Oh the notion of “try harder” resonates like a familiar thud in my heart.
I’ve done my best to turn it around to a question - is my trying really me lying to myself about what i know to be true, yet refuse to or am not ready to act upon?
Thank you Asha ~ your house is the guest house I hope to inhabit in my own life too. 💛
I love the idea of the self being a house to explore and get to know. And of course Rumi nailed it. Each room, each experience, each person, each thought is a gift - a guide from beyond. This fits so well with how I've come to see this plain of existence - like a giant school where we get to study all kinds of scenarios and roles while cleaning up misunderstandings that keep us from remembering how truly magnificent and worthy of love we are. Thank you, Asha for sharing your journey with such courage and insight.
This is beautiful Asha. Congratulations to you, as hard as this may have been and maybe still is. My newly driver-licensed daughter is driving me up the Jersey Turnpike and I just read her this column. She needs this medicine too, and I am glad to be able to share it with her. Thank you. May you find the love who loves you for all of you beauty and all the rest too
I clicked on this particular post, because it was on October 13 - my 50th birthday. Dang, am I glad I did. Thank you for sharing! What you have written here resonated deeply with me.
The house analogy is so perfect! And look at the beauty you've created in your house - both body and actual house. One reflects the other beautifully. I think of the idea of 'non-attachment' when chiming the words, "Come in! Come in!". No longer attached to their opinion or your own judgements of self. I can feel the freedom in it. Thank you for sharing.
Lovely piece. I liked how you wrote about how this is connected to distraction from your ambition; the "stop fucking around" thing is great! Funny, but, yes! I am not a subscriber to your ambition thread, but for me I'd say the ambitions can range from the emotional/internal growth, to the external achievement thing (yes, all are related). Relationships that just don't work are kind of my specialty for both distraction from internal growth, and painfully achieving some; and distraction from my worldly work (which I desperately want to accomplish, yet time and again STOP myself from accomplishing, doing all kind of other painful things instead). Repeated (and too prolonged!) bad relationships end up seeming like some kind of self-flagellation; and self-flagellation really doesn't move you forward or cleanse or assuage guilt. It's just exhausting and painful, and a distraction from really growing and doing...more. (Internal and external work.) Thanks for the thoughtful, personal piece!
I read this and felt myself running to all my bookshelves. (OK, let’s be honest: I googled the definition because that is my go-to for most things.) And even with the definitions online, they all felt so generic. I don’t think I have a grasp of what emotional availability actually is — for myself and from others.
I mean, I’d like to say I can (finally) hold emotions without judgment and I try to work skillfully with them. But I also am just not sure. Do you have examples of what it looks like to NOT experience emotional vulnerability?
Hi, Amanda. I'm struggling with how to answer your question in a way that doesn't require me to get into the details of my most recent relationship, which would not be respectful of my former partner's privacy. I think you've partly answered the question yourself by interchanging availability and vulnerability. To be emotionally available is to be willing to be vulnerable, to feel your feelings rather than stuffing them down and denying them. Not everything prompts deep feeling, but if no big feelings are ever allowed to be felt or expressed then there's some walling off happening, some essential lack of availability to the full range of emotions.
And within the context of relationship you have to be able to communicate them, which doesn't necessarily mean using language but I'll admit that's my preference just because I'm both very verbal and have some anxious attachment tendencies. I want to hear the words and I like to tell people with words what I'm feeling so everything is clear. But there are other ways to communicate-- with touch, gifts, acts of service. All that love language business.
OK, I think I see now. I appreciate you letting me ask this question and for explaining. Your examples make me think of growing up in a religious home where everything had to be “fine” so that no one’s real feelings threatened someone’s faith in God. (Godly people are happy all the time, can’t you see?)
I'm pretty familiar with that sort of situation. In my home growing up our pacifism got translated into "no one is supposed to be angry", which simply meant that everything got stuffed down until it exploded.
I mentioned patriarchy because I think it really stunts men's relationship to their own emotional lives-- both what they're allowed to feel and what they're allowed to express. Anger is okay. Desire is okay. But tenderness? Sadness? Fear? Those are out of bounds for most men in our culture. Even if they realize it and work on it, there's deep enculturation that gets in the way.
Oh the notion of “try harder” resonates like a familiar thud in my heart.
