Emotion Phobic in Current Events

This morning, as I tried to pick up where I left off in Brene Brown’s book Rising Strong I realized that I had to start that book from the beginning. It took me two and a half hours to get through fifty-nine pages as I have not yet learned how to stop my mind from wandering off into the Lala land. I am trying to soak in every word so that means that I have to backtrack repeatedly to the point of frustration. I just wanted to give up. Some pages took me twenty minutes. Her story about her swim in Travis lake with her husband was easy to skip over as it is one we’ve all heard her tell a million times. Pardon my mansplaining, so far this book appears to be about metacognition. On how to chart and map your way through emotions so that you can learn how to own them.

She introduced me to a term that I like, Emotion Phobic. I am like most people, I like to pretend that pain isn’t happening to me. It isn’t happening because I am high, because I am drunk, because I had a hookup last night, because I am eating delicious junk food, because I just bought myself something pretty, because I am binging another series etc. I’ll do anything but face my emotions. I am completely disengaged from my feelings because I am trying to protect myself from the discomfort of facing them. Instead of choosing courage I am choosing comfort. Life isn’t about you, you are about life. I don’t know how to be vulnerable. I don’t know how to own my story. We need to own our stories so we are not defined by them.

Act 1: The protagonist is called to adventure and accepts the adventure.
Act 2: The protagonist looks for every comfortable way to solve the problem. By the climax, he learns what is going to take to solve the problem when he hits the lowest of the low.
Act 3: The protagonist needs to prove that they’ve learned the lesson, proving it at all costs. It’s about redemption, an enlightened character knowing what to do to resolve conflict.

I’m still on Act 2. I accepted my adventure but I am stuck trying to find a comfortable way to solve the problem. By comfortable, I mean that I am waiting for a miracle way to get what I want in life without being vulnerable. I don’t want to risk feeling the pain of failure and rejection and disappointment. I am afraid of emotions. I need to engage with my fears and emotions here and figure out what they are and why they are and how I let them make my decisions so that I can write my own ending. I need to open myself up to that negative experience so that I will no longer be afraid. I suppose this book, Rising Strong, will help me explore that.

Anyway, I really need to leave the house but I can’t even think about it without my heart dropping into my stomach. How did I end up here? I suppose that I shrunk my surroundings to feel safe but now here I am, stuck in a little box. The tiniest little comfort zone that is not even remotely comfortable because I am bigger than this. I’m larger than life when life isn’t knocking me down. I used to be strong enough to carry everybody else through and now I can’t even go dig my car out of the snow to get to a grocery store. I meet my new doctor tomorrow. Hetal doesn’t like the idea of me taking any anti-anxiety medication. They’re too risky for her liking. She the licensed the pharmacist so she knows something about them that I don’t but I will take them anyway. She says that they only help you sleep. Falling asleep is my challenge. I sleep soundly but my mind races too much and too fast for me to fall asleep the way that I used to. Ever since I started this b complex supplement I have been waking up feeling hungover. I think that I just have a cold, but it’s hard to tell these days. So! I will write down my daily affirmations and then go for a walk. Maybe I’ll get over my bullshit? lol