Lunar Emotions - The Way of Phi in Practice -

Emotions, like the moon, reflect light

Dear friend,

'The days between' or 'between the days' is the Swedish name for this time of the year; the days between Christmas and New Year.

These days the tempo is often slow.

The crescendo leading up to the Yule celebrations has erupted in a final forte fortissimo and then abated into a mild piano.

And so, at long last, there is time for reflection. Sometimes even for stillness.

Not for all, of course. Some people never seem to miss a chance to be active. Many shops have long since had special sales during these days, but even so, there is some kind of tacit mutual understanding to slow down – at least a little.

Yesterday, as I took my usual walk in the beautiful winter weather, I met an unusual number of people who all seemed happy to see me, as we greeted each other with smiles and mutually encouraging nods.

Perhaps it was the sunshine:

Or perhaps the clear blue sky:

Or perhaps it was this collective sense of having achieved something important together.

On a symbolic level, that's precisely what we had!

Remember the winter solstice, a week earlier, when the light was all but gone? The three days of darkness that followed? And then, on the third day, the light was born anew!

This process of death and rebirth is a common theme in most if not all mythologies. It's a theme that resonates deeply with the realm of archetypes in the collective unconscious.

And so, here we are: The light was reborn, once again.

And thus we rejoice, both as a collective and on an individual level.

We did it!

What a joy. What a joy indeed. And joy is one of many emotions that tend to come up in our lives, but perhaps especially so at this time of the year. Spending time with loved ones – or alone – many emotions come, some pleasant and some painful.

Emotions and emotional maturity

This past week has stirred many emotions in me.

Without going into all the details, I have been exposed to at least three people coming at my rather vehemently with outbursts of anger. In all three situations the other person seems to have felt that this was an appropriate reaction to something that I had done, or refrained from doing.

Now, I both understand and sympathise when my actions stir emotions in others. Indeed, emotional reactions are commonplace. However, for emotional maturity, we need to rise above the reactive and become reponsive. What does this mean?

Reacting and responding

When we are reacting to something, we are behaving as a consequence and don't really have a say.

We might act out: Person A hits person B, to whom this hurts and therefore person B screams, and perhaps immediately hits person A back.

One thing leads to another, and then perhaps to a third and even a fourth. And nowhere does person B feel responsible, for B is merely reacting to something that has happened to them.

This shying away from responsibility is a typical hallmark of reactive behaviour and something worthy trying to notice in oneself (!).

Another type of reactive behaviour, which might be even more difficult to discern, is when we turn the reaction inwards.

Perhaps we have learned that it is wrong to scream or hit back, so when hit, we push down the anger or frustration. This may look like we are not reacting, however, what happens is that we damage ourselves instead. And sooner or later the consequences of this will come and they are often dire.

Coming out of this type of behaviour often requires learning to set healthy boundaries – again – for oneself. In other words, it is not about trying to control others, so that one is not exposed to whatever it was that felt frustrating. Rather, it is about recognising what is me and what is the other person.

And in either type of situation, what is of paramount importance is to actually feel the emotions.

This feeling is what is required for emotional maturity:

First of all, we need to feel our emotions as fully as possible. No matter how unpleasant they are. In both of the reactive scenarios above, we did not actually feel our emotions fully. What happened was that there was an unpleasant feeling that we were not capable of feeling fully. Instead, we did something to get rid of the unpleasantness.

In the first situation, we projected it outwards. This typically leads to unpleasant feelings for other, but eventually also for ourselves, as we will probably feel shame or remorse. And also, the root cause of the unpleasantness hasn't really been affected, because that still resides deep inside of ourselves (for more on the deeper nature of emotions, triggers and the way to work with them, see my book The Way of Phi).

In the second, we pushed it inwards. This hurts ourselves, but it is usually also detrimental to our relations and thus impairs our availability to relate to others.

And in neither case did we make space for the emotions to be felt fully.

Now, why would we do that?

Because feeling emotions can be very painful. Uncomfortable. Messy.

Therefore, this requires firm and deliberate effort.

And a lot of compassion with ourselves.

