Big Girls Should Cry

21 Sep 2017 Leave a comment

by Deb D in Just Life Tags: , , , ,

Friend is a self-described control freak and I love her for it.  I adore a person who’s self-aware and can be unapologetically true to herself.

‘Control’ works for Friend.  It makes her feel safe.  She knows how to stay in her comfort zone so she’ll operate at optimal capacity.  For the most part, this works well for our friendship. Until….Friend’s controlling tendencies cause her to suffer.  Then I, in my emotion-loving, demonstrative Italian way, need to step in.

As a controller, Friend doesn’t cry.  Ever.  She likes to tell herself that she doesn’t need to.  But I don’t buy that hogwash for a second.  Friend is forthcoming about her predisposition to ulcers.  And she makes her own association between stuffing down negative, raw feelings and the resultant deterioration of her innards.  I encourage her to let it all out but this is like asking a zebra to shed its stripes.  It feels too naked and vulnerable.

Sometimes, when Friend is moved by emotion and I hear the feeling creeping up in her trembly voice, I poke the sensitivity for her, hoping that the tears will find their tipping point. But Friend is a master represser who doesn’t yet trust in the beauty of unbridled expression.

I won’t give up on her because I want her to enjoy the All-Access Pass to Life.  I want to help her see the depth and beauty that lies below the surface of the happy human experience. 

This sounds macabre.  But in truth, the realm of darkness balances the lightness of life.  It provides a broader range within which we can explore the vastness that might otherwise be limited by our own fear of discovery.

Life is like an amusement park with benign kiddie rides as well as thrill rides.  If we choose to sit on a bench watching wistfully as the more daring park-goers ride the Tower of Terror, we might feel safe and content but we’re shorting ourselves the full experience.  If we eschew our own emotional roller coasters such as grief, depression or loss, we miss the thrill of having conquered the entire range of emotions at our disposal.  We become observers on the sidelines of our own life, not daring to dive into our limits.

When I rode my first upside-down roller coaster at 40 years old, I nearly fainted from fear.  But the feeling quickly passed and was replaced with immense satisfaction in having allowed myself to participate.  The same response happened during my first public speaking event, and my wedding, and every other situation in which I am the center of attention.  Our rollercoasters are everywhere. 

Unlike me, being in the limelight is a safe zone for Friend.  But feeling and expressing downbeat emotion is her roller coaster.  I have to remind her sometimes that no one actually ‘cries their eyes out.’  And that if she ‘breaks down and cries’ she won’t actually break.  She will simply bust through the barrier that has been holding in all the hurt.

I propose a reciprocal fear-conquering goal for myself and Friend.  One day, I will put myself in front of a large public gathering to tell a heartfelt personal story, and she will sit in the audience, moved to tears, begging for tissues, because she refuses to stop crying until she is spent.  Afterwards, we will both feel shell-shocked and nauseated, but we will have each other to lean on.  When we recover, we will toast to our bravery, then, most likely, we’ll head back to our comfort corners where I will observe on the outskirts and she will smile her way through distress.  But at least we’ll be able to say that we defied our demons and lived to tell about it. 

A Sensitive Boy

29 Jan 2013 5 Comments

by Deb D in Insights, Love and Other Things, Parenting, The Jig Is Up, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

Part I:  A Vicious Cycle

Once upon a time there was a sensitive boy.  He cried at the drop of a hat.  This annoyed the boy’s father who tried to toughen him up.  “Don’t be a sissy!” Dad said, which made the boy want to cry even more.  But he knew it wasn’t safe.  Instead, the boy choked back his feelings and hid them deep down in his belly where only he could feel the crying.

The crying worried mother, too.  “You’re too sensitive.” She said.  “You’ll get bullied.”  The boy believed her.  With practice, the boy became better at hiding his feelings.  But he didn’t stop feeling them.  Mother noticed that sometimes the boy’s face would turn red.  His lip would curl and tremble and his body would tense.  But he never cried again.

Over time, the boy would learn all sorts of tricks to hide his feelings.  He hid them so well, that even he couldn’t find them after a while.  One day, when the boy became a man, his wife would complain that he was devoid of emotion and unable to truly connect.  This confused the boy.

When the boy had a son of his own, he began to feel something stirring inside himself – something peculiar but familiar.  One day, the son got his feelings hurt and began to cry.  The boy, now a dad, wanted to cry too.  It hurt him to see his son hurting.  He remembered feeling that way when he was young.  But crying was wrong – dangerous even.  So the dad did what he thought was right and told the son to stop crying.  And the son did.

