I know, dating can indeed be an emotional roller coaster. A big one. With huge highs and lows, and sudden stops, turns and loops. It’s easy to get dizzy sometimes, especially if you are not used to, or comfortable with, strong emotions.
Many of us live calm, or maybe stressed, but often at least pretty controlled lives, lead by our intellect. Many of my clients are used to understanding what’s going on, staying on schedule and taking care of big and challenging projects in their lives and careers. They are very skilled at what they do and completely at home in the world of the intellect, thought, logic and business. Unfortunately this doesn’t help them very much in their love lives.
It’s two completely different parts of life that require completely different skills. If you only have one kind of skills and try to use them “on the other side”, it’s kind of like trying to use a hammer when you need a saw. It doesn’t matter how nice your hammer is, or how many you have, or how hard you hit. You need a saw.
And trying to use your intellect to deal with your emotions is like using the hammer to saw. Your emotions don’t need to be analyzed or explained, or removed. They need to be felt. That’s it. It may sound simple, but someone who has learned to excel in the world of thought and intellect many times have done so to overcompensate for a lack of emotional skill. Maybe some emotions, or all of them, were not encouraged or even accepted in their family, maybe no one thought them how to handle their emotions (it’s a skill, as you remember) or maybe they someway along the path of life decided it hurts to much and started avoiding everything that involves emotional risk, such as love.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard you try, your emotions won’t leave you alone. They will haunt you and nag at you until you give them their full attention. And then they will leave.
That’s the irony. I spent so much effort trying to avoid my emotions, but when I learned how to feel them, I realized it was quite effortless. At least in comparison. It sure was uncomfortable, sometimes even painful, but oh how sweet it is when a negativa feeling leaves the body – and is does as soon as I give it my full attention. Which was, paradoxically, the only thing I was not willing to do before to, so I did everything else but that.
And as we all know, doing everything but the one thing that works, is pretty exhausting…