Men Don't read this!

Here's something I just read this morning from Deepak Chopra's 'The Daughters of Joy' -
"Feelings are the echoes of past reactions, which live in us until we call for them."

Well, that provoked a bit of reflection, as I am fully aware of how these past reactions can become the theme of our lives rather than an echo from the past, which would be the correct place for them.

Feelings are like our receptors that help guide us through our sometimes turbulent journeys. I like to refer to them as our navigational systems. Women are brought up and encouraged to express them whereas men are taught to suppress and bottle them.

But whether you find yourself in a male or female body, I am sure you'll identify with what I'm about to say.

We all hide our feelings. We fear expressing them too openly, because we may be ridiculed. We may be judged as too hard, too soft, unprofessional, inappropriate, you name it.

I believe the real job of our feelings is to awaken us to our surroundings and our fellow beings, so that we can better communicate and interact in an interdependent way. We really are all interconnected. We are not independent as we may like to think.

The more I reflect on our ability to hide our feelings, the more I realise that hidden feelings have a way of surfacing in a rather peculiar and yet predictable pattern.

Let's take for example the man who doesn't want to express his feelings of sadness because of his own fear of seeming weak. He is quite likely to develop a pattern of expressing anger as his way of unleashing his emotions. Of course the reaction he is met with will most often then be the opposite reaction to the one he's seeking. It would take someone with intuition to read his fear and offer him the comfort he so desperately seeks.

How often do we repeat the tough love we were taught by our parents, denying ourselves a smidgen of sympathy for self or others. What about those of us who wrestle with self esteem issues and who wear a mask of 'people pleaser'? How many of us have felt the need to put others down to make ourselves feel better? Why do we laugh hysterically to hide our feelings of inadequacy?

We put on a facade of control and self discipline to hide our low self esteem. We wear a mask of anger and warrior to hide feelings of fear and weakness. We wear a happy face to hide our sadness. We show the world our 'devil can care' attitude to hide our feelings of neediness.

Isn't it time we throw off our masks and play with our real emotions and stop trying to second guess  each other's motives?

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to be REAL? Imagine not having to entertain the world with your happy mask or your competent mask or your angry mask or any of your incompetancies.

I'm sure that as we start to discern the masks that others wear, we'll start to recognise the masks we wear.

Anyhow, as I sign off, I wish you a week of listening to your emotions, not the ones on the surface, but the ones lying just beneath, the ones which are calling you to wake up and take note.

Have an awesome week

love
Nicolette