a locked piggy bank. The problem? We don’t always know what key opens the bank.

Personally and fortunately, I’ve had some success lately with “opening the bank.” Through traditional talk therapy and this blog, of course, but especially through EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and myofascial release. Still, although EMDR allows you to choose a topic or emotion that you want processed, both therapies are nonetheless a crap shoot. That is, I have little control over what ultimately happens each session. Or, better said, what emotions come up. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I laugh, sometimes I get angry. In this sense, playing around with these therapies (or any healing strategy that gets results) is a bit like opening Pandora’s Box, or, in keeping with my friend’s way of seeing things, Pandora’s Piggy Bank of Emotions. Like, once you find a key that unlocks what you once locked up, good. Use that sucker. But look out. Because you don’t get to decide what comes flying out or in what order.

In my experience reliving past emotions (through therapy, writing, body work, and EMDR), there’s ALWAYS a discomfort (the emotion and often its accompanying story or message that’s been ignored or put on hold) followed by a comfort (a relief, a re-cognition of thoughts and beliefs, or a recognition that it’s over or of a lesson learned). This is the good news. Buried emotions that are resurrected never do us permanent harm. Rather, they rise again as our teachers. They come bearing gifts. What’s more, once they are felt and fully experienced, they return to our system and become a source of vitality. Think of your shoved down emotions like the characters in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that are turned into statues by the White Witch. They’re literally frozen in time. But they’re also reading, willing, and able to come back to life, to help you and others, if you can simply break the spell they’re under.

I told my friend that I think a huge part of the “unfreezing your emotions” picture is to simply be willing, to let your body know that, whenever it’s ready, you’re willing to hear what it has to say. Of course, this involves being willing to feel all kinds of terrible and wonderful emotions, and, chances are, investing in some Kleenex. Also, it involves a willingness to be wrong. Because, guaranteed, what your body thinks and what you think (or would like to think) are two different things, and when you open Pandora’s Piggy Bank of Emotions, your body is going to have the last say. This is ultimately a good thing, but you gotta be ready to have your world turned upside down. Because as soon as you FEEL different, you WILL think, believe, act, and interact different. In short, everything in your life will LOOK different.

This, of course, is scary as shit and probably why most of us do our best to keep the lid on.

Still, I recommend being willing to change, being willing to heal.

2. COVID-19

Tonight I went grocery shopping for my parents. And whereas I found everything on their list, I had to look long and hard to find toilet paper, which we actually needed. Ugh. This virus is becoming A THING, a problem. Tonight I learned that, in addition to international travel being severely restricted by the federal government, several major large gatherings (dances, meetings, etc.) are being postponed or canceled voluntarily by their organizers. Part of me is taking all of this in stride. Part of me is freaking out. (I’m never leaving the house again. Except to buy toilet paper.) It’s a fine line.

Tying this conversation to the previous one, I will say that the more I deal with and process my childhood and adolescent dramas and traumas, the less REACTIVE I am to, well, anything. Like, I’m not scared as easily. I don’t sweat as much (metaphorically speaking). Free of my past crap, I can think more clearly and be RESPONSIVE. This applies not only to COVID-19, but to everything. Last night my friend and I saw a play and stood by the stage door afterwards so they could get autographs from a few of the cast. Years ago I would have been trembling, shaking in my boots, intimidated. Last night I was like, I’m standing outside on a warm night. Oh look, there are some lovely and talented people. Just like me.

Along these lines, my main and foremost thought about COVID-19 is that I think one of the reasons people are going nuts is because the virus is demonstrating a fact that we all know deep down, and may even say out loud, but certainly don’t act like is true. What fact? The fact that we are all not only connected to each other, but also dependent upon each other. Why do we freak out when one person hundreds of miles away has the virus? Because, for one thing, what if THAT PERSON works in a toilet paper factory! For another, we intuitively know that a virus can spread just like that. Because we are all inextricably woven together like a spider’s web, and what affects one of us affects the whole.

We get this when it comes to COVID-19. Alas, we forget that our individual thoughts, emotions, and beliefs affect our WHOLE body. And not only our whole body, but the world’s whole body. We think it’s not a big deal to carry around ancient baggage or false perceptions, and yet we all know entire families that are made miserable by one person who refuses to deal with their shit. We all know communities and nations that have been paralyzed by gossip–gossip!–that’s traveled faster than a virus. Now, I don’t like this any more than you do, the fact that we’re all connected. Because it means that what you do or don’t do affects me. Because it means that people I don’t like are not only influencing the world I live in but are, in fact, necessary to it.

John Donne said, “No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.” These are the facts. No thought, emotion, belief, or person is unimportant.

So let’s start acting like it.

And, of course, washing our hands.