Transcript
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another daily gym. It is Thursday, February 1st 2024. Today, I want to talk about when we get called too emotional, or too sensitive or overreacting or overthinking or so many of these phrases that are basically saying you are feeling too much.
So, uh spoke with a friend earlier today and she had been in a relationship with a guy and, she told me she talked with him recently and said she really hated it when he would continue to do things that she had told him over and over. Uh you know, that they really bother her when he does these things. And she said he responded by calling her petty and unreasonable.
And the way that I interpreted that was that petty and unreasonable is often, you're feeling too much, you're thinking too much about it, you're overreacting. It's not a big deal, just let it go. Um Why are you so sensitive? So many of these phrases that often seem to say, you're feeling too much, please stop feeling so much with the caveat or with the addition of because I want to, I don't want to feel that much. I want to feel less. I want to close off. I don't want to know how I'm feeling. I want to kind of ignore these feelings. I want to be cool. I don't want to feel bad. Feeling bad is bad, et cetera, et cetera. And really just reflecting on what do we do? What do I do when people tell me? Can you just stop feeling so much? Can you just be a little more cool or a little more casual? Can you just stop caring so much? Can you just get over it? Can you just let it go? And as I say this, I get more worked up. I get more annoyed and frustrated and angry because I've heard these things so much in my life from so many people, um, often from women frankly, uh, from guys too, but often from women and I think there's this back and forth of. People leading us into more depression and more suppression and more misery and more numbness and indifference.
But for us to fight and go the other way, it can be really, really challenging, it can bring a lot of conflict, it can bring a lot of emotions. And here's the irony if I want to feel, uh and I get into a somewhat of a fight or a conversation with somebody, I'm OK because like we're feeling this is great. Now we're, we're feeling, we're feeling frustration, we're expressing anger, we're expressing sadness, we're expressing confusion, we're feeling, we're talking about it. This is what I want. But for the other person, the person who is wanting to feel less, the person who is wanting to ignore how they're feeling. The person who only wants to feel good things and wants to get rid of all the bad things. This probably drives them crazy because that's exactly what they don't want. They want silence most of the time. Can we just can you OK? Can we just never talk about this again? Which people say and often they don't say, can we, they say I'm never talking about this again? We are not talking about this again. This conversation is done and we are never having this conversation again. And for me it's like, but no, so we're just supposed to shut off all these feelings. That's not what I want. And I get into a lot of conflict with people because I fight and I'm like, no, no, but I want to keep feeling and they're like, no, but I want to stop feeling. We don't use these exact words. I mean, I do sometimes but other people are more like, no, just let it go. It's done. What's done is done. Let's just agree to disagree but, and not talk about it again or not. Think about it or not, it's going to come up.
I just think we've been so to use a, a big word inculturated. Basically, we have learned from our parents and our parents, parents and our neighbors and our friends and our teachers and our coworkers and our bosses and, and on TV, and our politicians just stop feeling so much. You know, let's just get rid of the bad feelings. Let's just have peace. Let's just have quiet and tranquility.
You know, I was just reading something right now because I was thinking, what do I do if somebody really wants to go in that direction and they're like, listen, I just want to be left alone. I just want peace. I just want quiet. Do I let them do? Do I let them go in that direction? If that's what they say they want, do I let them commit suicide? So I was looking online for you, you know, should we let people commit suicide or whatnot? And came across all these different quotes from people who had attempted suicide. And a lot of it was about wanting to reduce the burden on the other people in my life, wanting to get rid of the pain in my life. And some people would say, well, at least they no longer feel hurt. They no longer feel the pain. So, so much of the languages. At least they're at peace. A K A, at least they're no longer feeling pain. And I'm thinking, but they're also not feeling joy. They're also not feeling excitement. There's no bliss. There's no uh uh exhilaration.
So, are we, do we just want to get rid of all of that? Because if we want to get rid of all that, I mean, death is probably the answer to stop feeling everything. So why do we have, so why do we have such a angry reaction to bad feelings, bad feelings to sadness, to anger? Why do we have such, why do we fight against some of these feelings and, and resist them? I, I can't remember where I read it but I think uh someone said that suffering is not feeling bad, it's resisting the feeling, it's the resistance of the feeling, it's fighting against the feeling that we're having and.
Yeah, I think, I, I don't know. What's the answer? I don't know what to do. I just been thinking about it a lot lately because it seems so many people I know in my life have been in relationships, the relationship has ended because one person started closing off, um, and became more depressed or more hopeless or helpless and distant. And then the second person, they broke up and then they started to do the same. They started to follow that path. Oh, like this girl said, I, what did she say? She was disappointed in believing in him and disappoint pointed in herself for believing that it would work. And I'm thinking you're disappointed that you had hope. I'm grateful that you had hope. I hope you have more hope. You know, I can understand that maybe you're feeling sad and disappointed that it didn't work out. But for disappointed that you had hope. Oh, man, I wish more people had hope. Like I'm, I am excited for people to have hope. You know, at least in my life I want to have hope and get burned sometimes instead of thinking that, uh instead of feeling hopeless all the time and, and feeling distant and burned the whole time. I don't know. So, just reflecting on this idea of, like.
How do we respond? How do you respond? How do I respond? When someone says you're too emotional, you're too sensitive. I normally get pissed off. I normally get more emotional. I normally feel a lot more. I feel angry. I feel confused, I feel frustrated. I feel um excited to change their mind and hopeful that they'll see my perspective. Like there's a lot of things that I feel when that happens. Um But at the same time, I can see that this person really doesn't want to feel bad things or whatever, bad things are. This person really doesn't want to feel angry. They really just don't want to feel too much intensity in general. They just want lower intensity, they want to turn the volume down. And if you've ever been at a party where uh somebody or any situation where somebody wants it really quiet and somebody else starts making noise, the people who want it really quiet can get very, very angry. Um Typically the person who wants to make noise and everyone else is quiet is, not so angry but kind of uh like a straitjacket, kind of just afraid and suffocated and, and stir crazy and I think I've been that way for a while now. So maybe, maybe really, it's this idea of, do we want to turn up the volume on life or turn down the volume on life? Do we wanna have more kind of uh energy flowing or do we wanna kind of reduce it? Do we want to turn up the heat or do we want to be cool because coolness, scientifically as things get colder, um, they start moving less as things get uh hotter, the, the particles start moving more. Um So yeah, nine minutes, I'm gonna end this one. This is the last one for the week and I hope you glean something from this and would love to hear your perspective on it. So hopefully I'll catch you in the forums. All right. Take care.
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