Beautifully written, Isabel. And interesting theory. Sometimes people force themselves to learn to let even their positive feelings through them without consequences (i.e., numbing out). So, in my experience, this is not always driven by the desire to avoid negative feelings. Some people are scared of positive feelings, they think they're too much and they don't deserve them and that maybe life will soon offset these positive feelings with some negative ones, because life is all about balance and compensation. I've been like this myself too. And I've learned to opt out, eventually, to open up to whatever comes. Loved this thought-provoking exercise. Thank you :)
I like to think of emotional width as a corollary of risk taking, i.e. to potentially receive the "reward" of euphoric feelings, you have to risk the pain of feeling really bad!
And my favorite metaphor for "feel your feelings" is the Devil's Snare in the first Harry Potter. The more you struggle against it, the more it strangles you. But if you let yourself be, you pass right through.
Love the post but my engineering/physics brain needs to say that Newton's third law is the one you meant, Newton's second law is force = mass*acceleration
"The big corollary to escapism that everyone loves to gloss over is that through numbing yourself, you take away the good emotions, too. You take yourself away from the love, the joy, the awe, the transcendent moments that come with being alive. When you choose not to feel your pain, you’re signing off on not feeling the rest of the emotional spectrum as well. " This part is pure gold !
Beautifully written, Isabel. And interesting theory. Sometimes people force themselves to learn to let even their positive feelings through them without consequences (i.e., numbing out). So, in my experience, this is not always driven by the desire to avoid negative feelings. Some people are scared of positive feelings, they think they're too much and they don't deserve them and that maybe life will soon offset these positive feelings with some negative ones, because life is all about balance and compensation. I've been like this myself too. And I've learned to opt out, eventually, to open up to whatever comes. Loved this thought-provoking exercise. Thank you :)
I stumbled upon this article,
Read halfway, watched the Movie and came back.
Wow.
Apt
Love the article!
I like to think of emotional width as a corollary of risk taking, i.e. to potentially receive the "reward" of euphoric feelings, you have to risk the pain of feeling really bad!
And my favorite metaphor for "feel your feelings" is the Devil's Snare in the first Harry Potter. The more you struggle against it, the more it strangles you. But if you let yourself be, you pass right through.
Love reading your posts. Beautiful
Do you have list of movie which touches on the same theme. Please share.
Thank you.
Love the post but my engineering/physics brain needs to say that Newton's third law is the one you meant, Newton's second law is force = mass*acceleration
This is beautiful, thank you for the great perspective.
Always lovely reading your posts❤️
Thanks for writing this. It's very nicely written, and just personally it was timely and impactful
"The big corollary to escapism that everyone loves to gloss over is that through numbing yourself, you take away the good emotions, too. You take yourself away from the love, the joy, the awe, the transcendent moments that come with being alive. When you choose not to feel your pain, you’re signing off on not feeling the rest of the emotional spectrum as well. " This part is pure gold !