Ольга Примаченко
Love yourself tender. A book about self-appreciation and self-care
Quiet emotions
Sometimes emotional detachment is not a sign of exhaustion or a conscious suppression of feelings, but rather an individual, inner characteristic. You shouldn't blame yourself for not being emotional and shouldn't try to force yourself to experience reality in a more vivid way. “Quality” of emotions does not depend on the way one expresses them and is not measured by how high you jump for joy or how many gallons of tears you shed.
It is normal to love passionately and madly, it is also normal not to love that way.
Tenderness to yourself means learning to value your own set of tools, instead of being jealous of someone else's. Someone else might have a magnifying-glass that allows him to notice something significant amongst the small things. Another might have an axe that allows him to chop away the unnecessary. A third person might have a tape rule for measuring everything he comes across, and a fourth person might be equipped with ink for blackening up the picture. It is normal if your own toolkit lacks an emotional amplifier. It is not a deficiency, but a peculiarity.
For most of us, it's an extra credit question that allows us to feel negativity without doing anything about it, be it fixing ourselves or feeling ashamed. We're not afraid of feelings per se, but rather the risk of what we might do under their influence – badly thought through actions, razor-sharp words that might slip off our tongue. It's scary having to deal with the consequences later: spoiled relationships, lengthy disagreements, and the tattered reputation of a usually calm and friendly person.
Many of us are afraid to feel sexually curious about another person when we're in a stable, monogamous relationship, as if it would be akin to adultery and acknowledge problems in relationships. This is not exactly right. The more often we force ourselves to suppress our spontaneous interest in somebody (“don't you dare to look!”, “don't even dare to admire!”, “don't you dare to admit you like what you're seeing!”), the more likely it is that a long-restrained pressure will cause an explosion and infidelity will happen for real. We could also lose our passion for things in general, including towards our long-term partner. (“– Let's go to a bar! – No more bars. – Let's go fishing! – No more fishing. – Any regret you got married? – No more regrets are allowed.”)[8]
There are many decisions and concrete steps between sexual interest and cheating. It's ok to feel sexually aroused if that's all you take home.
One cannot influence the kinds of feelings that are born inside. You cannot force yourself to fall out of love or stop being hurt from betrayal at will. The good news is: you always have powers to cope with any of your feelings.
Not even one feeling can kill you because, if it could, they wouldn't exist in our nature at all.
As Anne Lamott once wrote, “But you can't get to any of these truths by sitting in a field smiling beatifically, avoiding your anger and damage and grief. Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth. We don't have much truth to express unless we have gone into those rooms and closets and woods and abysses that we were told not to go into. When we have gone in and looked around for a long while, just breathing and finally taking it in – then we will be able to speak in our own voice and stay in the present moment. And that moment is home.”[9]
Run, Breathe, Talk, Repeat
When you experience strong feelings, the most difficult part is remembering to breathe. When you feel adrenaline coursing through your body, you must continue breathing, consciously prevent yourself from freezing, and detach yourself from what is happening. In my experience, muscles remember numbness best, and it requires many hours of body-relaxation practices to soothe away those freezing effects that turn your body into a pillar of salt. (And on this topic, I am truly amazed by the Siberian salamander that lives in permafrost areas. This little, slow-moving newt can lie frozen in a cliff crack for decades (!), and when the sun shines on it again, it unthaws and gets back to its business, as if nothing ever happened. I envy that a bit.)
Damage from emotional “freeze” can be compared to the damage spring frost causes to young sprouts on a plunge bed. Water in plant cells turns into ice, cellular structures break down and we are left with a limp green mess where just yesterday squash was supposed to be growing. We are doing the same when we freeze the hurt, fears, and pain we have experienced: we are carrying icicles inside of us and cutting ourselves with them.
In The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, sisters Emily and Amelia Nagoski[10] talk about the stress reactions our bodies experience when under threat. A wolf in a forest, getting through flight turbulence, a weirdly behaved stranger on the subway, or a brazen driver cutting us up on the highway – our bodies perceive all of these as a threat and immediately start to pump the stress-hormone levels up in order to help us safely get away from such situations.
According to the Nagoski sisters, if you want to be healthier and happier it is absolutely essential to break the stress-reaction cycle, not just in your mind, but by performing active responses. This basically means that telling yourself “I was afraid, but it is ok, let's forget about it and move forward” – is a bad idea. Don't think for a moment that you could calm trembling hands, shivering knees, ringing in the ears, heart pumping like crazy, stomach in knots, high blood pressure, and tunnel-like vision, simply by saying: “There, there, buddy, everything is all right now, relax.” That time when you were sitting and smiling, and on the inside you were bubbling with rage, or when someone yelled at you and you were afraid to talk back because todo so would have triggered even more aggression, in each instance your body experiences as much stress as it would inside an elevator when the safety cable snaps.