I’ve done my best to turn it around to a question - is my trying really me lying to myself about what i know to be true, yet refuse to or am not ready to act upon?
Thank you Asha ~ your house is the guest house I hope to inhabit in my own life too. 💛
I love the idea of the self being a house to explore and get to know. And of course Rumi nailed it. Each room, each experience, each person, each thought is a gift - a guide from beyond. This fits so well with how I've come to see this plain of existence - like a giant school where we get to study all kinds of scenarios and roles while cleaning up misunderstandings that keep us from remembering how truly magnificent and worthy of love we are. Thank you, Asha for sharing your journey with such courage and insight.
This is beautiful Asha. Congratulations to you, as hard as this may have been and maybe still is. My newly driver-licensed daughter is driving me up the Jersey Turnpike and I just read her this column. She needs this medicine too, and I am glad to be able to share it with her. Thank you. May you find the love who loves you for all of you beauty and all the rest too
Thank you so much, James. ❤️
I clicked on this particular post, because it was on October 13 - my 50th birthday. Dang, am I glad I did. Thank you for sharing! What you have written here resonated deeply with me.
A belated happy birthday to you, Nina! I'm glad you found me.
The house analogy is so perfect! And look at the beauty you've created in your house - both body and actual house. One reflects the other beautifully. I think of the idea of 'non-attachment' when chiming the words, "Come in! Come in!". No longer attached to their opinion or your own judgements of self. I can feel the freedom in it. Thank you for sharing.
Lovely piece. I liked how you wrote about how this is connected to distraction from your ambition; the "stop fucking around" thing is great! Funny, but, yes! I am not a subscriber to your ambition thread, but for me I'd say the ambitions can range from the emotional/internal growth, to the external achievement thing (yes, all are related). Relationships that just don't work are kind of my specialty for both distraction from internal growth, and painfully achieving some; and distraction from my worldly work (which I desperately want to accomplish, yet time and again STOP myself from accomplishing, doing all kind of other painful things instead). Repeated (and too prolonged!) bad relationships end up seeming like some kind of self-flagellation; and self-flagellation really doesn't move you forward or cleanse or assuage guilt. It's just exhausting and painful, and a distraction from really growing and doing...more. (Internal and external work.) Thanks for the thoughtful, personal piece!
I read this and felt myself running to all my bookshelves. (OK, let’s be honest: I googled the definition because that is my go-to for most things.) And even with the definitions online, they all felt so generic. I don’t think I have a grasp of what emotional availability actually is — for myself and from others.
I mean, I’d like to say I can (finally) hold emotions without judgment and I try to work skillfully with them. But I also am just not sure. Do you have examples of what it looks like to NOT experience emotional vulnerability?
Hi, Amanda. I'm struggling with how to answer your question in a way that doesn't require me to get into the details of my most recent relationship, which would not be respectful of my former partner's privacy. I think you've partly answered the question yourself by interchanging availability and vulnerability. To be emotionally available is to be willing to be vulnerable, to feel your feelings rather than stuffing them down and denying them. Not everything prompts deep feeling, but if no big feelings are ever allowed to be felt or expressed then there's some walling off happening, some essential lack of availability to the full range of emotions.
And within the context of relationship you have to be able to communicate them, which doesn't necessarily mean using language but I'll admit that's my preference just because I'm both very verbal and have some anxious attachment tendencies. I want to hear the words and I like to tell people with words what I'm feeling so everything is clear. But there are other ways to communicate-- with touch, gifts, acts of service. All that love language business.
OK, I think I see now. I appreciate you letting me ask this question and for explaining. Your examples make me think of growing up in a religious home where everything had to be “fine” so that no one’s real feelings threatened someone’s faith in God. (Godly people are happy all the time, can’t you see?)
Thanks again.
I'm pretty familiar with that sort of situation. In my home growing up our pacifism got translated into "no one is supposed to be angry", which simply meant that everything got stuffed down until it exploded.
I mentioned patriarchy because I think it really stunts men's relationship to their own emotional lives-- both what they're allowed to feel and what they're allowed to express. Anger is okay. Desire is okay. But tenderness? Sadness? Fear? Those are out of bounds for most men in our culture. Even if they realize it and work on it, there's deep enculturation that gets in the way.
stuffed down until it exploded ... yep yep