How I see it is anger isn’t an emotion in the same way that happiness or sadness are emotions. Happiness and sadness arise from deep inner experiences of trust, while anger, at least from my perspective, is attached to the belief of rightness; trust and belief are distinctive, and their exploration is something that we will explore at another time. What I mean by, the belief of rightness, is that anger is more of a reaction anchored in the thought “(blank) is wrong!” That “blank” can be another person, a group of people, a country, a politician, or even one’s …
On love and agreeing
For many people, I imagine this blog post will be a difficult one to read. I am prefacing this post with that statement because I believe it is very difficult to look at ourselves, especially when looking at something as personal as how we feel loved and how we express our love. Love and agreeing are two separate relational stances, yet for many people, they are the same stance. Problems arise because the two are often conflated, especially during times of conflict. When things are going swimmingly between two people, and two people love each other, also agreeing with each …
On being wrong
We like to think of ourselves as holding correct ideas, the correct political ideology, the truest religious beliefs, or generally knowing the right way to do things. However, when we come to that visceral realization that, no, in fact, we are wrong, we can experience a multitude of feelings and reactions, most of which we would prefer not to feel. I am not talking about the being wrong in an external sense, where another person or a panel of so-called experts labels you as somehow wrong. That is another topic (on public shaming) for another time. This experience of being …
On tough love
After spending a week thinking about love, and thinking about how expressions of love can be twisted or broken, I found myself thinking about the idea of tough love. The term was supposedly coined by Bill Milliken, in his seminal work, “Tough Love.” The appropriately named text, published in 1970, extolled Milliken’s personal, if evangelical, philosophy that love is good and arises from a deftly authoritarian place. This concept of love sits upon the hardened idea that love exists to better others, so that they, themselves, can become good. This idea of love, and specifically of tough love, galvanizes another …
On saying “I love you”
I think I will offer my definition of love to start: love is the natural state of being with another person. What I mean by this is that when we are with other persons and we are in touch with our emotions, we find kindness, compassion, encouragement, trust, gentleness, consideration, and warm regard naturally arising for others. When we are with others, we can verbally communicate our feelings with gentle declarations, emphatic exclamations, and earnest descriptions, but only when we are truly in touch with our own feelings. Verbally saying, “I love you,” and how one says it, is an …
On accepting a compliment
There are a multitude of reactions whenever I give a compliment to another person, usually along the lines of genuine acceptance, a greedy grab, cold rejection, casual dismissal, or even a minimization to the point of not being a personal compliment at all. I’m talking about an actual compliment, a felt statement of appreciation and respect for another person, not empty praise, which does not truly touch a person’s sense of worth or their impact upon another person. Compliments are our way of reaching out to another person, holding our emotions, giving a place in our hearts, and acknowledging the …
On thinking about sex
I often think about sex, more specifically the complicated way we come to understand ourselves as sexual beings. I think about all the ways that we, as a society, and fellow human beings, talk about sex trivially even as it is sensationalized. Most people are comfortable discussing sex in terms of numbers, timing, and measurements, but rarely in terms of emotions and meaning. However, we must discuss the emotion and meaning of sex if we are ever to think honestly about sex. There are many ways that a person can run away from examining their sexual nature. A person can …
On saying “yes” to “no”
On saying yes to no I think of integrity as the internal place from where we find our own footing in this world. It is how we learn to stand up for who we are. It is how we learn to love ourselves. It is essential for confidence, conviction, and character, not in the sense of thinly drawn personal motifs and habitual euphemisms, but character in the sense of the impression that we leave on others and on the world. Our presence. Our self-worth. Our ability to love. Our footprint. Figuring out what we want is difficult. Declaring what we …