I Don't Know What To Do With An Emotion.

[Sleepwalker]

I really don't know whether I should classify this topic in the "serious emotional problems" section or not. I don't know if it's a serious emotional problem, although it may be. I just know that I honestly need to get this out of my system and get some help if possible.

First, I'd like to mention that I've got some outstanding drawing and writing skills, but at the same time I think of myself as extremely neurotic, dysfunctional, if not even asocial. I'm only 18, but I have regular existential crisis that I don't see any of my friends having. Not just my friends, but really I don't see anyone having it in real life except on the Internet. Most of the time I feel hyper-aware of my surroundings, of the negativity in the atmosphere when a "toxic" person comes into the room, the tension and the emotions hit me and run over me like a train, and I'm constantly judging other people (and myself) for living our lives so unconscioussly. Every day I see so many people waisting their lives, waisting it in petty relationships, in eating junk-food, in cheap stimulation etc etc... I see them, I see that all of this doesn't bother them at all. And it kind of really hurts me to watch this. 

I tend to connect those issues with the fact that I'm a very artistic person and that many famous artists were this way. The problem is, I feel so alone in all this. I don't want to say that there is nobody with whom I could share my thoughts. I tried to talk about this and I found out that I'm very good at expressing myself when I want to. I don't have a problem with that, but honestly there is nobody who could understand what I'm going through. I talked to my mother. She doesn't seem to have any special opinion on this, she just listened and looked very confused, almost scared. She probably thinks that something is terribly wrong with me and she's afraid, but doesn't want to hurt my feelings and tell me that I've got a serious problem. I talked to my best friend, too. I think that she's trying to understand me really, really hard, but she looks similarly confused and scared every time I try to start this topic. And nobody has a clue how to help me, except that they tell me that I'm just imagining all these things, that I should stop focusing on them and live my life like everybody else does. But honestly, I can't. I don't know what would be more terrible for me, to stay this way or to be like everyone else. Even if I wanted to be "normal", I wouldn't be able to stop the emotions and thoughts that hit me so hard. I feel horribly labile and restless all the time, like my brain works and thinks and feels constantly, absolutely 100% all of the time. It's a monkey mind, the most crazy you could possibly imagine.

Surprisingly, my meditation is pretty calm and relaxing most of the times. But as soon as I'm over and come back into the real world, it's like the meditation hasn't ever done anything for me, like I'm waisting my time (I'm meditating for more than a year now). Also, I want to mention that I'm not depressed. I don't know how I'm not after all of this what I just mentioned, but I kind of manage to deal with my situation and function normally. But still, when for example, a strong emotion hits me, I simply don't know what to do with it. Should I let myself feel it? What does it even mean to allow yourself to feel an emotion? Does it mean that I'm allowed to cry if I feel like it? That I'm allowed to yell at somebody who got on my nerves?

This isn't even 1% of all what I could say about this. I'm not even sure what advice I should expect. I just want to know, does anybody feel the same, and how does he/she deal with it. If you can come up with any advice or insight why, I would appreciate it, too. Also, if you think that this should be moved in the "serious emotional problems" section, please go ahead and move it. Thanks in advance  

[Study]

 

 

 

Hope these videos give you some insight.  

[Catanio]

@MelanieWalker I can really relate to this post. I'm curious as to what kind of meditation you practice? 

[Argue]

@MelanieWalker

read this in its entirety. Wow. It's crazy.. I'm the same way. Seriously. Not 100% but I am. 

I feel alone in this world, too. No one at my job understands me, I get furious watching fat people on the train eat their life away, kids spending their money on Jordan's every weekend. There's more.. I teach my coworkers to save their money and stop frivolous spending but they don't. The list goes on.

im very passionate about self-development and money mastery, but no one around me is on my level. They don't think like me. They're more concerned about Instagram and Worldstar. They care about Kim Kardasian's new emoji app over a good classical book. 

But... I'm learning. Right now I'm reading the book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People" By Dale Carnigie. It's teaching me so many fundamentals. 

I've  learned not to judge or criticize but to judge and criticize yourself first. I've learned that if you teach a man, he can't do things on his own. He needs to learn on his own. Like Benjamin Franklin says "I will speak ill of no man". And a whole bunch more. 

Dale talks about instead of trying to change others, work on improving yourself first. 

Like Confucius said, "don't complain about the snow on your  neighbors  roof, when your own doorstep is unclean." 

So yeah, I think the key is to be understanding and accepting. Don't feel so disdained at the world, try to understand it and be more accepting. It's working for me and I'm a happier person. It's like magic.

Be yourself. It takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving. 

Speak about the good things you see in people. For example, on the train, I see that people are grateful to afford an iPhone enjoying a nice game of subway surfers. It makes me happy and grateful that Steve jobs created a tool to bring joy to everyone. It's all perspective... I look at things in a positive way. You might not understand be but don't worry, you're a smart person. I suggest to get the book and follow it.  

