39. “She’s supposed to vote my way” – are you sure?

In the years of work I’ve done to understand myself and life better I’ve seen that most of the time – and I really mean “most” – the emotion we feel when we’re upset has little to do with a current incident and much more to do with something from our past. Pushed down memories and feelings erupt, much like a volcano that’s finally released and blows.

The instant and intense feelings of jealousy, for instance, can often be traced to feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness that quite often go back to childhood. As kids we took on those feelings based on things that happened or that we were told. Not knowing how to handle the feelings we stuffed them down and tried to live life as well as we could. Now, many people as they’re dating in their senior years, are surprised that these same old feelings pop up as a complete surprise.

Painful feelings explode in people with high and low education levels and with high and low status in life. Emotional maturity has nothing to do with money, power or status. A friend of mine had been dating a retired doctor. One night at dinner with friends the subject of politics came up. The doctor happened to learn that my friend didn’t share his views and planned to vote for the “wrong” candidate in the national election coming up. Dinner ended and my friend and her girl friend drove to the doctor’s house with him where they were going to share a little more time together. As they talked on the sidewalk after emerging from the car he pressed my friend again about who she planned to vote for. When she gave him the same answer he abruptly told her and her friend they were no longer invited into the house. He spun on his heel, walked in and slammed the door. In a few days he was apologizing, probably wondering to himself, where did all that anger come from?

Many of the emotions we can label – anger, jealousy, loneliness – often come from fear. Somehow there’s the fear that we’re going to lose something. The good news is, if sudden painful emotions arise for you they don’t have to continue. Instead, you can investigate to see if they’re true. Once the truth is seen the same feelings aren’t likely to come up next time around because you’ve already seen that what you thought was a snake in the road was only a rope.

I did a lot of work in the past aimed at going back to ferret out the start of painful emotions. I’ve since learned, however, that trying to find the source of the feeling isn’t necessary. All we need to do is investigate the present honestly. The doctor could, for instance, sit down and write out his feelings and question their accuracy if he was interested. His obvious thought was that his date for the evening shouldn’t plan to vote for the “wrong” party. But is that really true? Shouldn’t she have the right to vote as she wants just as he does? Is it true that he needs to control her vote and be angry if he can’t? Does he even know for sure that his party is right?

When someone hurts from jealous isn’t it the same issue? Aren’t they trying to control someone for fear of losing something? Whatever they’re trying to control, is it true they know best – that their way is right? Looked at honestly you might find you’re left with just the peace of letting people be who they are and allowing the world to do what it does. There’s an immense freedom and relaxation in that.

Copyright © 2005 Chuck Custer