The Viable Alternative

I’m still digging as to why I’ve struggled and “just get by” financially for most of my adult life, and why, oh why, when success is just about to pop off in my life, something happens to sabotage it.

In the past two weeks I’ve come to a couple of realizations that have shed light on this matter both of which tie into me being disconnected from my emotions.

The first conclusion is that on some level, there’s some emotion that I’m unconsciously reacting to that’s trapped in my body causes me to underachieve, sabotage my success, and play small. I say “unconscious” because on some level I feel it, and react to it but I’m completely unaware of it.

The second conclusion is that in my particular case, there’s an emotion that I associate with success that I completely want to avoid so as a way not to feel it I keep myself struggling. In other words, in my mind, success means dealing with unpleasant emotions which in turn trigger unpleasant memories and thoughts, so I unconsciously run from it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Just like thoughts trigger emotions, emotions also trigger thoughts. When we feel an emotion such as anger, sadness, or amusement, and we don’t let it out but we suppress it to avoid feeling it, that emotion doesn’t disappear into thin air. As Newton said, energy cannot be created or destroyed, so, these suppressed emotions rather than disappear get stored in our bodies as pockets of energy in varying sizes.

Though these emotions are off the radar of our conscious awareness, as in we’re numb to them, they’re attached to memories which can still get triggered by different external stimuli, such as sounds, smells, events, sights, thoughts, people etc. which in turn trigger us to think in certain ways which in turn causes us to behave in certain ways that we otherwise wouldn’t had they not been in us in the first place.

Think about all the times a barrage of negative thought seemingly come out of nowhere that throw you for a tailspin and no matter how many positive affirmations and visualizations you try to throw at them they just keep on coming and coming. You can’t stop those negative thoughts until you deal with the emotions that are triggering them.

When we’re disconnected from our emotions, we’re at their mercy. Like a remote control, they control us in ways that we’re unaware of.

There was a case I read about recently in a book called “The Body Keeps Score” by Dr. Bessiel Van der Kolk, about a woman who was morbidly obese. She wound up seeing a doctor who put her on some ground breaking program that caused her to lose massive amounts of weight over a course of several months. Afterwards, she continued to exercise and eat healthily and got down to a shape where she got to be pretty attractive.

Yet, a year later, when she walked into the doctor’s office who initially started her on her weight loss program, she had gained all the weight back.

It turned out that when this woman was slim, a co-worker started to hit on her and expressed an interest in her sexually. The feeling of having someone interested in her sexually brought back memories of her being sexually abused as a child. To avoid facing those “sexual object” feelings, she started overeating again so she could be obese and not have men be sexually interested in her.

“Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
Proverbs 4:23

Because this woman was disconnected from her emotions, she was unaware of the underlying emotions she unconsciously felt that were driving her to overeat.

In a podcast I was listening to this past week, the host of the podcast, Tucker Max, best selling author and former writer of “fratire,” was talking about how he was mentoring several men on how to improve their dating lives by becoming more confident, whole men, which involved teaching them how to connect to their emotions. He mentioned that there was one of several men who started off with him was 300 lbs, and within a course of a few weeks, Max helped him lose 10 lbs.

However, guess what happened when the guy started to lose weight? He stopped showing up to his coaching sessions and completely disappeared. Why? Because by him losing weight, he had to deal with the emotions that were uncovered with him being slimmer. The guy’s eating habits were a way of distracting him from dealing with the stuck emotions in his body.

In the same token, there are tons of women out there who get in crappy relationship after crappy relationship, who complain on and on about how they always meet douchebags who are either unfaithful, abusive, insensitive, dishonest, insecure, immature or have no ambition. However, when a guy comes around that has it together who winds up sweeping the woman off her feet, the woman suddenly disappears or becomes scarce. The reason is because being with such a guy triggers her own feelings of unworthiness for happiness and being loved, and to avoid those feelings, she makes an excuse to either cut off the relationship before it can take off or disappears, or those emotions cause her to behave in ways that sabotage the relationship.

Because she’s disconnected from her emotions, she’s not even aware that she’s doing what she’s been doing. All she knows is that she has a bunch of reasons for what she does, not knowing that there’s a driving force behind them making her feel a certain way.

BTW, I’m not picking on ladies. There are many, many dudes who do the EXACT same thing with women, some of them I know personally.

Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Many of people’s problems is due to the simple fact that there’s an ocean of emotions lying underneath their awareness that they’re reacting to that’s running and ruining their lives.

Though women tend to be more comfortable with the concept of reconnecting with their emotions than guys because society doesn’t judge women for being in touch with their emotions whereas with guys it’s judged as “hippy bullsh*t” or being “weak,” I would say that with all the dysfunction going around in this world, being disconnected from one’s emotions is an ailment of BOTH sexes.

For guys who think connecting to their emotions is weak, I would say what is weak is running from your emotions because you’re afraid to face your pain. It’s also weak to be controlled by something other than you. When you’re not connected to your emotions, you’re doing the exact opposite of what you think you’re doing, you’re still giving your power away to them, and that my friend is WEAK.

To reconnect to our emotions, we must begin to take stock of our habits and patterns that are holding us back and sabotaging us, and take note of the feeling in our bodies that’s attached to them. The feeling may be shame, anger, fear, sorrow, discouragement, sadness, unworthiness, etc.

When we connect to the feeling we must learn to feel through them instead of avoiding them through one of our many distractions we employ to not feel them. Sitting with those unpleasant feelings, listening to what they’re telling you, and providing the appropriate outlet for them so they can drain like pus out of a wound will provide a channel for you to heal so you can live a life that reflects the desires of your heart rather than one that reflects your reaction to your disconnected pain.

This is The Viable Alternative.

Hope this helps,

Ike Love