one of the wildest things i’ve had to repeatedly relearn is that emotions only feel like they last forever if you resist them

if you open up to them they flow through you like water

you can feel like total shit about yourself or your life, all of your worst fears can feel objectively and eternally true, and then one big enough cry later you’re completely outside of that reality. just transported somewhere else entirely
calling it “emotional processing” makes it sound like a skill you have to learn but i’m still convinced it’s mostly about unlearning - there’s a natural process that animals allow effortlessly that we actively train children to interrupt in a million ways
when an impala is captured by a predator it plays dead; if the predator goes away it literally shakes off the experience until it's able to move normally

https://t.co/nVT1QVSfhl
meanwhile, human children are raised as follows:

sit still. be quiet. don't make a fuss. don't start laughing or crying in the middle of the classroom. you wouldn't want to bother the other children would you

https://t.co/eQrBaVnjM4
@DougTataryn taught us that the three main somatic approaches to releasing an emotion are "sound, movement, and breath" and we teach children to suppress all three for hours every day
this kind of thing is why i never felt comfortable with sitting meditation and why i wouldn't recommend other people start there if they have any kind of trauma history at all. you're just practicing a freeze response. we need sound, movement, and breath

https://t.co/279Ux8VTNp
"After being hurt, an infant will cry loudly and continuously and, if permitted to do so, will seem to recover from the hurt very quickly. After being frightened badly, an infant will scream and shake and perspire."

https://t.co/6hWSv4dJJO
"Apparently babies - given a chance - would keep themselves free from hurts simply by their natural discharge of painful emotion. In our culture, no baby gets very much of a chance because..."
"...the discharge of her painful emotion is interfered with and shut off so repeatedly that to shut it off becomes an automatic pattern accompanying the hurt."
periodically i see takes along the lines of "oh man wouldn't society be so much better if we taught children how to process their emotions in school"

my statement on such takes, now and forevermore:

https://t.co/5hC01nxa9X
once i attended a memorial service for an acquaintance who had killed herself

not a single person cried. a friend of hers who went up to the podium to say something almost cried but then she *stopped herself*

because apparently it would have been... *inappropriate*???
i hope we can work towards a society in which people feel like they are allowed to cry when their friends die

More from All

You May Also Like

The YouTube algorithm that I helped build in 2011 still recommends the flat earth theory by the *hundreds of millions*. This investigation by @RawStory shows some of the real-life consequences of this badly designed AI.


This spring at SxSW, @SusanWojcicki promised "Wikipedia snippets" on debated videos. But they didn't put them on flat earth videos, and instead @YouTube is promoting merchandising such as "NASA lies - Never Trust a Snake". 2/


A few example of flat earth videos that were promoted by YouTube #today:
https://t.co/TumQiX2tlj 3/

https://t.co/uAORIJ5BYX 4/

https://t.co/yOGZ0pLfHG 5/
Oh my Goodness!!!

I might have a panic attack due to excitement!!

Read this thread to the end...I just had an epiphany and my mind is blown. Actually, more than blown. More like OBLITERATED! This is the thing! This is the thing that will blow the entire thing out of the water!


Has this man been concealing his true identity?

Is this man a supposed 'dead' Seal Team Six soldier?

Witness protection to be kept safe until the right moment when all will be revealed?!

Who ELSE is alive that may have faked their death/gone into witness protection?


Were "golden tickets" inside the envelopes??


Are these "golden tickets" going to lead to their ultimate undoing?

Review crumbs on the board re: 'gold'.


#SEALTeam6 Trump re-tweeted this.