Soft Emotions

Today, I sat by the window leisurely folding clothes as dusk crept in. I spied the pinkish orange clouds gradually turn a light grey as nightfall claimed the fading sun. Sigrid’s Home to You played in the background.

 

“Couldn’t wait ‘til I got outside
Wondering, what the world be like
I knew I had to change my mind
Didn’t realize it would happen, oh so soon…”
~ Sigrid, Home to You

 

I believe that while not everyone is easily given to melancholy, with enough stillness and solitude, everyone is confronted by moments of reflective somber from time to time. And each person deals with it in their own way. Some are quick to dismiss it and go ahead to find the next distraction before the sadness gets to fully grasp them. Others stay with it a little longer, daring to ask Why? Where does it come from? What is it here for?

Image by rahen z via Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

“But I see the world so different now
But there’s a place by the sea
And that’s my town…”
~ Sigrid, Home to You

 

I once read that underneath all our hard emotions—anger, frustration, hatred—
are actually soft emotions—sadness, hurt, tenderness. Love.

 

“When I don’t know what to say
When I don’t know what to do
There’s a room I need to sit in
Surrounded by my favorite view…”
~ Sigrid, Home to You

 

But because soft emotions make us feel vulnerable, and feeling vulnerable is not something we’re taught to be comfortable with, we are prone to do whatever it takes to unfeel these soft emotions. Especially in times of uncertainty and conflict, fear drives us to want to appear tough, to want to be tough that nothing dares scathe us. We hastily put on our mantle of toughness, stowing away our sadness and pain under an armor of anger and indignation. To exhibit toughness is easier than to give in to vulnerability. It makes us feel safer.

It is in this way that we come to be angry people. It is in this way that we come to lose compassion. It is in this way that we come to be consumed by our own selfishness, that we start to lose sight of the bigger picture and instead act only to satisfy our most pregnant impulses. We give way only to our hard emotions without knowing and understanding the soft emotions that underlie them.

 

“When I need a hand to hold
Someone to tell the truth
Would it be okay
If I came home to you?”
~ Sigrid, Home to You

 

By the time I decided to get up from my seat, night had fallen. No clouds were in sight anymore.

But it does not mean that the clouds had faded away with the sun.

Some of us still lift our eyes to the sky and know that somewhere, shrouded in darkness, clouds still remain adrift, only awaiting the next sunrise when they will again be tinged a beautiful hue of yellow or pink, a sight to behold. ♦

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