Emotions Are Logical

I used to discount emotions in every way you can imagine. They didn’t make sense to me and I believed they were something I needed to control. They showed up at inconvenient times, they were unpredictable, and I didn’t know how long they would last. Worse, I didn’t know what they would make me do. I blamed my emotions for raging and screaming at people that I loved, and lost more trust with myself every time I did. Or, equally terrible, I would suddenly find myself crying in front of people (the horror!), sometimes for unknown and inexplicable reasons. I still struggle to cry in front of people, but at least I don’t judge it as horrible to do so anymore.

Since I couldn’t control my emotions, somewhere along the way I began stuffing and hiding them away. It became so thorough, that I began to not know how I felt. And if I did know how I felt, I didn’t know what it was called. I am still learning how to name my emotions. The problem with this choice to stuff away my emotions, is that it suppresses happiness, joy, enjoyment-type of emotions as well. The cost of this choice is quite high in my opinion. How is one to have a life full of happiness, when one stuffs the emotion of happiness and can’t even feel it? Doh!

In spiritual healing school, during demos, instructors would ask the client to identify their emotions, and even where the emotion was located. Initially, I found that confusing. So what if someone has an emotion, what use is that to know? But I watched, as my instructors used that information to go deeper into the issue and eventually, it always lead to important information. I was puzzled. Then Rumi’s poem “The Guest House” was read to me, – over and over and over and over again. To read that story and the tool I gained to help me sit with my emotions, click here. I eventually had the epiphany I was looking for.

Emotions, our heart, has it’s own logic. It’s just like the brain, our intellect has its own logic. Our heart has it’s own logic with it’s own messaging system. That’s what Rumi is saying to me in that poem. In spiritual healing sessions, or any kind of self-growth work, our emotions always have a message hidden away in them. I learned, ahem - the hard way - ahem, that if I don’t acknowledge, listen or address the message tucked away in the emotion, it just sits there. It doesn’t go away. It doesn’t just die or fade away. It doesn’t get less annoying or become less of a nuisance. It just isn’t insistent, until it gets triggered at some future time – BY THE SAME EMOTION. For example, if I have unprocessed grief and then I am triggered into new grief, let’s say for instance by the death of someone else, I now begin to feel the combined grief of the current situation and the old situation. WHAT?! That sounds so terrible! And, that’s the consequence of not dealing with my emotional health and trying to stuff it away. It’s like our physical health. If we neglect it and make unhealthy choices, eventually, the consequences get bigger and bigger until we can no longer ignore it.

I learned in medical school, some patients hear you when you explain the consequences of diabetes, when their blood sugar is just a little two high. And some hear you when their blood sugar is super high, and they don’t know how to manage it well to the point that they feel sluggish, tired and off. And some just won’t hear you until their second amputation. Shocking and yet we have to respect where people are at in their life journey. What they can hold and what they cannot in any given moment. And it’s the same thing with our emotional health.

We have to respect where people are at in their life journey.

What they can hold and what they cannot in any given moment.

I was not ready to help myself after leaving home and going to college. I wasn’t ready to take care of my emotional health in my post baccalaureate training. I wasn’t even ready while in medical school. It was inconvenient, nor did I have the emotional tools to do so. I didn’t hear it until I was desperate, basically until I was facing a metaphorical amputation (loss of my marriage).

Even though my worst fear of that time did eventually come to pass six years later, I gained much in the journey of trying to avoid it, including the motivation, tools and strength I needed to finally learn to take care of my emotional health. I attended spiritual healing school, and learned tools and developed the strength I needed to take care of my spiritual health. Along the way I’ve picked up tools and skills to help others take care of their own emotional and spiritual health. The journey has been well worth it so far, and it’s only been seven years.

I feared that if I felt certain, painful emotions, it might never end.

