One of my favorite television comedic characters was Karen Walker
from "Will & Grace." Filthy rich, proudly promiscuous, and addicted
to anything she could ingest - or anyone she could attach
to - the beauty of Karen Walker was not only her fabulous figure
and flagrant flamboyance, but also her unbridled honesty.
My favorite Karen Walker line was; "Gotta feeling, gotta go!"
That's how she handled her emotions; by not handling them at all.
She would say - or do - anything to avoid reality, responsibility, and experiencing her true feelings.
Karen Walker is a pretty outrageous - but not wholly inaccurate - reflection of how we as a society view emotion. We either dramatize
to the point of becoming hyper-sensitized with celebrity obsession,
reality TV, extreme sports, 24/7 media, and technology dependence.
Or, we anesthetize ourselves with controlling behaviors & relationships, obsessive exercise, addictions, and antidepressants. (One quarter of
all Americans are now on prescription antidepressants.)
In the hot pursuit of mind, money, media, and technology we left
behind our emotional well-being and maturity. We've become such
a mind worshipping society that many of us have even trained
ourselves to "think" our feelings.
We cannot function fully - and freely - without the healthy, well-balanced, authentic expression of our emotions. And we cannot authentically express our emotions, without truly allowing our selves to fully
experience them. It's a "chicken or the egg?" thing.
As I have mentioned in earlier articles, the repression and suppression
of our emotional well-being can bring about a complete crash and burn.
It causes otherwise smart, successful people to risk everything;
witness Bill Clinton, Elliot Spitzer, Martha Stewart, Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford, John Edwards, and Tom DeLay, just to name a few. These
people risked everything in the pursuit of sex, money, or what they believed was love.
This is what an unhealthy emotional body will do to you. A healthy, well-balanced and emotionally mature individual knows how to
balance risk against responsibility, and reality against illusion.
Emotion is at the core of who we are as human beings. It is the
authentic expression of emotion that creates connection, compassion, creativity, and so much more. Who would we be without passion,
curiosity, ecstasy, wonder, joy, sensuality, laughter, intimacy,
tenderness, yearning, patience, or courage?
These feelings are all generated from within your emotional body. Granted, they also include fear, sorrow, grief, sadness...it's a package deal. But we must allow ourselves to experience all of these
feelings in order to create balance, well-being, certainty, intimacy,
and fulfillment in our lives.
Great books, inspiring music, beautiful works of art, orgasms, acts
of profound humanity...these are not generated by the much-hyped "mind-body connection." These things that touch you, move you,
open your heart, evoke deep feelings, create expansive freedom...
are expressions of emotion.
(By the way...authentic emotion is not conveyed well - or accurately - through the internet. Its physics...we'll look at that another time.)
And what about love? Love itself is an emotion; "an energy in motion." Love isn't about doing, it's about being. You "be" love. You experience
it from within you and you express it.
You can become more of who you are today by expressing your
emotions, by expressing how you feel. Whether that emotion is
sadness or ecstasy...express it.
I guarantee it will feel so...free.
(For more about the concepts in this message, go to "being more of you: I'm a thinking person, but I tend to get caught up in analysis," "The Certainty of Intimacy: being more of you," "Addiction Nation; we're all addicts" & "Energy:
the science & spirit of you" at at www.kellygracesmith.com.)
Copyright © 2011 kelly grace smith All rights reserved.
