Inviting Emotions: Making Peace with These Strange Acquaintances

I am practicing making peace with these strange acquaintances called Emotions.

I remember the old narrative: it went like this.

“They are not quite called friends. My front door does not yet display a welcome mat and, surely, the living room would be far too messy to invite them inside, anyway.

However, every now and again, I boil the kettle in cautious anticipation. I think I am ready to invite Emotions to come visit but when they knock, I freeze. I create excuses: a forgotten appointment, an unexpected errand, potential Covid symptoms that I just couldn’t bear to expose you to- as much as I wanted to catch up—awfully sorry—maybe next week?

I watch out the window as they disappear out the gate; Grief, Joy, Anger and Hope are among them. Some of their cousins live with me; Relief turns up the blinds and begins to run a bath, but Regret lingers. She peeks through the gaps, her gaze following the retreating shadows, wondering if they are as scary as Anxiety warned.

I have resigned myself to the fact that my invitation will never be individualised to exclude particular Emotions. Either I block all of them from visiting, or risk exposing myself to the good, bad and ugly. My watchdog ensures that I do not take this risk- her name is Shame. As she growls at Fear and Joy alike, she reminds me that I do not need to acknowledge emotions; numbness is safe. Numbness is comforting. If I begin to protest, feeling that maybe I do want to meet some of the ones like Excitement and Peace and Confidence, she chastises me; “my dear girl … who do you think you are to possibly deserve them?”  

That said, they do not always wait to be invited back.

Love—she’s a curious one. Some days, she manages to get past Shame’s suspicious eye, leaving small gifts on the doorstep. I find flowers on my table and freshly cleaned windows, and I have been learning to accept these gifts. The air feels gentler when she has been around- I miss her in the way that you miss someone you have never known life without. No matter how long I have turned my face away from her, she remains gracious and patient. I do not fix the hole in the fence I suspect she slips through. 

Guilt wraps herself around my ankles and purrs, pleased at the turmoil churning within my stomach. Nothing is ever good enough. I feel like I shrink under her judgemental eye.

Responsibility is frequently in the garden, but rarely comes inside. Her nose is often found over my hedges. She will borrow my spade to dig up the garden bed, pulling out my seedlings and giving them away because, as she assures me, they’re in much more skilled and deserving hands over there.She is forever tapping on my window, pointing out where my efforts would be put to greater use. I am getting better at turning my back on her anxious expression, her wrinkled brow. A couple of times I have succeeded in redirecting her nervous energy inside, and she’s surprisingly helpful once she … how to phrase it … minds her own. 

Fear tends not to knock. I come home and hear her humming to herself in my rocking chair, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, the air crackling with tension. Her white knuckled hands wrap themselves around my favourite mug. I do not know what to do with her most of the time. I close the door and wish her away, but even still feel the eerie whisper of her presence. I do not know how to talk to her. It is when I find the courage to enter the same room as her that she becomes smaller and slips away. I will keep practicing this.”

Today, I am getting used to calling these emotions, friends. I realised I am no longer content with only knowing their names. Like a small shoot seeking out the sun, my courage is growing, and I will keep trying to open my door a little wider. I remind myself that repression kept me safe, but in a way that Rapunzel was “kept safe” in her tower: stifled and trapped.

I have unchained Shame from the doorstep. She stays nearby, but I think she is realising that she is not welcome anymore. As I try to become better at getting to know my emotions, I recognise that many of the things worth working for, are those that I must spend the most time working for.

Fortunately, I have discovered that Patience is surprisingly good company.

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Grief: How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
(Psalm 13:1)

Joy: Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart;
for God has long ago approved what you do.
(Ecclesiastes 9:7)

Anger: Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
Awake, do not cast us off forever!
Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
(Psalm 44:23-4)

Hope: So that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive
what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his
glorious inheritance among the saints.
(Ephesians 1:18)

Regret: “I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me
and has not carried out my instructions.” Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the LORD all that night.
(1 Samuel 15:11)

Anxiety: But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, so she came to him and asked,
“Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her, then, to help me.”
But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, but few things are needed
—indeed only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
(Luke 10:40-42)

Shame: You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else.
And my people shall never again be put to shame.
(Joel 2:27)

Fear: When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
(Psalm 56:3)

Responsibility: Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.
(Colossians 3:23)

~

Rebecca Hooper is editor at Metanoia.