Without knowing, the price of admission into this life is pain. Yet, along with pain we experience an array of emotions that bring to us the wildest of thoughts, sensations, unknown feelings and seemingly uncontrollable urges that are challenging to be aware of at the spur of the moment. As we have progressed, we have seen innumerable improvements to our quality of life and our opportunities to experience a diverse lifestyle have amplified. Despite this, a nagging sense of inadequacy and disconnection have become amplified by the constant access we have gained through technology. We are constantly launched into a coliseum of comparisons where we highlight our faults and relish in the strengths of others. This brings us to a surreptitious state of despairing anxiety from the overstimulation of achievements reached by others.
“I’ll never be enough,” our mind starts to echo as we compare each other harshly. We are being subtlety driven into an emotional numbness and a gut wrenching sensation of disconnection. We become blind to what our brain thinks is truly happening, we become slaves of reactions to the downward spiral of urges that inevitably guide us to avoid the pain we bring into ourselves. Unfortunately, our primal needs for survival lead us to deny, repress and avoid the awareness, expression and processing of our emotional experiences.
If we are unable to process our emotions, we unconsciously dehumanize ourselves. We tend to underestimate the power of language and how it shapes the philosophy of life that guides our actions, interpretations of events and our relationships with ourselves and others. We become one dimensional (de) humans, carcasses that recollect events, experiences, thoughts, sensations, urges and compelling narratives without an emotional component. Lacking in emotions, we fail to understand our motivations, the why behind our actions, the foundations of our identity, and the values that ultimately guide us in our daily lives.
Writing down our narratives and the guiding emotions behind them provides us with a unique setting where we can safely examine and reflect on the triggers and messages behind our emotions. In essence, writing connects us with the human we try to shun in ourselves because of how we belittle ourselves for not being good enough. We reconstruct the frames of reference through which we make sense of our lives. By comparing these constructed realities with the emotional meaning behind them, we can make sense of what is being perceived to be real—we can make sense of how we change as we interact with different situations.
Writing our narratives entails connecting with empathy and compassion with our own identity and visualize how it has changed and how it is able to change after reflecting and processing the emotional experiences we tend to deny in ourselves. It gives us the opportunity to foster awareness and personal growth, and a viable vehicle for others to use as a guide in their own self-examinations.
Through writing, we have the ability to elicit the sensation of inadequacy, the urge to throttle over others, the thoughts of not being good enough and the physical sensations that tighten our guts, lump our throats and quiver our voices. It is in that precise moment that we can dive into and increment the possibility of discovering the emotional message behind these simultaneous reactions—only then can we intentionally answer painful questions as to how we are currently living, investing our borrowed time and relating to others.