Emotional Equality

EMOTIONAL EQUALITY: Giving each emotion equal time at the mic. Anger? Grief? How about you, Envy? Or Shame, dearest Shame, whatcha got today? Let it all hang out. 

Self-talk: I want to hear your unmentionables, the more detailed the better. I want to know who you are in your darkest moments. 

Well sure, Anger, I know you’re just trying to do your job to protect me. And yes, I acknowledge I have done nothing but ridicule you, choke (on) you, threaten to off you with compulsive overconsumption if you don’t stay invisible from my awareness…

But that was then, this is now. Now I am trying something new - bringing the full cast of characters to the stage. Now I invite you all into the light, to be seen, in all your gory glory. 

Oh, right, you’ve been banished to the darkest corners for a lifetime and longer. So maybe we should cut those bright-ass stage spotlights, and instead, fade in with a gentle red glow. 

A Red Light District for the Emotions, A ZONE WHERE IT ALL BELONGS, where shame and fear and anger and envy and whatever else gets marginalized to the shadows of our internal society can speak up, take up space, express their most shrewd and most shunned.

Embracing it all is embracing what is real. Anything less leads to feeling detached, isolated, indifferent. From that space, it’s much easier to treat myself like crap, and not tell anybody about it. And so the cycle continues. 

Practicing emotional equality feels hard sometimes. Well, most times. Even completely out of reach. But when I am able to do it, I feel real, I feel whole. 

And when I let someone else listen in on this radical honesty, I feel connected; I feel alive. 

The older I get, the more I am into BEING ALIVE BEFORE I DIE. Tonight, when I turn on my red bedtime lights, I will scan the day, searching for these emotions. I will ask them what they need to say. And I will listen with curious compassion. Or at least try.

Image by Jordan Merrick on Unsplash