Yesterday I visited my friend, who is a mother of two kids: a 7yo boy and a 1yo girl. As it usually happens, visiting a friend with a baby turns into participating in babysitting and house-holding during the visit, so I took part in playing games and a delicate process of bathing. In the bath there was a toy volcano, which you could fill with a bath foam and imitate eruption by pressing a secret rubber pump on the side. The delight on baby's face, when the volcano suddenly erupted with foam was absolutely limitless. Her eyes and smile went wide, she breathed in with a sound of amazement - "aaaaahhhhh!" and her hands went dancing in the air, followed by legs and head - she was all happiness. When the eruption ceased (Mom's hand was tired), smile and eyes became curious, and when it continued, the amazement returned.
It made me thinking how different we are - a 1yo kid and a 30-something women. We are actually also delighted and amazed, but do we show it? Nope, or in a very "limited edition". A polite smile, a quiet "wow!" or "hmmm" is all we produce. Most of us lose our ability to be amazed or delighted somewhere in the teen age. Not many adult people sincerely express their delight at the sight of the magnificent mountains or feeling of love and serenity in the quiet and silent forest paradise next to a small flowing river.
What about pain? How often do we express ourselves when we fell pain? When we feel hurt and stressed out, or just plain simple physical pain? It becomes less and less appropriate in our culture to express feelings, even in the family, at home. Even alone.
We don't even express ourselves during sex, which is one of the most spontaneous, pleasant and relaxing activities at all! We are proud by our ability to be strong and suppress our emotions which is often mistaken for controlling them. We forget how to relax, laugh, cry, be delighted, sad or angry.
“It is a grave injustice to a child or adult to insist that they stop crying. One can comfort a person who is crying which enables him to relax and makes further crying unnecessary; but to humiliate a crying child is to increase his pain, and augment his rigidity. We stop other people from crying because we cannot stand the sounds and movements of their bodies. It threatens our own rigidity. It induces similar feelings in ourselves which we dare not express and it evokes a resonance in our own bodies which we resist.” ― Alexander Lowen, The Voice of the Body
Showing emotions and expressing feelings is expressing ourselves as human. Being human and accepting ourselves in our humanity (including the whole range of emotions we might have) helps to build strong relationships, cooperate, lead people, do business, accomplish big projects, raise kids, and most of all - be content with our life and be happy.
I am not saying we should express every emotion as it comes with all its might in any given place and situation. That would indeed be inadequate, but we should understand what we feel and let ourselves express the feeling arisen, either by talking about it sincerely or just allowing it to be, later, in a comfortable environment where it won't hurt other people.
Don't be shy to express happiness and delight as they come! There is no better sight than a sight of a person, amazed, delighted or simply happy and cheerful. It is contagious too, which means that by being happy and showing it you are actually making people around you happier.
Stop trying to impress others. Express yourself.
It made me thinking how different we are - a 1yo kid and a 30-something women. We are actually also delighted and amazed, but do we show it? Nope, or in a very "limited edition". A polite smile, a quiet "wow!" or "hmmm" is all we produce. Most of us lose our ability to be amazed or delighted somewhere in the teen age. Not many adult people sincerely express their delight at the sight of the magnificent mountains or feeling of love and serenity in the quiet and silent forest paradise next to a small flowing river.
What about pain? How often do we express ourselves when we fell pain? When we feel hurt and stressed out, or just plain simple physical pain? It becomes less and less appropriate in our culture to express feelings, even in the family, at home. Even alone.
We don't even express ourselves during sex, which is one of the most spontaneous, pleasant and relaxing activities at all! We are proud by our ability to be strong and suppress our emotions which is often mistaken for controlling them. We forget how to relax, laugh, cry, be delighted, sad or angry.
“It is a grave injustice to a child or adult to insist that they stop crying. One can comfort a person who is crying which enables him to relax and makes further crying unnecessary; but to humiliate a crying child is to increase his pain, and augment his rigidity. We stop other people from crying because we cannot stand the sounds and movements of their bodies. It threatens our own rigidity. It induces similar feelings in ourselves which we dare not express and it evokes a resonance in our own bodies which we resist.” ― Alexander Lowen, The Voice of the Body
Showing emotions and expressing feelings is expressing ourselves as human. Being human and accepting ourselves in our humanity (including the whole range of emotions we might have) helps to build strong relationships, cooperate, lead people, do business, accomplish big projects, raise kids, and most of all - be content with our life and be happy.
I am not saying we should express every emotion as it comes with all its might in any given place and situation. That would indeed be inadequate, but we should understand what we feel and let ourselves express the feeling arisen, either by talking about it sincerely or just allowing it to be, later, in a comfortable environment where it won't hurt other people.
Don't be shy to express happiness and delight as they come! There is no better sight than a sight of a person, amazed, delighted or simply happy and cheerful. It is contagious too, which means that by being happy and showing it you are actually making people around you happier.
Stop trying to impress others. Express yourself.
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