One of the things I feared in experiencing my emotions was that if I felt certain, painful emotions, it might never end. I feared an emotion could or would be endless. I was reassured by people who knew, and then learned from experience myself, emotions only “don’t end” when we don’t listen to the message they hold. When I’m willing to experience and move through the emotion, the emotion indeed does end, every time. I just needed to learn how to do that. It was a relief to learn and witness that reality consistently. I trust it now as fact.

The realization that my emotional world was logical, but in its own way, was huge for me. It helped me to respect the emotional world and to stop judging myself for my emotions. It helped me to become curious about what Allah has made in us. Why did He give us emotions? What are the purposes of our emotions? It must be important and a source of mercy if He gave it to us.

In Islam, the heart is what we are judged by on Judgment Day, not our minds or intellect, and our emotions are assigned to the realm of our heart. They must be very important indeed. I agree with what Rumi shares in his poem, that our emotions are messages for us. When I first decided to try that idea on for me, I learned to become curious about what the message was, and patient with its delivery. I used to spend so much time and energy judging, burying, despising and pushing my emotions away, that it took time to rebuild the trust with myself. Yes, I finally wanted to know and hear what my emotions had to say. It may sound crazy, because it would have to me ten years ago, and yet it’s the truth of my very human experience. So far, every emotion has carried a message for me. Thanks to my emotional and spiritual healing training, I understand how to interpret it and have the tools to discern what needs to happen for healing to proceed.

The Only Way Out is Through it

Our emotions are messages for us. I learned to become curious about what the message was and patient with its delivery.

So yes, I have learned and witnessed that emotions do have their own logic. It’s not just mine, but every client, classmate, friend or family member that I have supported through something emotional, I have found consistently that our emotions can hold the key to healing and the doorway to finding peace. “The only way out is through it.” is extremely applicable here. It can be painful, scary, hard and it’s always been so worth it for me every time. Moving forward, I am curious about one thing though. Can happiness trigger historical happiness? Or is happiness so pleasurable, we don’t hold onto it to trigger it? I look forward to finding out.

Peace and Light,

Mariam-Saba

Please feel free to leave comments with your thoughts, feelings and sharing. If you choose to leave a comment, or respond to someone else’s, please remember to be kind. This is meant to be a safe space. Emotionally or spiritually harmful comments will be deleted. For any clarifications, please read the post “Comment Etiquette”. Thank you for your consideration and please always remember, take what you like and leave the rest.

What Are Boundaries

Growing up, I often heard of the concept of a “dysfunctional family” but how was I to know if my family really was “dysfunctional”? As an adult, during the process of engaging in intensive personal growth work, I came across a list of unspoken rules of a dysfunctional family. I learned that the rules of a dysfunctional family result in the message: Don’t talk (or tell anyone), don’t trust and don’t feel. Here are some examples of how these rules are often conveyed to a child:

• “Don’t talk about the family with the outside world.” Unspoken: What happens at home stays at home. Along with: Loyalty to family above all else, no matter what.

• “Children are meant to be seen, not heard.” Unspoken: Wanting something is selfish. Having needs is selfish

• “Don’t ask questions” or “Don’t ask stupid questions” (when “stupid questions” is a nebulous, undefined term)

• “I brought you into the world, I can take you out of it.”

• “Do as I say, not as I do”

• “Don’t rock the boat.” Unspoken: be happy all the time. Negative emotions harm others around you. Behave as if everything is okay, all the time. No fighting is allowed.

• “Don’t upset your father/mother” Unspoken: we check and be aware of his/her mood, gauged at all times. Walk on eggshells.

• “Don’t lie” except if it’s to protect family.

If you grew up with a majority or all of these rules in your family of origin, perhaps the concept of boundaries is a new one. It was for me. As I shared in a previous post I grew up without any boundaries and it was painful experience as a child and an adult. When I learned there was another way to exist, I was skeptical and doubtful. Boundaries just sounded like another set of rigid rules. But instead, it’s allowed me levels of freedom in my life I thought I could never have.

Boundaries Are not A Wall

Boundaries move and shift.

Context matters.

Trustworthiness matters.