In Nagoski's words, the most efficient way to end a stress-reaction cycle is to perform some physical exercises. It serves as a sort of “signal to your body that you have successfully survived a threat and it is safe to be in your body again.”[11]
Long before I came across this information, I used intuitively to turn to movements and sport to get rid of tension and get a hold of my anxiety. You are probably doing the same.
…I vividly remember long bank-holidays in May when I would be overwhelmed with a horrible identity crisis: it didn't just feel like I was out of it, but like my whole self was melting in the sun and solidifying into an ugly, formless mess. Am I in the right place? With the right people? Where am I heading towards? Why is everything so hard? Tons of questions with zero answers.
While everyone was out enjoying shish-kebab, picnicking outside the city limits, I would be smoking cigarettes, dressed in my pajamas, and writing work documents. I would take work home for the weekend because I didn't know how to stop, nor would I allow myself to stop. I was nearly burned out at my job as editor-in-chief, exhausted by work pressure, loneliness, and the fact that it had been a year and a half since my divorce, and I'd had no luck to speak of with any new relationships.
Apples, chestnuts, and bird-cherry trees would all be blooming dopey-sweet, while I clicked away on my keyboard, trying to fill up my inner emptiness by consuming condensed milk and five-to-six packs of ice cream at a time. Inevitably I gained weight and I hated myself for it. I was eating to make myself even angrier, make my inner conflict even worse, I'd reached a point of no return, turned myself inside out, time to die and be reborn as a new, different person that someone at least will need.
…Late at night, when I was already asleep, I received a message from my ex-husband. He'd written to say that his new woman was his personal eighth wonder of the world and that he was in love and “ oh-my-God-so-happy, you can't even imagine how great it is.” My heart skipped two beats, and a tear slowly slid down from my left eye and into my ear.
I realized that even my little self-destruction, pity-, hate-swamp has its boundaries. So, one warm, May night, in the midst of leaf-rustling, wine-drinking, and falling stars, I reached my personal lowest point.
I woke up at 4:30am the next morning, took a piece of paper, and frantically started scribbling my own “manifesto.” Straight from the shoulder, in the beautiful block letters (almost caps lock) of a straight-A student, I wrote everything I thought of myself, my life, and my perspectives. “Nobody is going to solve your problems for you. Nobody is going to come and save you, because is there an end to your miseries at all? Nobody is interested in the vivid range of your depression – and when it comes to it, nobody should be interested, goddamn it. So, pick yourself up, put on your running shoes, and run. Run until you drop from tiredness, and when that happens – start crawling to your home.”
I got up from my bed, put on my running shoes, stroked my cat who was wondering what was going on, and ran off. Huge chafers made love and fell onto the asphalt with a rustling sound. The dawn sky was so clear and blue that it hurt to look at it.
Running became a way to get the blood going and keep evil thoughts at bay. Sometimes I would run to the point of exhaustion to not give myself a chance to start crying. For eight months straight I would put on my old pink jogging pants that had been in my closet since I was a teenager, I'd put my headphones and music on, and set off for a daily marathon along the road.
To avoid being alone in the “cheap desperation of darkness”, I'd sometimes drag myself out by the scruff of the neck for a run in the thick, hot night air. Сhoke on your tears and nag all you want, but keep moving forward.
Three kilometers in, my tears would dry out, in four – the self-nagging stopped, in five – the pain would disappear. Ten kilometers were a killer: I'd get home, crash down on the floor and lie there listening to the sweat dripping from my pores, drenching the rug, softening concrete slabs, getting into the earth, mixing with groundwaters to set off together somewhere far-far away, where everything is plain and simple.
The night is always darkest before the dawn, and sport can really help you tackle stress.
“One thing we know for sure doesn't work: just telling yourself that everything is okay now. Completing the cycle isn't an intellectual decision; it's a physiological shift. Just as you don't tell your heart to continue beating or your digestion to continue churning, the cycle doesn't complete by deliberate choice. You give your body what it needs, and allow it to do what it does, in the time that it requires.”[12]
What else can we do to resist the rush of feelings? Try to follow some of my advice below.
