E80. Do you ever get angry and don’t know why? Here’s why.

To understand this we need to first look at the nature of emotions. Emotions are fluid. They move. They don’t stay still. Very much like the waves at the beach. There is a clue inside the word ‘emotion’ (e-motion). Motion, to motor along, or move along. Emotion is also an energy. We know that energy is ALWAYS moving. Because energy is ALWAYS moving, it is always transforming from one form to another. Energy never stays still. Like energy, emotions don’t stay still. They need to be released so they can be transformed into some other kind of energy. Sometimes these unexpressed emotions (energy) are released as anger or its direct opposite as uncontrollable laughter. Either way, this is a spontaneous combustion of energy being released all in one hit. Emotions are either expressed consciously or projected unconsciously. The more unexpressed (trying to keep the energy still) the emotion is, the more likely it will be projected onto someone else at some other point in time. Another way of putting it, is that emotions are either expressed or suppressed. When emotions are suppressed, they sink deep into the sea of consciousness. Which essentially means that these emotions become buried beneath the surface of awareness. If we continue to suppress emotions rather than expressing them, we build layers and layers of unconscious memory, which at some point needs to be released. If it's not released consciously, that is, in healthy resourceful ways it will find a way to release itself in the most inappropriate moments. The two combustive ways which suppressed emotion can be released, is via anger or intense out of control laughter.  For example, at the age of 10, I had my first experience of someone close to me dying. My grandmother had suddenly passed. This was the first time my parents were having to try to explain death to a 10 year old and my then 8 year old sister. They didn’t do a great job because it all was clouded with shrouds of secrecy or vague platitudes. I had no idea how to feel, or how to respond. It was the first time I had seen my mother cry. Didn’t see my father cry until decades later at the loss of his brother. So as a child these swirling confusing emotions had nowhere to go because there didn’t seem to be a person or place to talk about how I was feeling. What followed was an unconscious release! During the wake I was playing with my cousins and something just set me off into crazily intense fits of laughter like I have never experienced. I was blinded by my stream of tears….from my laughter!!! I remember feeling strange that we were laughing together so hard and at the same time feeling strange that this was happening at my grandmother’s funeral! On the other hand, I have also experienced the opposite of this, namely anger. It had been months and months into our renovation journey, as our new home was being created before us. My wife Silvana was not a fan of embarking on this journey, but at the same time could see the significant benefits. She had expressed to me at the beginning of this journey that, she could not handle multiple simultaneous chunks of uncertainty. This meant that she could only handle one piece of news or development at the one time when it came to the house. As you may appreciate, the renovation journey is indeed an emotional rollercoaster, and on some days, there were multiple decisions to be made. There was also the emotional component, especially when the money surprises kept coming, and suddenly our budget gets blown out of the water! ... Read more www.joepane.com.au/blog Free Introduction to EDISC training on www.joepane.com.au --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let's connect