Managing emotions

The human brain is fascinating to me. I was driving home from work the other day when a traffic light turned yellow. I was close enough to pass through it, so I kept going. It seems like such a simple thing until you really think about what my mind had to do to make that decision. My mind had to make several judgements. How far was I from the intersection? How fast was I going? How long would it take me to stop? How long did I expect the yellow light to last before turning red? What other cars were around me? The list goes on. In a fraction of a second, my mind made all of these assessments, pulled from my experience as a driver, and made the decision that it was safer to go than to stop. And this was not the only thing my mind had to do in that moment. It was already making my heart beat, keeping my temperature normal, and remembering to breathe. Those are just a few of the many functions it takes to keep my body alive. My brain performs these actions 24/7 for the duration of my entire life. While driving home, my brain not only does all the things it takes to keep my body alive, but all the additional tasks it takes to safely drive. It constantly monitors where my car is on the road, what other cars are around me, and how fast I am/should be going. It also controls the muscles in my neck to move my head, my arms to steer, and my legs to control the pedals. On top of all that, I was having a conversation through my car speakers. Even conversation takes brain effort. My brain has to read vibrations in the ear and within milliseconds, it will determine pitch, tone, volume, direction of sound, etc. In a conversation, my brain not only recognizes sound, but recognizes the voice of whom I am speaking with, interprets that sound into words, translates those words into conversation, and understands those words in the context of the conversation. At the same time, my brain will form a thought to respond, control my breathing to speak, and control my mouth to form the words to simply give a response. All of this is done without even a conscious thought. Yes, I had to think logically to hold the conversation, but other than that, my brain does all of this for me. So while my brain is doing all these things, then enters the yellow traffic light. My brain had to recognize the light change thrugh the signals my eyes were giving, then figure out what I needed to do. Driving home and having a conversation seem like such mundane events until you really think about what your brain has to process in order to do it.

This is all amazing to me, but it got me thinking. The brain is very good at controlling the body, but not always as good at controlling or understanding emotions. How many times do we react in anger in situations where anger is not really warranted? How many times have we been sad or upset without understanding why? Most often, we can blame our emotions on something, whether it be a person, situation, or even just a bad day. But even then, we can’t always say why the day was bad. We just know that our emotions tell us it is. And then grief itserts itself into the mess. A whirlwind of complicated emotions that the brain can barely keep up with. Some emotions are obvious: the shock of loss, the sorrow of mourning, or the anger at the situation. All of these are expected and completely understandable. Over time, our brain learns to anticipate and manage the expected emotions. It’s the unexpected ones that are harder. Even then, your brain is really good at figuring out how to manage those, even if they don’t make sense.

While our brain is focused on keeping our bodies alive and learning how to manage our internal emotions of grief, there will always be external influences. Sometimes, it is simply a yellow light that requires a decision, or a project at work that requires attention. These are the obvious occurances we deal with every day. There are some, however, that are less obvious. As time goes on, society (whether intentionally or unintentionally) will tell us to “get over it.” We may not hear the words outright, but we will feel it. People won’t talk about your loved one as much. No one will ask how you are doing anymore. Eventually the world goes back to normal while we still struggle with our grief. Despite our struggle, it is ingrained in human nature to want to conform to the expectation of society. So we slowly begin to cover up our grief, hide our anger, and hold back our tears. We may not even realize we are doing this, but how many times have you answered “I’m okay” when you are very much not okay? But we want the world to think we have it all together, so we lie. Over time, people begin to believe us, so they eventually stop asking. But then we get angry when no one asks how we are doing, don’t we? We feel the anger, sometimes not even directed at a specific person. Anger shows up in unexpected ways. We could get frustrated that a jar lid won’t open and break the jar, or at least want to break it. It can show up in relationships as snappy comments or short tempers. It can even manifest itself physically with tense muscles or an inability to relax. These are all ways the brain tries to make sense of something it can’t understand. This is even more evident in the intense emotions of grief. We want to break the jar, but then ask ourselves why a simple stuck lid provoked us to violence? We can feel exhausted with no physical cause, or nauseous without being ill. More often than not, we don’t recognize these as misplaced emotions unless we stop and think about it.

That’s one of the most frustrating things about grief for me. Despite all of the immense power of the brain, we still can’t always understand. People have tried to describe it or explain it. We’ve all heard of the 5 stages of grief… if it were only that simple. Models like that are logic’s attempt at undesrtanding the inexplainable world of feelings. And if we can’t even understand our own emotions, how can we expect others to? Like the friend asking “how are you?” You answer for the millionth time, “I’m okay.” When she eventually stops asking, we then think, “well she hasn’t asked in awhile, guess she doesn’t care anymore.” We sometimes expect people to understand our suffering when we won’t even tell them about it. I suppose grief requires a lot of grace, for yourself and others. People will say stupid and hurtful things. It is usually not malicious, but it can be difficult to not be angry. Allow yourself to be angry, but try to give that person enough grace to let it go. We also need to give ourselves enough grace to heal. We have to give ourselves permission to feel the things to the extent we need to feel them, even if it doesn’t make sense. Ignoring or pushing down the emotions will never allow us to heal. Even when our powerful brains can’t understand it, we need to allow ourselves to feel and give ourselves grace to let it go. You feel angry? Feel it, but let it go. You feel sad? Cry if you need to, but let it go. Holding on to these emotions just prolong our grief and delay our healing. We need to be mindful of even the most confusing emotions. If left to its own devices, sadness turns into depression. Anger turns to bitterness. Jealousy turns to malice. If we are not careful, a temporary emotion can grow into something we can no longer control. We cannot let our temporary emotions become a permanent attitude.