[JeffR1]

@MelanieWalker You may wish to check out a thread over on the Dating, Relationships, Sexuality page entitled: 'Is There Such A Thing As An Empath, I Think I'm One, Just Realising It'. Perhaps something in there resonates with you in terms of the emotions you feel to do with others.

To some extent, I can relate to your situation. I find also that I don't really have many people I can talk to. That's okay, some people are just not open to it - I learned that after a while! And, I think, 'that's okay, I'm on my journey and they are on their's'.

I can also relate to people wasting their time and getting caught up all manner of things. I tend to be more able now to be less judgemental and things don't get to me as much. I still find myself looking at someone and a judgemental thought comes into my mind. But, I am now more able to quickly realise, acknowledge and release that judgement.

It certainly is worthwhile going deep within to investigate whether there is something contributing to how you feel and relate. 

I found out at the age of 47 that I was a surviving twin! I found out during a session of Neuro Emotional Technique (NET) with my chiropractor. My parents didn't even know. But, there is so much about life we don't know. Knowing that at conception there was twin with me helps to explain so much about my life to date. And, this knowledge has helped me in so many ways on my journey. Best wishes.

[Guest]

Speaking about Steve Jobs. Imagine that Steve Jobs wouldn't be so passionate about the iPhone if he was bitching about the behaviour of others. He wouldn't be able to focus properly on creating a device that is not the alpha and omega right now on the smartphone market, but it was a milestone back then and inspired many companies to create similar devices and now this industry is a freakin gold digging machine and also a revolution for how we use a computer nowadays.

I have the same thoughts about wasting money and eating healthy and stuff. But this is something that I decided to believe in. And other people can do what ever the fuck they want to. The moment I try to interfere with other peoples life choices, I drain energy from my own path and the path of the others. Who knows. Maybe it is us who interfere the path of the next Steve Jobs. We really have to become one with our own path and also find inner peace in it. If we want to inspire others to go our own way then we don't have to advertise it. They have to stumble upon our path or intentionally search for it.

[Sleepwalker]

@Pinocchio Yes this is very helpful, thank you  but there is something on this technique that really bothers me. If I really commit to stay true to this, what about the people around me who will see me just "feeling my emotions" and think that I'm probably carzy? Society usually tends to tell us to "stay strong", to not show our pain and weakness to other people. It tells us always to remain positive and cheerful around others. Even my family members get annoyed very very easily if I cry in front of them. It's not rare that I got beaten up for expressing a negative emotion or crying in my childhood. So, what do you suggest, should I continue to feel my emotions regardless of how they will manifest on me and affect my surroundings? Or should I "save" them for later, until I'm somewhere alone and where nobody can judge me for having those emotions?

@Study Thank you for the suggestions, much appreciated  

@Catanio  I don't remember what this meditation technique is called, but it's the one where you release your thoughts and pretend that you don't exist. This works great for me, because when I pretend that I don't exist and forget who I am, I don't feel any suffering. It's like pure magic, although it's just 30 mins of peace in my day. After the meditation, unfortunately I'm always back at where I was.

I tried the "do nothing" techinque too, but I never felt the "short window of peace" of which Leo was talking about. The monkey chatter just keeps going on and on in my mind, constantly, through the whole meditation. 

@Argue Thank you I will keep this on my mind and try to find more positive things in my day to day life  

@JeffR1 Good to hear that an adult and wise person can resonate with this and deal with it in such a mature way. Thank you, I will work on this.

@wasabelll Yeah that's very very true. I kind of always knew that... but I guess that we have to be reminded sometimes, don't we  Thank you very much.

Edited March 2, 2016 by MelanieWalker

[Lynnel]

On 1/3/2016 at 0:33 AM, MelanieWalker said:

 

First, I'd like to mention that I've got some outstanding drawing and writing skills, but at the same time I think of myself as extremely neurotic, dysfunctional, if not even asocial. I'm only 18, but I have regular existential crisis that I don't see any of my friends having. Not just my friends, but really I don't see anyone having it in real life except on the Internet. Most of the time I feel hyper-aware of my surroundings, of the negativity in the atmosphere when a "toxic" person comes into the room, the tension and the emotions hit me and run over me like a train, and I'm constantly judging other people (and myself) for living our lives so unconscioussly. Every day I see so many people waisting their lives, waisting it in petty relationships, in eating junk-food, in cheap stimulation etc etc... I see them, I see that all of this doesn't bother them at all. And it kind of really hurts me to watch this.

I love how everyone is missing the real problem.

Dear @MelanieWalker. Have you ever looked trough your window, and felt like : What are all those retards doing?

I would expect yes. That's called being gifted. ( At least in Europe).

I personnaly would refuse to suffer because of other people. No, seriously. Why are you doing this to yourself ? Cut it out. People do what they want. Don't care about them. Only on a logical level. But still. I cut all empathy because...well... it was bothering me, and I come first above everything. And if I wanna see any changes in this world, well, I have to handle my own shit.

