I couldn’t believe how intimidated I felt about such a simple exercise. As I sat among a group of new acquaintances at a 3-day immersive event, we were invited to take turns entering through a doorway at the far end of the room four consecutive times, each entrance grander than the last. We watched from our chairs as spectators and cheerleaders. The bar was set high by my peers, many of whom exuded confidence like royalty. Music blasted over the speakers, and Janelle Monae’s lyrics aptly described the invitation: “I don’t dance, I just float.” One by one, my fellow participants floated, strutted, and twirled, embodying their entrances like supermodels on a runway. I suddenly became hyper-aware of my dysregulated nervous system. Albeit illogical, the prospect of all these people I had just met watching and (gasp!) judging me was confronting. While I understood the exercise’s purpose—to take up space and embody self-worth—my inner critic told me I wasn’t safe, even after witnessing the love and collective support in the room. A “respectable” woman is understated and modest. I was confronted with my story, one that would undoubtedly keep me playing small if left unexamined.
This experience, which occurred at the start of a revelatory weekend of self-discovery with fifteen strangers, expanded my understanding of my emotional landscape. I generally consider myself emotionally aware, but I was humbled by how much I had yet to comprehend. Emotional intelligence is generally defined as the capability of a person to manage and control his or her emotions, and it’s comprised of various elements such as self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social skills. While self-awareness is fundamental, it raises the question: what do we do with said emotions? Unless we’re in environments like sporting events, concerts, or funerals where overt expression is accepted, we often bottle them up or use external stimuli to distract or numb ourselves. In reality, though, “control” or “self-regulation” only applies if we believe that some emotions are unwelcome in certain spaces or circumstances.
Instead, what if we accepted all emotions without identification with any of them? Consciously or not, most of us hold that certain emotions are “bad” or undesirable, like jealousy and rage (derivatives of anger) or disappointment and despair (offshoots of sadness). But as I continue my own personal development journey and coach others through theirs, I’m further convinced that while some emotions are indeed challenging, the distortion lies in the story we hold about ourselves in the feeling of it. An alternative and arguably more creative view is that they all serve as an electric charge that compels us to channel our inherent, creative life force energy. I learned last weekend that the greater the intensity of emotion we can hold, the more intrinsic power we can command. The opportunity is to decide how we perceive that charge and what we do with it in alignment with our values and principles. Unlike signals that relay the same message consistently (i.e., physical pain associated with an injury), emotions are not objectively negative or positive until we judge them or assign meaning to the circumstance that precedes them. Developing emotional intelligence is a starting point, but the next developmental frontier is emotional efficacy: the ability to experience the totality of an emotion. That is, in fact, a gift of the human experience. When we can stop identifying with a temporary feeling, we release it as a limitation and create more inspired choices. For example, sadness, which is the experience of losing something or someone we wanted to preserve in a specific form, can instead become gratitude for the beautiful experience of what was, recognizing that just like the emotion itself, nothing persists indefinitely.
Back in the room last weekend, when my turn to walk through the doorway inevitably arose, I caught myself checking out of my body as I prepared to take my first dramatic steps. I quickly realized, though, that I wasn’t there to stay comfortably the same or anesthetized to difficult moments but instead to stretch my emotional capacity. To simply play along and “get it over with” would rob me of an experience based on a past story of myself. So, at that moment, I decided to write a new one. To my surprise, that’s all it took; fear became confidence as soon as I made a choice. While I acknowledge that for this to become the default, it takes intentional practice and a supportive environment, but the exercise gave me a small taste of the freedom that exists on the other side of the proverbial door that I’ve shut on myself.
Credit and thanks to Kevin Walton @sourceradiance and The Light Beings community for a beautiful event, The Revelation
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