………

Part II – “My Son Is Too Sensitive”  – Is It True?

There is a story we tell ourselves about who we are and how it is.  We are too this.  Too that. Not enough of anything.  Every story is a variation of this shouldn’t be happening. Who would we be without that story?

Welcome to ‘The Work’ a la Byron Katie.  A process of inquiry.

I worry about my son because he’s too sensitive.  I want him to stop crying when his feelings are hurt.  And especially in public.  If he was tougher I wouldn’t worry about him being bullied.  I don’t want to see him hurting.  I don’t want him to get hurt because of the crying.

Belief:  My son will get hurt if he cries

  1. Is it true?   Yes
  2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true, that your son will get hurt if he cries?  No
  3.  How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? I get scared and angry and worried.  I try to toughen him up.  I try to help him not to feel.  I feel like it’s my job to change him.
  4.  Who would you be without the thought ‘my son will get hurt if he cries.’  I’d relax about him.  I’d comfort him instead of yell at him to stop crying when he’s hurting.  I’d be a parent who loves her sensitive son because I do love him so much.  I’d see how caring he is.  How he can sense what other people are feeling – which is a gift. I’d be able to love him and not worry about how sensitive he is. I’d support him.

Turn the thought around (to statements that are as true or truer): ‘My son will get hurt if he cries’

  1.  To the self:  ‘I get hurt when he cries.’  (True.  I suffer with worry when I think of what his crying means.)
  2. To the opposite:  ‘My son won’t get hurt if he cries.’  (Might be true.  I don’t know how people will react.  Maybe he’ll meet with sympathy and understanding.)
  3.  To the other:  ‘I hurt my son when he cries.’  (True!  I disrespect his feelings.  I dishonor him when I tell him he shouldn’t feel the way he feels. I do what I’m afraid others will do to him – I hurt him when he cries!)

……

I realize I have two sons in my mind – the son I have and the son I think I want him to be.  The real one and the one I imagine to be better and safer.  I try to change him because there’s fear inside that I don’t know what to do with.  When I question my thoughts and meet my fear, I see that in my desire to protect him, I am actually hurting him.  Where is the love in that?

I don’t have to change what I believe. But I can, and should, question it.   Because if I don’t challenge my thoughts, they plague me.  So I ask myself again, who would I be, who would he be, without these thoughts? Can I find one stress-free reason to keep my thoughts?  In the questioning, I begin to see that none of my thoughts are true.  On the other side of the questions is freedom – for both of us.

It turns out, the world is perfect.  It’s what I think about the world that needs work.

 

Girl In Hiding

27 Oct 2012 1 Comment

by Deb D in Growing Up, Uncategorized Tags: , ,

If I showed you who I want to be – showed you the stuff that makes my heart sing – you might laugh, and I would be regretful for exposing myself.  So I choose not to show you.  I keep my dreams, beautiful dreams, in a cocoon where they are safe.    I would rather hide them and protect them than risk losing them to ridicule.

I don’t dare to show you who I am inside because it’s the only part of me that I believe is beautiful.  And I don’t want you to tell me otherwise.  I’m afraid that if you see the real me, you won’t see the perfection and then I’ll have a decision to make – to believe your opinion or my own.  And, well, I haven’t always been convinced that my opinion of myself is accurate.  Because it’s hard to tell who’s right.

The me inside, way down deep, hasn’t been found out, not completely.  But sometimes it leaks out.  It can’t help itself.  It sees its reflection in a word, a thought, a loving expression, and it can’t contain all its beauty.  So it speaks or writes or sings or dances.  It wants nothing more than to share its magical vision.

Sometimes, when the beauty escapes, people say ‘ah’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘you are so wonderful.’  But the beauty is shy.  It scares easily.  It hasn’t learned to trust the world.  If the world sees how great it is, the world will demand more, on a schedule, and will expect its money’s worth.  The heart will learn to expect too.  And demand from itself.  And the heart will have to deliver even when it wants to rest in the quiet of its cocoon where it can hear the truth and replenish.

The heart can’t see clearly when people crowd around telling it this and that.  So it stumbles, and worries that people will be disappointed .  Maybe they’ll say, ‘You’re not so beautiful after all.’ And the heart’s fear will have been confirmed.

It’s safer then, to stay hidden inside.

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