And often also with others.

Emotional maturity is advanced work.

And it is important work.

Probably one of the most important things to focus on right now.

The moon and emotions

 

What about the moon, then?

Well, while the moon and the sun are roughly the same size in the sky (sometimes the sun is slightly bigger and other times the moon is slightly bigger, hence we get both total and annular (ring-shaped) solar eclipses), they are very different types of astronomical bodies.

The sun is a star which emits light, whereas the moon reflects it.

Emotions are like the moon and incidentally, the moon is often used to symbolise emotions. Why is this?

We can view emotions as reflections. They reflect how we feel about something. For example, someone says something nice and we react by feeling a happy emotion. Or someone says something insulting and we react by feeling an angry emotion. Or perhaps someone jumps at us, and we react by feeling an emotion of fear.

Now, we might be aware of the emotional response and we might not – just as we might be aware of a physical sensation when a cat jumps into our lap, but not notice a mosquito landing on our head – until it pierces our skin.

If we are not aware of our emotional reaction, then our ensuing behaviour will probably remain automatic. For, even if we are not aware of our emotions, they are still there, just as on some level the skin registers the mosquito that we are not conscious of. And if we are not aware of our emotions, they run on auto-pilot, in effect rendering us enslaved to their influence.

However, to the extent that we are aware of our emotional reactions (sadness, anger, fear, boredom etc.) we can choose to respond.

This is a pivotal moment when we can come out of our automatic reactive behaviour and start feeling our emotions.

And then we can choose how to respond. Perhaps responding by silence. Perhaps responding by kindness. Or firmness. Or something else.

Putting it into practice

So, how did I actually respond to the three aforementioned verbal assaults? Or did I, in fact, react?

In all three cases, I would say that there was a mix of reactive and responsive behaviour.

I did notice emotional reactions, which were strong and unpleasant.

I stopped and felt what was going on to the best of my capacity. In other words, I didn't just retaliate or push down.

In the first situation, which was a conversation with one other person over the phone, I felt that there was at least some sense of reciprocity. This offered an opening to converse about what was going on with the other person in the moment, which I did. However, at times I also felt triggered, succumbed to reactive behaviour and acted out for a while, before finding my bearings again. Thanks to the meta communication, i.e. talking about our conversation while having it, I felt that this interaction was the most constructive, which was later confirmed by the other person as well. Therefore, even though it was painful, I felt that this conversation lead to a better relation to this person.

In the second situation, things happened quite suddenly, and there were others present. Out of consideration I veered towards pushing down, rather than acting out. In this situation, I did try to communicate with the other person, but did not feel that there was much opening for listening to and hearing my perspectives. Therefore, this interaction made my relation to this person worse.

In the third situation, finally, the conversation was in written form via SMS. I gave myself ample time to sit with the emotions before responding, and felt that I did maintain my balance throughout the interaction. I felt that this assault was the most harsh as well as the most uncalled for. When I later asked the other person whether he would be interested in receiving feedback on his communication, the reply was negative. So there was thus no opening at all for listening or hearing my perspectives. This interaction made my connection to this person much worse.

Listening and feeling heard

As much as emotions are a personal responsibility, there is something to be said for listening and for feeling heard. Especially when the emotions are challenging, this can do wonders, both to the individuals involved, but even more so to the relation between the individuals. This I experienced in the first situation, but not in the second and the third.

Conclusion

Emotional maturity doesn't happen overnight. And so far, I have met very few, if any, who are fully emotionally mature. However, it is definitely possible, over time, to progress and become more responsive (and thus responsable) and less reactive.

And the feeling of emotional maturity is quite sublime. Even if it only comes in short glimpses, it offers great relief.

And as with anything, practice makes perfect.

And the good thing is that there are plenty of opportunities to practice.

What are your perspectives on emotions?

Are you interested in emotions?Do emotions scare you?

Who can you talk to about emotions? Anyone? Noone?

Are you emotionally aware or even mature – or perhaps not so much...?

– I'd love to know!

Click here to send me an email.

With gratitude,

Christopher