Emotion math

maybe there's an equation here

A month ago or so, I drew this graph. It’s what came to mind as I witnessed my personal highs and lows: one continuous line representing me, and the others capturing the waves of friends, neighbors, and the collective at large.  

I was feeling the ebb and flow of my own confidence; the oscillation of my ability to support others and needing support myself; the ride of emotions on any given day; my capacity to be present. 

This past week, I again felt myself caught in waves of self-doubt and uncertainty which sent me spiraling inside of myself. I felt sticky and untouchable and shameful for letting myself get taken under. It’s these emotional places that feel so un-sharable and also so necessary to bring into collective light.

I was all over the place and brought this image back to mind – reminding myself of personal and collective flux. 

Digging deeper into this image and putting on my engineer hat from a not-so-faraway life, I invite you to join me on an emotional math journey (!) ~~~

The Y-axis could be many things ~ emotional landscape, capacity, hope, nervous system states, forgetting & returning. The X-axis might be a week, day, or decade. While not exact, the oscillation of this graph looks similar to sine and cosine graphs.

I regularly need reminders that life is flux. Something always shifts, no matter where I find myself on the emotional graph. I am one wave in a whole orchestra of frequencies. On any given day, I may need support or may be able to offer it – and likely both can happen simultaneously. I am held in a web. What do I make space for in sharing my vulnerable moments? How might I be of service even when I ask for help? 

This flux is not a competition nor a path towards a solution. The waves are not a problem! They are phenomena that sometimes make sense and other times are mysterious.  

The pressure to be stable and independent, to have it all together, or to be continuously improving and working towards something while exponentially spiraling upwards  -  I see this stemming from generations of individualism, white saviorism, and careerism. This programming can convince me I am separate or better than. As I see these patterns and history more clearly, how might I take some pressure off myself to have my shit together? Or dissolve the concept of shit needing to be together at all? How can I accept and embrace the ride with all its sweet and forgetful moments?

I honestly forgot a lot about sine and cosine graphs and it’s really not in the scope of this newsletter experiment to teach math. But this math gif sparked something in my heartspace.

 

This oscillation is an expression of a circle. A whole, full circle. Complete. What may feel like an unstable or zig zag journey is actually an expression of wholeness. 

Real life emotion maps are much messier than a sine graph, usually less consistent or predictable. Maybe it’s more like a heartbeat or the swell of a lake. And still, there are patterns and rhythm here. Any moment can feel separate or disconnected from the larger picture, but stepping back, taking a breath, I start to see my emotional rhythm. Less math-y, more dance-y. 

There is intrinsic wholeness in the ebb and flow. 

~

Last week, I had the joy of joining the Abide Yoga teacher training cohort to learn from Danielle Patrice about accessible yoga practices. One of the deepest truths she kept turning us back to was that in order to be accessible for others and their needs, we have to be accessible to ourselves. I felt that in my gut and it dropped me into my body. I have found myself wanting to skip towards being of service for others and feeling totally inadequate. But it’s in making space for all of my needs that I can do that for anyone else. The lows, the overwhelm, the neediness – accommodating myself in these ebbs is the foundation of anything I might be able to offer to someone else. 

>> This week’s lighthouses that kept me going

• my friends, Proxima Parada’s, soulful tunes >>Time in a Circle<< 

• Gwen Hashimoto’s presence & offerings 

• the Abide community

• Khraungbin always

• Making soup, looking at dogs to adopt, tracking my sleep, steaming up in a sauna and launching myself into cold water

take it easy this week,

Emily