Welcome to Day 21 of the July Intensity Project!
31 Days Toward Living with More Intensity & Creativity
I‘ve written here before about my project of transcribing the diaries of my great-aunt Hattie, who wrote daily about her life on the Great Plains from 1920 – 1957. Something that impresses me about her entries is how easily she accepts her emotions:
May 15, 1920: This is an awful windy day at noon as I am writing this. Had an awful fright as 2 men came walking in the yard about 8:30 p.m. after I was in bed, and they went to the barn around the place but not to the house, so I called Bradstreets [neighbors] and the Mrs. got Merle. Howard, Merle, Mr. Knoll and a man came over, but it was only some men having car trouble, and they were gone, instead of chicken thieves as I thought.
August 7, 1929: Crossed the Missouri River on a large Motor driven Boat that our Car was put on. We crossed the river in a South westerly direction and Landed just above My Birth Place on the Banks of the Missouri, North Old Fort Randall. This Landing was a Place where Steamboats coming up the Missouri stopped to unload supplies for Soldiers and other folks who lived there then. My father, a Soldier there, was discharged, married and lived on the Banks of Missouri near the Fort and often crossed on Ferries to attend dances in White Swan Community across the River, and I, a baby, was taken along, for in those days there were no Baby Sitters, and on this beautiful Sunset eve, was I thrilled crossing with my Husband and our Car, the new means of traveling.
July 4, 1950: Rained and rained this forenoon, and it kind of quit in p.m. Sun was shining brightly when I got up from a nap at 4 p.m. Will lay down also as he has heart pains, so we had to stay home this late p.m. in such a beautiful part of the day, and I had such a lonesome feeling, felt as if we were entirely out of the world.
Whether she is frightened or thrilled or lonesome, she doesn’t try to reason the feelings away (as I might tend to), or pretend they aren’t there, or solve the underlying problem in lieu of acknowledging the emotions, or feel guilty for the emotion later. Hattie has become my informal mentor with regard to emotions (the topic of tomorrow’s July Intensity Project post).
The following is from an eye-opening interview by Michael Shaughnessy with Sal Mendaglio, an expert on Dabrowski’s theories, on meeting the emotional needs of gifted children and adolescents.
“In my model of counselling gifted individuals, including gifted youth, helping gifted persons with their emotions means helping them express them in a trusting atmosphere. There are some assumptions underlying my assertion. The most important is the: we cannot ‘fix’ emotions. We cannot use logic to help gifted youth cope with their emotions. A logic/problem solving is useful in dealing with problematic situations, but that is different from dealing with the emotions the situations elicit. Emotions must be dealt with first. Parents and teachers need to respond in a sympathetic/empathetic way. But, they should avoid scripted or counselling type responses that will likely be seen as superficial or gimmicky by gifted youth. There are some obvious types of responses to avoid: Why are you so upset about that? It’s not that important; have you tried this other way of handling the situation? The first type is evaluative, and the second one is aimed at problem solving. Neither response is appropriate, because they tend to stifle emotion expression. Appropriate responses are those that are aimed at encouraging expression of emotion, which is what we need when we are emotional.” ~ Sal Mendaglio
Today, simply spend some time thinking about how you respond not only to emotional expression in your children, but in the adults you know, and in yourself. You may not say to others “Why are you so upset about that?” But do you think it to yourself?
Previous July Intensity Project Posts
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The Mendaglio quote came at a particularly useful time as we deal with transitional issues. Thanks!
Barb, I’m glad this was helpful! The interview offered me some valuable perspective on an area where I have a lot of room for growth.
How amazing that you have your great-aunt’s diaries!
I try to be very mindful of this issue, as one of my job’s as a psychologist is to help people figure out their feelings (and they usually aren’t seeing me unless their emotions are on the extreme side!) With my own children, we discuss emotions a lot (side effect of my job) and how it’s okay to feel ‘negative’ emotions like anger, sadness, frustration, etc. I think people are expected to ‘stuff’ emotions that aren’t acceptable (especially boys, unfortunately) but it has to come out somewhere. Great post!
Wow, your children are so lucky to have you as a mother. Seriously.