We can learn a lot from our children, parents, I’m sure you’ll agree. But we can also learn a lot from their TV shows.
I was recently watching an episode of ‘Bing!’, (which happens to be one of our favourite past-times). In one particular episode two characters had a falling out over sharing some of their toys and started to express their frustration and anger towards each other. An emotionally-literate parent encouraged the warring parties to direct their anger towards the passing clouds and to try and blow them away to ‘see if we can blow away the angry..’
As infants most of us were pretty good at expressing our emotions, be that happiness, joy, frustration or rage but as we grow up we learn to suppress what we feel in order to conform to the social conventions of our environment- in the UK that has always meant ‘stiff upper lip’, which can result in un-expressed emotions, frustrations and anger. Whilst I’m not suggesting that we go around shouting at everyone, it’s important to recognise the overall effect our emotions have on our health and wellbeing, let alone how we hold tension in our bodies. The book Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert is a great insight into how these things are inter-linked.
Perhaps some kind of practice like ‘blowing away the angry’ could be useful to acknowledge how we are feeling, so that we don’t have to direct our unexpressed emotions towards the first unsuspecting person we come across.
Warmly,
Dave
Copyright: antimartina / 123RF Stock Photo