So do yourself a favour. Stop caring about the pain in the world and all the stuff that is out of your reach and you have no control over.

Also, for the love of god, don't create a identity out of it. Consider it as not being able to master your own psychology and abilities. Being sensitive is simply a power and you should not be a slave to it. And it requires quite some experiences to be able to live with it normally

TLDR : get as much egocentric as you can and once you have gotten less fragile you won't experience this problem anymore.

 

 

[Sleepwalker]

@Pinocchio When I sit down to "feel a feeling", the first thing that catches my attention are the sensations in my body. For me, they're almost always somewhere in the core, in the chest or stomach. I personally perceive them as the feeling itself, because when I pay attention to them APART from the thoughts that probably created them... I realized that they are really nothing but some weird tensions and knots in my body. I mean, when I look at them apart from everything, apart from my current psychological state and from what causes them, their existence absolutely doesn't bother me at all. To be objective and real, they don't cause me physical pain, not even mental if I look at them for what they are. Earlier, my brain used to trick me that they will hurt me in some way, or at least, that I'm not supposed to have those feelings, that normal people don't experience so many of them as I do etc. Because of this I always considerd my negative emotions as bad. As time passed I realized that realitiy is designed to be neutral, including emotions. They're not good and not bad. But society raised us to believe that they are. 

To sum it all up: if I'm having a negative emotion, that doesn't mean that the emotion is BAD or that I shouldn't have it!

That means that I can actually allow myself to feel this :OO 

Omg this was so eye opening. 

I usually "feel a feeling" when I meditate. It's a meditation for me. The first few times when I tried this, my body literally resisted the feeling. My body was shaking and cold shivers were going down my spine, although it was pretty warm in the room. But as you said, the feeling completes itself at the end. It's like it becomes bored of itself. The only time when the pain still hits me is when I forget to "feel the feeling" and instead of it focus on the situation for which I tend to think that it causes the the feeling. Then, when I feel anxious like that, I just have to remember: oh it's just a feeling. And it is there, but causes no more suffering. Resisting the emotion was what caused me the suffering, not the emotion itself. 

This was so incredibly powerful and helpful. Thank you so much for your help  

[Sleepwalker]

@Lynnel Yeah I know you're probably right  I guess I should let the world do it's thing and do my own. I will work on this. Thanks for the advice.

[Lynnel]

@MelanieWalker You're welcome and best of luck. You have all my support, I know how harsh it can be.

[Will]

On 01/03/2016 at 7:33 AM, Sleepwalker said:

Every day I see so many people waisting their lives, waisting it in petty relationships

Sounds like you feel like your wasting your life in your petty existance but your having a hard time accepting it.. i.e. you probably know you could be doing more but are not..

your obviously really aware,, which is great but your probably also beating yourself up because your judging your progress on external things..

You dont need to compare yourself to those around you..

trust yourself and bring to fruition what you desire.. trust it..

you also have to give others the freedom to live there shitty little lives.. Its nbot for you to judge.. 

the world is perfect..

 

[Will]

On 01/03/2016 at 7:33 AM, Sleepwalker said:

I feel so alone in all this

Points to a misunderstanding in how everything is connected.

You should probably understand this more than most as you have a visceral feeling of your environment..

the world is happening to you. you and it are woven together you are part of it all. you can influences the way you move throught it but thats about all...

For me its a feeling of constant buzzz even alone in the quietset darkest place I can find..

[Sarah Blakelock]

On February 29, 2016 at 5:33 PM, Sleepwalker said:

I talked to my mother. She doesn't seem to have any special opinion on this, she just listened and looked very confused, almost scared. She probably thinks that something is terribly wrong with me and she's afraid, but doesn't want to hurt my feelings and tell me that I've got a serious problem.

This is exactly how my parents react when I express to them a painful, negative emotion! It's like something about my ability to "feel into" my emotions and express them or describe them clearly is somehow frightening. I think it's because they've lived their whole lives suppressing their own emotions because they're too scared to face what's inside them. When they see me expressing these emotions and thoughts to them, I remind them of part of their "self" that's been locked up in a closet for decades because it's "too bad". 

At first, I was angry at them for being unable or unwilling to relate to or understand their own daughter, but now I see that their reaction is only a reflection of their own inner pain, not an accurate perception of me. 

I hope these thoughts help  you in understanding, and perhaps forgiving, the people who aren't developed enough to do the same for you. 

[Will]

@Sarah Blakelock  I think its perfectly understandable that we would feel frustrated and disappointed our parents have not got the tools required. But yeah Neither did there parents or friends. How can we honestly be annoyed when we realise that they had no clue of anything better..??

 

To go even further.. This actualise movement is ignorant too.. In fact we all are and always will be.. Its not possible to ever know everything there ever is..

 

THE ONLY THING WE HAVE IS TO CONSTANTLY CHALLENGE OURSELVES TO MOVE AND EXPAND OUR COMFORT ZONE..

And try not to believe that the path we choose is the right way.. How many dogmatic institutions have done that before.???