Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 (Tek) 9/28/84 based on 9/17/84; site tektronix.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!moiram From: moiram@tektronix.UUCP (Moira Mallison ) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: emotions and choice - a personal reflection (long) Message-ID: <5603@tektronix.UUCP> Date: Sat, 17-Aug-85 20:43:38 EDT Article-I.D.: tektroni.5603 Posted: Sat Aug 17 20:43:38 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 23:43:38 EDT Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR Lines: 104 Well, I thought I had enough sense to stay out of this one, but .... :-) What convinced me to post was one article back a few days wanting more about personal experience and that was the way my thoughts were running anyway. Secondly, I find myself agreeing with some of what everyone has said, while not agreeing with all of what anyone has said. The last couple years have been very emotional ones for me, relatively speaking. The focal point was my father's death in June, 1984. What I want to share is my experiences around his illness, his death, and the mourning period, and how I used them to positive advantage in my own life. The cancer was diagnosed in May, 1983. He was operated on, and "they got it all". Six weeks later, there was a recurrance. The next several months were like an emotional roller coaster as we got prognoses from "We'll just do this procedure, and the probability is he'll live another 20 years" to "there's a 94% chance he won't last another eight months". Finally, not trusting the extreme "ups" and not wanting to feel the extreme "downs", I decided for myself, that They didn't really know --- that the variables are too complex --- and that I would just accept each day as it came. This is an example of choosing my reactions. I didn't lose trust that the oncologist was doing the best he knew how; rather, I accepted his limitations in being able to foretell the future, and thereby was able to stabilize within a more manageable range of emotions, for the most part. In the several months before his death, I began the grieving process. I felt sadness, I felt anger, I felt about to be abandoned, I felt anguish at his pain, and weariness at the seemingly interminable time it took. I felt all those emotions, (while continuing to be effective in my job :-), and I explored underneath some of them to find correlations with earlier times in my life when I had felt the same things toward my father (specifically a spiritual/emotional abandonment as I entered puberty). I was able to use the reliving of those emotions to better understand why I had developed reactions and beliefs around my rela- tionships with men, and to choose to change them. There is a mourning process, and it lasts about a year. And Pooh is right when she says there isn't enough room in this society for that experience. There were several weeks when all I did was go to work, and go home, shutting myself off, for the most part. I ventured out occasionally for doin's with close friends or family, but I didn't initiate at all (a role I frequently take on). While some people may have been concerned, I was absolutely clear that what I needed was healing time. It is curious to me that people see the human potentialists as cold, selfish people because it was eventually to my friends in the Bay Area that I had known when I was heavily involved in the HP movement several years ago, that I turned to when I decided I was ready to venture out again. Because there is a premise that I own my emotions, they don't feel as if they have to do something about them. They could be there to hold me while I expressed what I was feeling. Because they knew that I didn't expect them to fix it, they were comfortable with my feeling it. They didn't feel the embarrassment of impotency in the situation. With their support, I got through the withdrawal period, and started to tackle some of the underlying issues for the feelings of abandonment, and the fear of the despair - that which had been so deadly to my father. This stuff is like an onion; I can peel off the layers and find something more underneath. There were some very hard times - there was more sadness, more anger; there was terror; there was exhaustion; there was lightness, brilliance, sweetness, love; finally there is release and there is peace, and an acceptance of how I can continue to grow for awhile without it taking *all* the energy I have to give. Emotions? They are mine; they are not yours. Can you hurt me? Of course, you can....To the extent I trust you and open myself up to you, and allow you to have an effect on my life. And don't think that that comes easily. Trust is not a right, it is a privilege which is earned. (On the other hand, one who rudely turns down a request for a date -- that is where all this started, after all -- will have much less impact on me than someone with whom I have spent a significant amount of time. And the real question is: "how personal was it?" I can feel unappreciated by the way a person treats me, but if s/he treats me the same way as s/he treats others, than it's rather silly of me to take his/her actions personally. AND it doesn't mean that he/she doesn't appreciate me, it only means that he/she isn't showing me in the way I want to be shown). Controlling them: why on earth would I want to do that? Control the reactions, yes, in some cases. But if I do not feel the painful emotions, how can I delight in the joyous ones? Besides, there is so much to be learned from them. "No pain, no gain" applies to emotional and spiritual growth as much as to physical conditioning. But good heavens, if I'm going to feel them, I want to examine them and find what I can learn from them. Lastly, the one thing I cannot stomach is self-pity. I recently saw a play: _To Gillian, On Her 37th Birthday_ (time out for a quick review - don't see it if you can avoid it :-). The main character, David, lost his beloved Gillian on her 35th birthday, and is still moping about mourning his loss. His life will never be anything without her. Everyone else spends the two hours telling him he needs to start living again, but he has gotten stuck in the withdrawal stage of grief. And it is totally BORING. Even after having recently been through the cycle myself, I could muster up only a modicum of feeling for him, and that mostly the exasperation that the other characters were expressing. Moira Mallison tektronix!moiram