[Written yesterday]

I don’t even know why. I was telling Colin this morning that I am irritated and just feel “off.” After yoga, I kept trying to unpack it and determine the why. I came up with a few reasons, but none that have that little aha! moment inside.

I was considering that it may have to do with what is coming up with my writing. The scene that I mentioned yesterday. I might be picking up on some stuff those closest to me are dealing with because that’s how deeply I connect with them. None of those really give me that . . . that’s it! feeling though. So I’m not sure. Maybe I’m just feeling what others are in the world. Maybe it’s hormones. Just feeling irritated today so I’ve been doing things a little more that relax me and help it to not grow.

Mila isn’t helping it at all. She is super whiny today so maybe she too is feeling it. Mila = my Doberman for those who are new to this blog/site, lol. She, like her mother, is very empathic. It’s why I’ve learned to live a more peaceful and calm life. Otherwise I’m a sponge for all the activity and it makes me physically ill to be in that go go go go go state. I prefer peace, calm, harmony. I am a homebody.

Anyone who knows Dobermans know how sensitive and in tune with energy they can be. My mom has experienced it. She has gotten wound up and had trouble with Mila invading her personal space to remove the object that she deemed to be upsetting her grandma – the phone in gramma’s hand. When it’s really the customer service representative she’s dealing with.

I don’t allow it, but I’m not in the room 24/7 to stop it so my mother has learned that unless she finds a way to manage her upset, she will have a 70 lbs animal trying to remove the phone if gramma gets too excited. No matter how many times she tells Mila not to. As I’ve explained. “You are getting upset. Her entire role is to protect you from whatever is upsetting you.” So the easiest fix is just to keep that in mind and not raise her voice on the phone. I’m not training it out of Mila. There are plenty of things that I want Mila to listen to so for that, I let it go. She doesn’t bother my mother if she’s talking on the phone in general. It’s when she gets angry and her anxiety level raises. Then Mila tries to intervene. Choose the battles and all for me regarding it.

As I say it though, I can see people thinking it’s wrong, which I understand. But it goes back to when I say something, I want Mila to listen. When I want to train her to do something, I want her to be willing. I’m not going to be a dictator for minor things like that when it’s what I want her to do. Protect us from things that feel off, or upset us. I can’t say don’t do this one, but this one yes do that one. It’s too much stress on her, and it’s beneficial to my mom anyway.

The other side of it is that it teaches my mom to balance her emotional state. I have seen Mila helping her that way. Mila has helped me in that way. I have learned that if I start to get upset over something, Mila will be right there. In an almost obnoxious way, lol. She works as a personal remind for me. So instead of worrying over it, I simply have learned to state the truth to my mom. If you want the good version of her, learn to manage those things. If you get upset all the time, Mila is not gonna be a good dog to be around. She will feed off of it, then pick at the other dogs, and it will spiral. Learn to balance yourself out (as I have been over the years myself, and not just for Mila) and it’s gonna give you the best dog on earth. She is.

Going back to that balancing of emotions statement, I think it’s good for all of us. Learning to be in control of our emotional state and identifying our feelings benefits us. Benefits those around us. Like what I started this with. Just identifying that I am feeling irritated and giving voice to it takes some of the power away from the feeling. I can still get irritated at things, I can still feel it. We are allowed to feel what we feel. That doesn’t mean allow it to fester and grow, or put it on others. If I hid that feeling, it would grow. It would become more. I don’t want anyone to fix it when I mention it. And thankfully with Colin and Jeanie, they know that. I am beyond grateful to them for that, and love them to pieces for it. For trusting me to know how to fix my own self. Anyone close to you should know that too. We don’t need to be fixed. It’s okay for us to feel what we feel.

By identifying our feelings and emotional state, by “using our words,” and just simply stating the feeling, it helps to put us in a better mood. And far far sooner. We learn the control, we learn the release. We become calmer inside. It’s a good thing. For us, for those around us, for the world. If something upsets us, having learned to identify the emotion and even if we can identify the cause then the mood tends to also go away sooner. That’s something I’ve been learning. To unpack it. To understand the emotion. To understand what caused it. To understand the why. To specifically identify the exact emotion.

I see far too much of that online. I’m sure you do too. So many people are pretending to be upset, they are blaming outside sources, but we are the ones in charge of our emotional state. We can’t go around screaming it’s your fault! You did this to me! It’s because of this you did and that you did. As in, “you’re a bad person for making me feeling how I feel. My feelings are your responsibility. You control how I feel. You forced me to feel this way intentionally.” I mean that’s how it makes them feel. How it sounds.

Many times ( there are exceptions, and this isn’t always the case ) what we feel from something can be a past wound. I suffer a lot of abandonment wounds. A lot of abuse, a lot of loss, a lot of people saying many wonderful things and the next day never hearing from them again. So abandonment wounds come up quite often. Sometimes I give voice to them, sometimes not. It just depends. I don’t always because I feel like sometimes talking about certain feelings too much can keep them around. If that makes sense. As if I’m hitting a pause on the healing. So even that I do sort of balance it out. Just because I feel it a lot, doesn’t mean I need to voice it a lot.

I totally just contradicted myself from the first part of this, lol. It’s an intuition inside of me. Sort of like if someone says a bad name to me. Most of the time it doesn’t bother me so this is just an example. But say I’m called a name all the time that I don’t like. Many times throughout the day from various sources. Now if I say every single time to someone that it hurts my feelings, consider your response. “Okay, I get it. You’re being a little too sensitive.”

It’s just an example, we might have a better response. Now consider the same scenario and I only mention once how I really don’t like when I’m called that name, and I move on. Sure, it might continue to hurt, but by not renewing the “I am hurt by that statement,” it does kind of remove the feelings that are being invoked. I’m no longer in that, “I am hurt,” mode, “I am a victim.” I don’t become I am hurt individual, I am victim individual. I have acknowledged that the statement hurts, and then I take back my own personal control over how it affects me ( and how I feel ) by not continuing to repeat that it hurts. It doesn’t become an affirmation to program my brain.

