Totes Emots

Weeks 29 & 30, Midlife Journal Guide

The sky on my recent walking Donegal… those clouds matter, even when they’re dark

Emotional equilibrium.

So you spent the last two weeks thinking about your thoughts. Now you’re going to embrace your emotions 😅

How many times have you been called emotional? Or better still as women, “too emotional”? That’s because emotions are considered a female trait (while rationality is a male one). Growing up in a patriarchy then, it was a given that emotions were less important, less effective and less tolerable.

But having emotional intelligence is crucial to leading a fulfilled and functional life. Because the goal in life is not to be happy 100% of the time. I know, that’s what we’re taught in this western, capitalist society: if you work hard enough, be kind to everyone and be as good as you can be, you’ll skip through life in a field of sunflowers. But that’s not real reality, and the expectations this creates:

• if you find The One, you’ll be happy forever,

• if you stay a certain weight, you’ll be happy forever,

• if you juggle the relentless roles just right, you’ll be happy forever,

• if you be the perfect wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, colleague, you’ll make everyone else happy and therefore be happy forever

• if you figure out how to be ambitious and zen at the same time, you’ll be happy forever

wreck your feckin’ head.

So the thing we were never taught is that in actual fact, the goal in life is not to be happy 100% of the time.

The goal is to be able to navigate a wide range of emotions and experiences and stay connected to yourself.

Emotions are responses to everyday events and experiences and they help us prepare for and navigate life. They also are created from the thoughts you have. As you’ve seen the last two weeks of prompts, you actually have far greater choice around your thoughts than you thought you did. Now it’s the same with emotions. You have far greater agency than you imagine.

You can choose an emotion. You can even try to embrace an emotion and rather than become overwhelmed by it, look at it, and work through the why and where you want to go. I know. Sounds weird. But it’s amazing when you start practising, how quickly you can realise you can manage them far more than you think. We often delegate emotions into positive and negative bands. But to do that means you feel sad if you’re not feeling a positive one (a feeling) and bad when you are feeling a negative one when in fact, they all matter and they’re all part of living a full life where we lose, love, learn and laugh. The key is to learn to be comfortable even when you feel uncomfortable.

All emotions pass; the good ones and the bad. A Buddhist way of describing it is to think of yourself as the sky and your emotions are the clouds. They come and go. And yes, sometimes the clouds can be dark and intense, and never seem to lift, but also they are whispy and soft and blow away so fast you can barely notice them.

So you have more choice than you think in how those clouds form and drift.

I can make a choice to choose happiness today, and then use that as my guide when my teenagers are being challenging, OR I can recognise I’m feeling frustrated and rather than become consumed with that emotional (and all the thoughts that it produces - usually negative and taking me down a spiral) understand it and then get proactive about moving out of it.

It’s not about being happy clappy all the time (remember the goal), and it’s definitely not about being fake positive. It is about taking control of your emotions and riding the waves on a surf board of your making, rather than drowning in them.

For those of you newly following me on Your Midlife Matters (thank you for being here!) I’ve already explained how this year-long Midlife, redefined Daily Journal Guide adventure with yourself will work in Power is in Your Hand. You can start this journalling guide at any time of the year because it’s not date related: The daily prompts from Weeks 1 to 30 are here.

In this year long adventure with yourself, this opportunity to spend a few minutes every day (or as many days a week as you can) thinking about yourself will transform your relationship with yourself and to matter more in your own midlife and to build self-knowledge and empower yourself to live life for you.

For ALL my lovely subscribers there is my free Midlife Daily Journal Template in my previous post here which you can use as a guide each day - and what I personally use every day.

For just €5 per month, this Midlife Daily Journal Guide (and lots of other content and discounts on coaching) is for my paid subscribers.

So let’s get into the prompts for Week 29 and 30 of your journaling journey.