You're Just Too Emotional! | ULOG 11

I'd never expected this image of Tiger (who looked like she was baring fangs but actually was just opening her mouth to meow) to depict how I reacted at work today.

Except I unleashed it for real.

It was a hard hit for me, what happened. It's harder to hear the people who love me most telling me what others thought (she's too emotional, be careful), telling me what they themselves thought (you'll never survive in this cutthroat world, because no one cares at all for your feelings).

I felt slapped. Slapped wide awake.

It's one thing to disregard people who mock me for everything I do including my physical and emotional sensitivity, but it is quite another to disregard people who truly care for me, telling me that I have to change.

Really have to be less emotional.

Really have to not process everything emotionally and take everything personally.

The more they say, the worse I feel about myself (being honest) and I wonder, how will this ever pick up?

I guess truth and reality sometimes hurts. In such cases, though, ignorance isn't bliss. And I'm glad the need to change was revealed to me today with such clarity.

Clarity, like bright light in a pitch black cellar, blinds the eyes momentarily with the blaze... but once the eyes get accustomed to the light, it opens up a whole new world.

I know, this emotional intensity and sensitivity can be my greatest strength, if managed properly (the keyword's "IF managed properly"). If not, it's my greatest downfall.

Even today, though I regret what happened earlier, I could see more clearly for the first time that I am not powerless.

In fact, I wield lots of power, in the sense that my words and actions have the potential to affect many, for better or for worse. I've all along had the thought that I was just picking up on everyone else's emotions and baggage. But I just realised that my behaviour, specifically my emotions underlying these behaviour, have the power to affect others. It's an awfully humbling thought. It makes me ashamed to think that I may have used it irresponsibly during an emotional outburst (and I seek the Lord's forgiveness for that).

It's a good point to start from - this power and potential to influence - a good point from which to start taking responsibility and ownership for my feelings. There were only two paths that appeared open to me previously: don't feel at all or feel both the ups and downs, like some crazy roller coaster ride. Now a third one has arisen: not to discount the preciousness of my emotions, but yet learning to manage them in a healthy and acceptable manner that does not hinder me from serving God and doing good (which is ultimately, what I want).

After all the craziness settled into the dust, I took a walk before dinner along an usual path. (Actually I was walking along that same road that very afternoon after lunch.)

It was beautiful. I saw tall green trees left to stand majestically as dark guardians of the night unpolluted with city lights. There were no stars, but there needn't be. It was enough to behold the wonderful calmness of the night filled with cricket sounds, and feel transported to the countryside for a few minutes. I'd wish I could have taken a photo to show you how simply beautiful it was, and it really was, in all its unvarnished splendor and unnoticed glory - but all I could think about was how I missed the forests, and being back in nature.

I won't give up feeling for the world.

But I'm ready to grow, to manage this gift wisely.

This may sound a little funny, but I'm excited. Excited at how much more I can do when feeling is my friend, not foe. When feeling helps me to shine brighter, instead of casting shadows, into the lives of those around me.

When I feel, not as a victim, but as a

victor.