Most people are not fans of difficult emotions. So we evade it. We distract from it. We eat. We shop. We gossip. We watch mindless TV.
All to escape feeling something that isn’t bad. It’s the things we do to try to avoid it that’s bad. But feeling it is just well uncomfortable.
And yet, to sufficiently deal with anything hard like grief or disappointment, we need to actually feel it.
Right now there’s a lot of pain in the world. But everywhere on social media and in life we hear the same things:
- Buck up.
- If it’s not meant to be…
- You’ll find better.
- Things will look up.
- Just look on the bright side.
The truth is well-intentioned people tell you these things because of a few reasons: 1) This is how they deal with difficult emotions. 2) They don’t know what to say. 3) They don’t know how to deal with difficult things.
What they should say is, “Yeah that’s tough.” Or, “It’s normal to feel that way.”
What you can do for yourself is to be kind, compassionate and patient when you’re enduring a “negative” emotion. You can give yourself permission to cry or yell. You can write your raw emotions in a journal. You can write a letter to someone you love who passed away. You can write a letter to the person or the thing that’s causing you so much pain.
There are choices in between the emotion and the hot potato reaction that makes you want to get rid of the emotions right away.
This requires a lot of paying attention. It requires putting down your phone and tuning into yourself. It requires not calling someone or texting right when you feel that searing pain.
Step away from outside sources (unless your pain requires a therapist or a friend to help you through it) and check in with yourself.
Allow yourself to feel the devastation of what you’re experiencing. Use creativity to help you through it.
You might want to light a candle and pray about it. Or listen to music or go for a walk in nature. Allow whatever you’re experiencing to come through.
When I’m experiencing a gut-wrenching emotion, exercise helps. Writing, however, is my savior.
I can do two things really well when I’m in the throes of an emotion: Run (which I don’t do well even when I’m angry) and Write.
If I’m at a place where I’ve done all of the above and I still feel the fire of anger or envy or sadness or grief, I allow myself to feel it and then I channel it into my characters.
Anguish allowed me to create a story of a boy struggling with his mother’s illness. A dissatisfaction with where I lived helped me to write about a girl’s desire to solve mysteries. Tuning into my own emotion is what helps me to create complex characters with real emotional struggle.
When we're able to sink deep into our own pain we can use it to connect with our characters. Understanding our own pain is how we become conduits of emotions. Every story has some underlying struggle we're grappling with. So use it. Click To TweetBecome conscious of how what you’re dealing with affects the fictional world you’re developing.
And know this.
Every emotion you experience has a purpose to it.
Emotions are not terrifying things. They are simply signals alerting you to some areas of your life that needs tending. If you get this, I guarantee it’ll change the way you write not just interesting, but emotionally realistic characters. The type this world needs to become awake and to connect with their own inner lives.
