I’ve been more in tune with my feelings and emotions these last few months. A lot of events have made me realize that instead of my emotions taking from me, I can channel it to becoming better. For me. And those that I care about.
Apart from with my family members, I never was an emotionally expressive person. I believed deeply in bottling up, never saying a word, but acting on how I felt, which mostly involved cutting the offending party off without so much as a word in. I was never the one to show negative emotion, and by that I mean anger or spite.
There was the nearly immediate emotional detachment from there other party. At that time, I could not fathom why I should give them the benefit of the doubt or a listening ear. I was obviously in the right. Why couldn’t they see that? And if they didn’t see it, why bother making them see?
It was such an incredibly liberating time. I will not even lie about that. Contrary to what most may expect, I was having the time of my life not having to worry about how my impulsive decisions affected these people, or whether or not there could have been a chance to salvage the relationship. My peace of mind mattered more than anything, or what I assumed to be my peace of mind.
It made sense to me because in the first place, I ensured to invest in as little emotions as possible, and so when these issues came up, it was just easy to detach myself. But how long does that last anyway? Eventually people that I would care for in more than my usual below average people came along, and when I found myself unable to tackle the issues we had, and still not having the ability to cut these people off because I was too invested, I knew I had to review my feelings and find a better way to express my emotions.
As soon as I became intentional about minimalism, I came to understand a few things. First off, what makes negative emotions negative is what happens with those emotions. What is done with those emotions. Take anger, for instance. Anger in itself isn’t bad, but how is this anger handled? So, I learnt to face and embrace all my emotions.
I embraced my positive emotions, and embraced the negative ones as what comes with being human. I learnt to breathe through each of them and then think categorically on the next course of action. I learnt to see what relationships are worth giving more chances to and fighting for, as opposed to the ones I could simply let go of.
Embracing minimalism taught me balance. That even though stress was relieved from me and I was more self aware, I could also burn out from the unrealistic expectations I set for myself, and have an emotional numbing. Things have gotten a lot better because not only to I practice minimalism, mindfulness is my watchword.
It’s not all easy, and I realize that there are crucial times when none of these is remembered, but where it counts, it all comes to mind and application. In all the best ways.
Images are mine.