So what are they? Let’s start with what they are not. They are not energetic or emotional walls. When we build a wall around our heart, for instance, we might have experiences we make into secrets. Secrets we swear to ourselves that we’ll “take to our graves” – meaning we promise ourselves to never share it with anyone, that’s an example of a wall. Walls are immoveable objects. Context doesn’t matter with a wall. It doesn’t matter how trustworthy or untrustworthy someone is or how safe I am, I will not share this secret at all, ever. That’s an example of a wall. Boundaries move and shift. If I’m talking to a trusted friend or therapist, my boundaries are pretty close in, meaning I’m available to share many things: thoughts, feelings, emotions, experiences, memories, etc. I might choose not to share heavily my spiritual beliefs if my therapist feels it’s inappropriate to the healing space. So I keep my boundaries around my spiritual beliefs while still being available to share everything else. In contrast, when I’m talking to a stranger, I may only be available to share my current experience and thoughts about the weather. My boundaries, in this case, is much further out from me and my heart. I don’t share thoughts about work or friends. I don’t share my feelings about an experience in my past or with family members. Why? Because I don’t know how trustworthy any given stranger in front of me is. There’s no bond between us to sustain a deep, impactful conversation or navigate conflict in a healthy manner. I don’t know how available the other person is to support me, because they are a stranger. I don’t lean on making assumptions about them beyond what they’ve shown me in body language and presentation of themselves in the given moment.

Boundaries are not freely permeable

Living life with little or no boundaries is painful for us and can be painful for those we interact with, if they also don’t have effective boundaries

Another thing boundaries are not, is they are not something that has holes in them. I’ve heard of these kind of boundaries as being like ‘swiss cheese’ or a ‘chain linked fence’. Metaphorically, something that has holes and is easily permeable. An example of this: let’s say I have a friend that is sensitive to the topic of Mother’s Day, as her mother recently passed. In her grief process she acts out in unusual ways. She generally doesn’t start crying in public about her loss but if a stranger says something like “have a happy Mother’s Day!” she might react. She might even say something unkind from her place of grief. In this case, this friend has boundaries in general, but goes into ‘boundary failure’ because she’s struggling with her grief. She lashes out or reacts to other people, taking their comments about Mother’s Day personally, when strangers would have no reason to know anything about her or her grief, let alone any desire to cause her pain. This is an example of a boundary with a hole in it. No boundaries are perfect, because we, as humans, are not perfect. We have places where we slip and are simply unaware. But some of us have many, many holes, like swiss cheese or a chain-linked fence in our boundaries. Living life with little or no boundaries is painful for us and can be painful for those we interact with, if they also don’t have effective boundaries.

So boundaries have some kind of solidness to them and yet they are adjustable. The “distance” of boundary placement depends on who I’m talking to and the context in which we are connecting. Context matters because I could be talking to a trusted friend, but at a party where there isn’t a lot of privacy, versus talking in my living room where our level of privacy is much higher. If boundaries lack solidness, then that means I’m sharing inappropriately with inappropriate people. The degree of their lack of solidness, the more holes they have, the less it matters where I place them. I might place boundaries far out, such as with strangers, but it doesn’t matter if there are a bunch of holes that even strangers can get through with their questions and my inability to resist answering. How you want to imagine boundaries for yourself, whatever metaphor you might want to use at this point, is highly variable. What I commonly hear is people using metaphors like a wall of light, or a wall of glass. Something that is solid but not impenetrable or impossible to see beyond. Something that can be moved further out or closer in to the person’s being.

Where someone chooses to place boundaries is highly individualized. There’s no right or wrong placement. It comes down to how do you want to show up with different people and what are you willing to tolerate if you “overshare”. For example, I’m willing to share my life experience in a public way, in this blog. For a lot of people this would fall under “oversharing” for themselves. There are potential consequences to this choice and it’s up to me whether I’m willing to endure them. It’s not wrong for me to place my boundaries where I have, it’s my choice and I feel it’s worth the payoff that I receive from it (mainly the spiritual and emotional satisfaction of my service in the world). In the same way, it’s not wrong for someone else to place their boundaries further “out” and not share their life experiences on a public platform. Someone else’s ministry or life purpose falls in another category from mine and doesn’t require the same things.