If I did happen to encounter that, I would go so far as to turn it into a joke because I have often found that will balance me out. We can all relate to name calling. We can all relate to feeling like a sh*t from being poked again and again. It’s certainly nothing to hide from. WE can forget in the moment that everyone has dealt with similar circumstances that’s why we can relate to that. So in a real life example of how I may personally handle a situation like that, I could probably say at the end of the day, “goodness this has been a hard day. That was not making me feel good.” Acknowledgement of feeling. Acceptance of how it made me feel. Expressing myself using my words. Kinda has a playful tone ( hopefully it reads a lil playfully ).

Not continuing to say it throughout the day so that I become it. As much as we need to use our words and express how we feel ( maybe why we feel the way we feel ), I don’t feel it’s good to continue to live inside of our feelings. It’s no more of a balanced state than swallowing them and letting them fester. Everything in balance. Everything in moderation. Too much inside the feelings isn’t any better than swallowing. Too much living inside the “I am ___” isn’t any better than, “I don’t feel anything!”

Major legal disclaimer. I am not a doctor, I don’t claim to be one. This is not medical advice. I don’t claim to be an expert. If you need medical advice, seek a medical professional. Or, a veterinarian if it’s for pets. Everything expressed anywhere on this blog (site, really) is truly only factual when it comes to my books, but even that shifts with time as some books get edited, then those “facts,” can become opinions on my own work. Technically. So these are strictly my views, opinions, and I don’t demand anyone to take them on, or anything. I truly hope that comes across. This is just another opinion, stated in my own way. As my blogs always are. Maybe it allows you a new way to look at things, maybe not. Maybe it helps you understand me more, maybe it doesn’t. My grammar is likely total icky on these. They are unedited and unscripted. Not meant to be “perfect.”

I think it is also the fact that if something is hurting us and we continue to say it’s hurting us and repeatedly doing so, we do begin to almost expect an outside source to fix it. That’s what I would feel if I were in their shoes. “Okay, so you keep telling me. Either stop letting it get to you, or what. What do you want me to do to fix it? I can’t stop them from saying things, nor can I stop you from not liking that term.” We creep into that “fix me!” territory.

So there is that point too. Nobody can make us feel a certain way, nobody has the answer to fix US, or know exactly what we need. IF they can help, be open. Tell them how. We are our solution. We are our answer. People love to help. It’s perfectly okay to lean on people. I have leaned on Jeanie. I have leaned on Colin. I have talked out things I’ve felt to them. All they had to do was listen, and that was all they did, and when they did I thanked them for it. I appreciate them. So yes, people can help in that way. It’s not okay to expect them to fix the pain you feel just so you don’t have to acknowledge it, and feel it. It’s not okay to expect them to save you from yourself. We are the only ones who can heal those things. ( Side note – has nothing to do with things we do need professional help for potentially. Though I do still believe more in self-healing so keep that in mind. )

I have recently learned a great word for that. Interdependence. It means that we are fine by ourselves, but we acknowledge that we are better with others. And we can enjoy that. Like a family unit. We don’t need the people to survive, but we do need them to amplify us and help us grow to become better through our connection with them. That specific individual. It acknowledges that person’s uniqueness too. I’m choosing to use need in both ways. I could even say, we don’t need them, but we need them, lol.

The person I heard discussing it was using the reference of the military ( he’s under Transformational Coaching on YouTube – I only recently found him, but he’s fabulous ) where they may heavily depend on one another, but at the same time they can depend on just themselves if that is needed. The way he said it was need and want. Don’t need another to survive, but we want them there to help us grow and become better. Sometimes it could be that we depend on a person for financial while they depend on us for emotional. Or vice versa, or equal. Equal dependence and yet not. A balancing out. I like using the two different ways we can see the word need. There is a negative version – If I don’t have you there, I will cease breathing. And a positive – If I don’t have you there, I can still breathe on my own, I just really want you there because I need the love we have together. I need the person you are. I need the love you offer. I guess in that way it could also be them versus us.

In the negative need it’s all about I, I, I. In the positive version of need, it’s about them them them. Or “us,” as in what we create together, between us. I’ll use Jeanie and Colin again. I can survive without them, but I need them because it’s their love I need. Their way to see the world. Them. Not just anyone can be them. So a them versus I. A unique love that we create between each of us. Not just anyone can fill that role. Their uniqueness is what I need. Positive/negative. Everything in life I bet could have a +/- attribute, lol. I’m going down that trail so I’ma stop myself, haha. I’d say you’re intelligent enough to get me point.

Far too long we’ve either been taught to stuff our emotions, or be an emotional wreck. We haven’t been given the tools we needed to manage those things. That is partly why I’m so open about this. I certainly haven’t had the tools to deal with my emotions so I’ve had to learn it. I still learn it. I will forever be learning it. I will also continue to be open about it. For you, for me. For the person out there who needs to read this and see they are not alone. Why should we? Because we become better people. For ourselves, first. Then for our family. For our partner. For our friends. For our pets, lol. For the world.

And who wouldn’t want that?

By the way,

I still have my freebies up if you want to grab a copy of one of the books, or you have a friend who may like to check it out – Free until end of May If you’d like to, and still offer something, you’re welcome to donate a dollar or something to Ko-Fi too. As I’ve mentioned previously, I just don’t have the personal energy, let alone time, to keep up with tiers so for now that is on hold. I do have a few things up on there though right now. I will have to update Patreon with the information too.

---

Want just the blog posts?
Sign up to receive them direct to your inbox.