Your lives are intense. Intensity has effects. It goes somewhere. It has to. That’s a rule.
Even the first law of thermodynamics states energy can neither be created nor destroyed; energy can only be transferred or changed from one form to another.
Where does the intensity in your life go? Where does it affect you? Mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually? If you’re only strong in in two of these arenas, your ride might be as smooth as a car missing half its suspension.
Mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health are all required to be resilient over time. There’s only so much one can substitute for another. The four are meant to function together. Make two carry the burden of four, and it all breaks down. Most of you work in teams. The inner world is no different.
I’m a therapist, so what I mostly see is what happens when men and women who live lives of great service operate as if only the mental and physical dimensions exist. Those of you who have some type of spiritual element do a bit better. But, inevitably, your bodies start to break down, your minds aren’t as untouchable as they used to be, and your spirits can drop out the bottom. You’re operating a team member short. An irreplaceable one.
The emotional self didn’t get drafted, and most of your professions treat the emotional self like it doesn’t exist, like its dead weight, a threat, an obligation, or like a tiny 14 year old at NFL open tryouts.
Emotion is powerful, not universally dangerous or undermining. It’s about relationship, aptitude, and fluency. Deny emotion exists or create a culture that dismisses emotion as weakness, and its power will be forced to come out sideways.
How did such professions of service leave out some of the parts that make us most human? Can we agree that this kind of denial doesn’t work over time? Can we be real about how much suicide there is? How much addiction there is? How many marriages and relationships are on edge? Denial of emotion is a temporary tool and capacity, not a way of life.
Yes, emotion can shut down the body and mind and spirit in critical moments. It is powerful. But build walls against the emotional self, and it will shut down the body, and mind, and spirit anyway. That may take some time, but it will. That’s how we’re made. Emotion’s power is against you if you make it that way. Its power can also be for you if you make it that way.
Like the physical, the mental, and the spiritual, the emotional self is meant to be cultivated. Emotional strength is not in rigidity, but fluency. It requires practice, learning, and integration.
It’s time to acknowledge the places such neglect ends up putting our men and women of service. They protect the parts of life we stay alive for.
The intensity always goes somewhere. It’s time we started living in a way that honors the intensity we bear. Many of you go into dark, neglected regions for a living, it’s time we go into this one. Together.
Michael Gay, M.A.