Everyday Vitality by Samantha Boardman

Author:Samantha Boardman [Boardman, Samantha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

Discomfort Is Data

One myth about emotionally healthy individuals is that they don’t get sad or angry. Or if they do, they’ve learned how to grin and bear it. When someone cuts these people off on the highway, they smile. When their boss gives them a new project on a Friday afternoon that’s due on Monday, they respond, “No problem!” Although suppressing emotions is effective at stifling a potentially harmful impulsive reaction like punching the wall or getting into a fight over a parking space, it’s actually not a healthy long-term strategy for managing negative emotions. Habitual suppression comes at a real cost, most likely increasing the risk of dying from heart disease and even certain forms of cancer. Nor is it good for mental health. Suppressors are also more likely to be depressed and to lack social support.

Emotionally healthy people don’t avoid negative feelings. They accept these emotions as a normal part of life and use them as valuable information. A certain amount of emotional discomfort alerts us that something isn’t quite right and requires attention and possibly action. When used effectively, negative emotions can prompt us to change our behavior and help us to guide a situation in a new direction. (Think Miss Clavel from the children’s book Madeline who, in the middle of the night, turns on a light and declares, “Something is not right.” This feeling prompts Miss Clavel to race to the dorm, where she discovers that Madeline is in medical distress.)

Mike, age forty-one, came to see me after splitting up with his girlfriend. At the beginning of the first few sessions, before I was even able to say a word, he would jump in, filling me in on the details of the week: what he had done, how many miles he had run, whom he had had dinner with, and so on. He talked at me, not with me, snowing me with the minutiae of his life. When he did describe his breakup, he didn’t seem particularly sad, even though it was the fourth relationship in five years that had gone sour. He was feeling frustrated but determined not to let the split bring him down. Mike didn’t want to talk about his current emotional state. He wanted to focus on the future.

“What’s the point of talking about it? What’s done is done,” he said. He portrayed himself as a master of moving on. “Isn’t that healthy?” he asked. He had already gone on two dates. He had joined a cold-water swimming group and was training for the marathon. Unwilling to confront his sadness, he much preferred to keep moving, literally and emotionally.

Mike was correct to believe that ruminating can leave someone stuck in a relentless cycle of distress. But he was also a rationalizer, insisting, “She wasn’t right for me in the first place.” Rationalizing protected him from dealing with unpleasant emotions and feeling bad about himself, but it also prevented him from gaining any insight that would prevent his next relationship from repeating this same pattern.

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