Hoarders of Emotions

A river flows through a mountain, creating it’s path, slowly & surely making it’s way through rocks, plains and meadows. Just like that river, emotions flow through us on a daily basis. Some good, some bad… we don’t control most of the emotions that arise in us. On the surface, we can choose how we let something affect how we feel about something, but we can never truly change the emotion that will be triggered from that feeling. Don’t get me wrong; there are some people that can, such as the Dalai Lama, Zen Masters and the like. Not really your average Joe. So why is this important? What happens if you let a river flow into a pond that has no output? After a while, the pond will overflow, flooding everything nearby.

We are the pond. The river is the emotions that flow in us, causing us to hurt, hate, love, fear, rejoice. The problem is, we rarely realize that there is a build up of these emotions until it is too late. When the pond starts to overflow, and we start seeing damage, it is then that we realize that there is something wrong. And when things go wrong, we tend to stress about it even more.

Hoarding Signs

So, how do you know you are hoarding emotions? Think of the last time you were sad, happy, hurt, you cried or you had an argument with someone. If you can recall it easily, and remember the feeling you had at the time, chances are, you are hoarding the emotions. There are a lot of signs that you can look for, but remember that everyone is different.
•Feel more stressed out – daily activities & situation feel more stressful
•Anxiety – you feel anxious to see someone or go somewhere, because you think you will get a feeling/emotion you don’t like
•Feel down/depressed – pushing emotions deep down, to prevent you from being hurt, will cause you to to feel down
•Easily aggravated – if daily/simple tasks/requests or just seeing & talking to someone with whom you’ve had strong emotions (good or bad) make you angry/upset
•Decreased patience – you are inpatient with people (especially closest ones) around you
•Mood swings – feel like you are alone, crying for small things, feeling nauseous

As I said, everyone will be affected differently by an overload of emotions, but there is one thing that is common: most of us realize that there is something odd. We can’t always place what it is, and sometimes it is a really vague feeling, but your body recognizes the issue and tries to warn you in a way. And what do we do? We ignore the signs, of course. We mistaken them for something else. “Oh I’m not inpatient, they are just really slow.” Yeah, been there, done that. If you really aren’t sure, ask the ones closest to you. They will usually notice major differences when it comes to your character.

Let Go

The first thing you have to do is assess yourself. Look inward, and figure out what is it that is going on. This might sound simple enough, but as soon as you start trying you will learn that there are far more interesting things your brain thinks you can be doing than looking inward… hey look, a squirrel! Whether your lake is overflowing or you want to make sure you have an output so it never does, the first step is to always assess what is happening in your life.

The Past – I wrote a few articles on time (here) and one specifically on how the past affects us. This is where most of your emotional “damage” (I really dislike calling it that, but for lack of a better word) comes from. Arguments, fights, heartbreaks, rejection, fear, accidents… the list goes on and on. And as you probably figured out by now, there is not positive ones on that list. Why is that? Because we take for granted the good, and hold on to the bad. The great summer days, where you spent time with your friends outside, or that week long vacation to Mexico with your loved ones… all of that is lived and forgotten easily. But that one time your boss yelled at you for being late, earned him the nickname “Sour Steve”.

1. Realize the moments, events & people from the past that left a bad feeling in you. Write them down, if that helps. Analyze the feeling without judging; just look and try to remember how it felt.
2. Let the feeling cause an emotion in you. Let it flow through you, the anger, the fear, the regret. Let it consume you this one last time.
3. Let it go. Realize that the past if now over, and whatever happened will forever be written in stone, however your future is not. There is no reason to allow something that happened a year, a month, or even a day ago, ruin your current state. I know this is easy to say, and tremendously hard to do. Never said it was easy. As the Buddhist scriptures say: Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.
4. Get help. Hey, you are not alone in this. Realizing there is an issue is already a big leap forward. Talking to someone about it can definitely help clear your head, get a new perspective on the situation, or simply getting it off your shoulders. You would be surprised at how many people realize that the issue they have is really not an issue at all, when they verbally explain it to someone.

The Present – Anxiety from what is currently going on can affect you as well. But this is also the place where you always want to be (check out the article linked above on time). Living always in the now is truly an amazing feat, trying to always be better, feel better, do better.

1. When something happens, take a minute and relax. Take deep breathes and ground yourself. Count your blessings, remember that old saying? I recently got into a car accident while away on vacation. Totalled the rental car. I did not get angry, nor scared. The first thing I did is ask if everyone was okay, and upon validating that they were, I sat down and turned on the radio and continued the conversation with the person next to me. No stress, no anger, no fear. I realized that I have my life and my health; cars – money can buy.

The Future – worrying about things that might happen; going over scenarios of how we thing things will go. Why do that to yourself? Every situation is unique, you can’t really expect that an event will occur exactly how you thought it would. Too many variable.

1. When you catch yourself thinking about something in the future, stop and bring yourself back to the present moment. Look & focus on your surroundings. This will ground you to the current moment and void all these useless worries about things out of your control.