“It’s huge!” That is what I’ve always said, for lack of a better explanation. I have always found it difficult to find the words to explain the important role of emotion in one’s life and furthermore how the role of emotions can be used effectively in therapy, in fact emotions are one of the greatest tools for healing. I’ve been called overly emotional myself. But what I know that some people don’t, is that my life is richer when I experience emotions directly and viscerally in the absence of my defense mechanisms. In other words, in those moments where I feel safe to be me, without feelings of shame or embarrassment and I am not worried about being judged, I laugh louder, I cry freely and I feel transformed.
I am reading an amazing book right now called “The Transforming Power of Affect: A model for Accelerated Change” by Diana Fosha. It’s not an easy read. I’ve read most of the pages twice to make sure I understand. One of the highlights of the book was finding the words to explain the role of emotion and it’s importance. Here are the words I’ve been searching for…
“Emotional occasions…are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt, fear, remorse, or anger can seize upon one are known to everybody. Hope, happiness, security, resolve…can be equally explosive. And emotions that come in this explosive way seldom leave things as they found them.” (James, 1902, p. 198)
That’s it. That is what I’ve been trying to say. One of the greatest contexts where this process of transformation can occur is in the romantic relationship. Person(1988) in his work on romantic passion and the state of being in love discovered this:
“Romantic love offers not just the excitement of the moment but the possibility for dramatic change in the self. It is in fact an agent of change… Romantic love takes on meaning and provides a subjective sense of liberation only insofar as it creates a flexibility in personality that allows a breakthrough of internal psychological barriers and taboos… It creates a flux in personality, the possibility for change, the impetus to begin new phases of life and undertake new endeavors. As such, it can be seen as a paradigm for any significant realignment of personality and values. (p.23)
Don’t it make you wanna fall in love?
Thanks for reading!