A letter to to the Emotional Self

To Emotional Self,

Also referred to as Sensitive Self, Temperamental Self, and Crazy Self.

You have been told all of your life that your emotions are too big, too often, and take up too much space. You were told that you simply could not handle any criticism or rejection, and that you gave everyone around you whiplash from going so easily between one emotion to the next. Someone once even told you that there could be no reason for so many emotions, and that you simply must have been crying to manipulate them. You believed that there was something fundamentally wrong with you, like there was something broken inside you, spewing out emotions through the cracks in your seams.

I am you. Except that I’m not you, because I cannot access that same range of emotions that identify you. I am the logical, rigid, and pragmatic side of you. I am Logical Self. I’m not as big as you, Emotional Self, and I have much less seniority around here, but somehow I have been in charge lately. Only I am not that great at it. Something happened here that kinked the hose of emotions and seldom does anything flow out. I’m not here to get angry with you, because it’s really hard for me to get angry. I’m here to convince you to unkink the tap, and to let the emotions come out again.

I know what you’re thinking. “No way! If I’ve finally turned it all off, then I don’t want to turn it back on!”. I hear you, girl. I know what you’ve been told. I know what you’ve felt and how badly you wished you were different. I’m you, remember?

You see, the emotions may come out of a hose or a tap (often the tap is your eyeballs and you cry. Sometimes it is your mouth and you scream), but have you ever thought about where they come from? They come from a river deep inside of you. Not “you” the body, but “you” the soul. Your river runs though you, takes many turns and twists and pours out into every inch of who you are. It makes you a poet and artist. It is deeply tangled with your personality, your humor, and your intellect. You have always thought of your river as something that hurts you and gets you into trouble, but my dear, Sensitive Self, that reflects the people around you, not you. They have always interpreted the out-pour of emotions with the wrong lens. They just don’t see the world as you do. They don’t know that you have never once cried to manipulate someone or out of malice, and you have proved again and again how tough you can be when you have to be.

Someone used to say to you, “You go through four seasons in a day!” and that comment always hurt. An awful metaphor for how quickly you go from one emotion to the next. It invalidated your emotions. If your emotions are so fleeting, how could they even be real? How could they be reasonable and logical and rational and sound if you have so many, so often, and so big? They can’t be, Emotional Self, they’re emotions! Reason, logic, and rationale are what I am here for! But I don’t want to be in charge all the time, okay? I’m tired. I have other things to take care of. You’re supposed to take care of feelings and relationships and hobbies and identity. I’m just supposed to hold the map. We agreed a long time ago not to let Anxious Self get anywhere near the hose or make any decisions, but lately, with me having so much to do, she’s edged her way in and has started really taking over. We don’t want her to go away, because she has a purpose and is great at letting us know when there is actual danger, but I don’t want her to take your place.

Do you know what we someone called us recently? Stoic. STOIC. Does that sound like us? Does that sound like the girl who has always cried listening to sad songs on the radio? Does that sound like the girl loved her Christmas present so much she couldn’t speak, but instead sobbed? Does it sound like the girl who spent all her time reading, painting, expressing? This Self is so unfamiliar. Do you know what happens when you turn off the tap? The emotional river has nowhere to go. It builds up, but it has no outlet. So while people may see stoicism and someone who can handle anything without an outburst, what they’re not seeing is a river that was once vibrant and blue turn cold and black. And eventually, it seeps out. But when it seeps out this way, it is different. It seeps out as anger, anxiety, depression. This isn’t stoicism, Emotional Self, this is the absence of something so integral to who we are.

I think you’re expecting me to tell you everything you could’ve done differently, Emotional Self. You think I’m here to discuss all the problems being overly emotional has caused us. I think you are waiting for the criticism, and the shame and guilt that will follow. I’m not. I want to tell you that I like you, and I miss you. I think you are beautiful and funny and full of life, and please unkink the hose and come back to me for a little while.

Except this time, I will take care of you. For many years, you were on your own, weeping from the river with no bucket to catch all the water, and no faucet to control the flow. I’m here now, I promise. I was still developing back then. Do you know that the limbic system is developing well into your late teens and early adulthood? It takes a while for the part of your brain that controls motivation, emotion, and rewards to develop. So the drama makes sense! It was medical, Emotional Self! But now, we’re a little older. I’m a little wiser, and we can better manage the flow of emotions. You get to turn the tap on, I will control the faucet. But I promise to never turn it off. You will be allowed to have, feel, and express every emotion that we have. We are a team, girl. Emotional Self is empathetic, kind, and soft. Logical Self is here to guide you and help you place your emotions in the right bucket. Do we want to cry when we got the wrong bagel at the drive thru? Maybe not. But do we want to feel excitement, joy, and art again? Yes, so much, Emotional Self. We also want to feel sadness. Sadness with the hose kinked is just depression. It’s empty and numb and cold and really not for us. Sadness is real and tangible and discernible. I can work with sadness. I can’t even see depression.

When you shut that hose off, you thought you built resiliency from your emotions. You think that if something tries to hurt you, it won’t matter because you are strong and holding that hose tight and you won’t react. Maybe you won’t react, but you will still feel it and then it has nowhere to go. It leaves you unable to create, and to dream, and to take charge. The water gets muddy and cold and makes it really hard to feel good. You can’t block one emotion without blocking them all.

What I can’t promise is perfection. We are working really hard at learning to sit with our emotions, build resiliency and allow our Self to be vulnerable and real. It’s scary, but it’s not wrong. Crying doesn’t make you weak. Feeling shame or guilt doesn’t make you incapable. Pain is not illogical. Happiness is not fleeting. They’re just feelings. I will help you learn what to do with them. You just need to feel them.

With all of my love,

Logical Self