I’ve known author and diabetes educator David Spero for several years, but I just recently discovered his diabetes self-management blog. I found his posts to be well written, and very helpful and informative – not just for people with diabetes, but for anyone with a chronic illness. And some of the posts were provocative.
In a post he titled “Do Your Emotions Help or Hurt You?,” David wrote about getting together with Mark, a friend of his who had AIDS and had nearly died from it but had regained his health and was doing well. David quoted something Mark said in their conversation, which was, “I learned not to pay attention to my emotions. I learned that emotions aren’t real. They’re just waves in your mind. They can get in the way of doing what you need to do. So if feelings can help me get from one place to another, I use them. If they’re in the way, I just let them go.”
David then described the ensuing discussion, in which he said that he trusted emotions more than thoughts and that we should put them to positive use, while Mark said that that if he kept going back to an emotion, like anger, that he was feeling, he would stay stuck.
David went on to say that he was beginning to think that Mark was right, that just as we are taught to notice thoughts and let them go while meditating, that we should just notice our emotions, try to understand what they are trying to tell us, and then let them go.
When I was growing up, there were far too many times when the painful and difficult emotions I felt were ignored, or if they weren’t ignored then I was often criticized for having them. That may be at least part of the reason why I disagree with what Mark said, and why I don’t think David should have changed his view.
But Mark was right in realizing that it isn’t healthy to keep going back to an emotion. So what do we do? What I have discovered is that we need to acknowledge our difficult and painful emotions, and then let the part of ourselves that is having those emotions know that we have lots of empathy for it.
When we do that, that part of us knows it isn’t being dismissed or ignored. It feels reassured, and it lets go of the emotion without being forced to.
Having a chronic illness virtually always means experiencing difficult and painful emotions. I think they can be a big help in living your best possible life if you learn from them and have lots of empathy and compassion for yourself when you have them. What do you think?