Boundaries is a deep and rich topic. Once I learned and began practicing boundaries, I learned about internal and external boundaries. Then I realized I could break down boundaries into types: physical, emotional, intellectual, sexual, spiritual, energetic and financial. Or I could think of them on levels of the body, heart, mind and soul. I’m sure the topic will continue to evolve and deepen for me. And the above has served as a great foundation to learn and practice from. It was a difficult concept for me to learn and digest. It took a great deal of time and energy to put into practice. I often felt very tired from short interactions, when I had to hold “strong boundaries”. Strong boundaries were required when I interacted with someone I cared about that liked to push them or “test them”. It took real energy to stay alert and manage my boundaries in conversation with those types of people in my life. Some years later, it’s much easier and doesn’t require as much energy to maintain. Whatever the case for you, I know, if boundaries were something I didn’t have any of and can maintain to the degree I can now, you too can learn and develop healthy boundaries. And I assure you, I really believe it’s worth it. The degree at which I experience freedom in my life just continues to grow and grow and grow. I want the same for you too.

Peace and Light,

Mariam-Saba

For more about unspoken family rules, please see: “33 Unspoken Family Messages and How to Override Them”

For more about boundaries, please see: “What Are Boundaries”

P.S. If you’d like me to go deeper with this topic, such as exploring and sharing more deeply about specific types as mentioned above, please let me know in the comments below.

If you are nourished by what’s been shared, please consider leaving a tip for the artist. After transaction fees, tips will go to paying the artist for her work. Thank you for your consideration. Peace.

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Please feel free to leave comments with your thoughts, feelings and sharing. If you choose to leave a comment, or respond to someone else’s, please remember to be kind. This is meant to be a safe space. Emotionally or spiritually harmful comments will be deleted. For any clarifications, please read the post “Comment Etiquette”. Thank you for your consideration and please always remember, take what you like and leave the rest.

Building Healthy Relationships – The Relationship Between Love, Loyalty and Trust

I used to believe loyalty was something you either had or didn’t have. It was an on-off switch. I had to choose who to be loyal to and who not to be. I was raised to be loyal to family, no matter what. It didn’t matter if family treated me the worst any human could be treated, family was family. I thought I had to prove my love for my family by being 100% loyal. And I had to continuously prove it, not just once or twice. I had to prove I loved you by showing you that I was loyal no matter what. In this way I confused and interwove my understanding of love and loyalty.

I thought the rules were:

I have to love family no matter what

Friends, who choose me, I must be loyal to or they won’t be my friends anymore. So take the disrespect and harm, or lose the friendship and be alone. No other choices exist.

You don’t choose community because it’s based off who and what you are. You’re stuck with it, so deal with it.

Strangers/community can jump to friendship levels, because they choose me for mysterious reasons.

When I learned loyalty wasn’t an on-off switch, but there existed a range, I was blown away. It flipped my understanding of the world of relationships on its head. Truly. If it’s a range, then how do you know who to give your loyalty to? How much? What does “some loyalty” look like? What are the rules to the range? It was inconceivable to not be 100% loyal to my family “no matter what”. Yet it made sense. Everything else I learned about didn’t exist in black and white, why would loyalty be an exception? It took a very long time to break free from this particular training.

I learned that I can choose who to be loyal to, and I could use my own standards. I strive to prioritize my relationship with Allah above everything else. Okay, there’s a new concept, how do I live loyally to Allah? Next, I value myself. I have to because I live with myself all the time. Wait, isn’t that selfish? Turns out, no. That’s just the reality of the situation. I need to be loyal to myself to survive and to be healthy. Ouch – there was a lot of self betrayal to process and heal from, when I slowly learned that point. I can’t give love if I don’t have love for myself. You can’t give what you don’t have, right? That also meant learning – what is self love?