Blow gigantic soap bubbles. It is a wonderful way to concentrate on breathing and calm yourself down by slowly breathing out.
Shake yourself to not be shaken. When I feel my muscles turn to stone from stress, I try to relax them by shaking. I turn on music, close my eyes, catch the rhythm and become an ancient woman dancing under a full moon by the fire. At that particular moment, I don't even care how my butt looks (spoiler: like Jell-O). I am not a huge believer in esotericism, but let me tell you that not a single meditation, massage session, or fitness class has ever brought me such speedy recovery as shaking off my troubles in the middle of my kitchen in my red house pants.
Name what scares you (name it to tame it). Try to define as clearly as possible what exactly you're feeling, what is it like, and how does it feel in your body. The more overtly you can identify your feeling, the faster they will go. Imagine waves sweeping forth and retracting back to the sea. They kiss sand and your feet, but leave you ashore, alive and unharmed.
Jump if you have been afraid. After you've experienced stress, draw a line under it by performing any physical activity you can think of. It might seem like a crazy thing to do, to lock yourself into an office restroom and do twenty high jumps, but by doing so, your body will recall that it is safe to be you, and you'll release all that pent up tension.
A note of tenderness to yourself
1. You have the right to feel whatever, whenever and as long as you need to. There are no wrong, ugly, or inappropriate feelings, all of them are true to you.
2. Only you can decide how to live through your emotions – the level of their intensity and how they manifest themselves (granted, they are causing no harm to people around you). Suggesting you “forget and relax” is stupid advice and no support at all if that's all the advice someone can give you.
3. Asking yourself “Did I like that?” is way better than asking “What have others thought of me?”
4. Do not challenge yourself when you're hungry, tired, or lacking sleep. Better take yourself by the hand and walk to a place where you can get some peace and quiet, tea and sandwiches.
5. Do not demand a firework of emotions from yourself. Sincerity is not measured by loudness, and gratitude does not require any special effects. Rise and shine as much as you can, and that will do.
6. You can always say: “Please, stop yelling at me.” And if someone tries to make you feel guilty, know that you can discard it in the same way as you would annoying flyers, from your letterbox straight to the bin. “No, thank you.”
The third tenderness, priorities
…talking, not baulking at a question, not peeking into an answer;
getting used to the toil of defining your aims, honing a preference;
knowing that what has been called the truth stops being that
the moment you say it out in the open.
Ksenia Zheludova
Every time I say “yes” to something, I know beforehand how many “no's” it will cost me. Starting with the no's that I will have to tell myself.
Setting priorities is not the same as setting boundaries. Priorities define the order of precedence while boundaries are measures of what is permissible.
One needs to set priorities to understand what requires devoted attention and what one should spend time and effort on first of all.
Without a hierarchy of goals, it is easy to stretch yourself thin like a smudge on the blotting paper that spreads to all corners.
You could squander yourself to nothing, and not get any joy out of the process. You could find yourself falling into a state of frustration when, for example, you can't put a finger on what is it you want (wouldn't it be nice to want to start wanting!) or when you're constantly suffering from a lack of sleep but, at the same time, find yourself with eyes wide open at five in the morning, sitting in your bed and staring at the ceiling. You keep hoping that the weekend will come and save us all, but it comes and goes as life speeds by.
When there is no goal hierarchy, our energy is spent on whatever's close at hand, and not on important things. In addition, a great chunk of energy goes into worrying about why we're falling behind on everything. It's important to set priorities:
– base your recovery time on what's been expended to achieve the goal, and not on what's leftover. This way you can switch your head off, stop constantly clock-watching, stop thinking about productivity, and stop feeling guilty for doing nothing. I like that they call it dolce far niente (“sweet doing nothing”) in Italy, or םישוע םייח (“making life”, enjoying life) in Israel, or me time in English-speaking countries; have enough strength left to experience joy, laugh heartily, and see the funny side in general (all jokes can get on your nerves if you're exhausted); have enough resources to take care of yourself in times of crisis a financial cushion and a trusted and long-standing supportive circle of friends.
– If you don't get to say to yourself “This is what is important for me now, and that one is not” then you will drown in daily chores, and another six months will pass before you realise. And once again, you will be left wondering what is wrong with you not to have noticed.
We are acknowledging and showing respect for the limited availability of our resources by setting priorities.
If we are conscious of why we are doing something, it is easier to endure hardships because of intrinsic motivation. Exercising free will itself – knowing which burden to carry and what price to pay – could turn us from a little origami boat in a creek into a happy, yellow submarine.