Okay, so I had: 1. Loyal to Allah. 2. Loyal to myself. Then what? Well, I learned about my values. I have values. Truth, integrity, kindness. I value good character. I didn’t know it but what was developing were standards for relationships. I’d never learned or believed I had a say in who my friends were. Because of my low self esteem and self worth, I believed I was lucky to have anyone as a friend. I was not taught I could choose my friends. When people said choose your friends wisely, I was like, “How? When I choose, they’re not interested in me back. Then what?”

How? When I choose, they’re not interested in me back. Then what?

I can’t control who is interested in being my friend, or even who is available. I can control who I spend my time with.

I can’t control who is interested in being my friend, or even who is available. I can control who I spend my time with. If it’s true, that I behave and think like the average of the five people I spend the most time with, and I have values and standards, am I okay with behaving and thinking like the people I spend the most time with? Or is it better for me to spend time alone?

Part of my healing journey involved joining multiple new communities. Each centered on some combination of personal growth and healing. All required self-evaluation, reflection and valued truth, integrity and kindness. What a wonderful place to start building a community of support! It’s amazing to me how Allah takes care of me every step of the way, I only need to keep moving and pay attention. Subhana’allah!

The model I use to think about relationships, is in the structure of a series of rings. Everyone starts out as strangers. As relationship grow and develop, the most trustworthy people end up in the closest proximity to the center. So every person I meet starts out as a stranger. Strangers receive minimum trust. They are placed in the outermost “ring” – basically outside the circle. Relationships that develop over years, where trust is carefully and slowly built, resulting in high levels of trust, end up in the inner circle. Basically my values, standards and their trustworthiness determines where someone ends up in my circles.

Strangely, love doesn’t factor into this as big as trust does. I love community members even though they may not be “inner circle friends”. And, I spend more time with people in my inner circles, so there’s more chance to develop love in those relationships.

The image reflects the trends I’ve noticed where general relationships end up settling for me. There are a ton of exceptions because when individual relationships grow they move into specific spots based on my values and standards, not based on the world’s definition of our relationship. Where others place me in their circles is irrelevant. Because their choices inform their behavior and result in how I’m treated. Since how I’m treated is inherently part of trust building, I don’t need to worry about what they think, their beliefs, or what they want are. It all reflects in their behavior and how they treat me. I’m in a better place to witness more accurately how I’m treated because of all the self-growth work I’ve done (I better guard against unconscious projecting, better hearing and seeing people as they are and where they are at, less fantasy engagement, less judgments and blaming behaviors, and so on).

Seeing all this, no wonder I couldn’t tolerate the idea of an arranged marriage. I didn’t even get to choose who I loved in the historical (left) set up. This made it so how I was treated, or how I felt was irrelevant. The other person’s character was irrelevant. My safety was irrelevant and dependent on others keeping me safe. I didn’t have any responsibility or power in the original set up.

Reflecting on this, I thought love informed trust and loyalty. I learned to love people who harmed me. The formula: Love => Loyalty + Trust did not work. It just wasn’t true. This rewiring has led to the formula: Trust + Respect => Loyalty and Love. Practicing this for the past six years has led me to a happier and safer life, so I feel more and more confident this is the right model for me. I am empowered in this formula and all my historical relationship have changed. I think they had to for me to learn to accept a safer and happier life.

Peace and Light,

Mariam-Saba

If you are nourished by what’s been shared, please consider leaving a tip for the artist. After transaction fees, tips will go to paying the artist for her work. Thank you for your consideration. Peace.

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Please feel free to leave comments with your thoughts, feelings and sharing. If you choose to leave a comment, or respond to someone else’s, please remember to be kind. This is meant to be a safe space. Emotionally or spiritually harmful comments will be deleted. For any clarifications, please read the post “Comment Etiquette”. Thank you for your consideration and please always remember, take what you like and leave the rest.