DailyJim: Emotions don’t really respect boundaries

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. This is the episode for Wednesday, May 8th. I missed a day, but I didn't technically miss it. Well, I missed it, but I was aware that I was missing it. It was very late, and I said, you know what, I'm just going to postpone to the next day. So I'm doing two today. This is the one for yesterday. And what I want to talk about today is this concept that emotions don't really respect boundaries.

I would say, I believe emotions don't respect boundaries really at all.

I think a lot of people say, you know, it's professional, it's not personal. Personal, or as do with politics, you know, what happens at work stays at work, what happens at home stays at home, or we seem to think that we're very compartmentalized in many ways, or I'm feeling this and you are feeling that, and there are strong walls that prevent me from feeling what you're feeling. I don't think that's the case. I think emotions are so able to permeate through small all holes that if I am in a country, like when I used to live in Tanzania, and there were lots of mosquitoes in Dar es Salaam, and those mosquitoes carried some malaria, and I got malaria a few times, that fear that I had of getting malaria, which meant that fear I had of getting bitten by mosquitoes, translated, I think, into a more generalized fear and anxiety that I had for just living there. I notice it here where I see these little things called Nairobi flies. I mentioned them the other day. And if you squash them, their guts are somewhat acidic. I'm thinking, ah, I see them in the house. I'm like, no, no, don't. If there's a bug on you, don't smash it like I would a mosquito. And how does that anxiety, that fear, that worry transfer into the rest of my life? I was waiting for food earlier with a friend and I didn't sleep very well last night. And I was really hungry. And so being tired and hungry, I was getting very frustrated with how long the process was taking and expressed that frustration to the person who was making the food.

More so than maybe I normally would, but I think I was more aware that I'm not just frustrated by the process, I'm also frustrated by the other things that are happening. Okay. I think a lot of times we say, no, no, no, I'm only angry at this thing. It's not true. Man, not even all the anger comes from our own, quote unquote, our own experiences. Some of it comes from other people. Other people are feeling angry about something, and then there's more anger in the room. And that room, you know, the anger in the room can permeate. It doesn't even have to be a room. It could be an internet chat room. It could be a tweet. It could be so many things where the emotions are able to permeate across space and time.

And so this idea that somehow emotions are containable, I don't know how accurate that is or how accurate or true that is. I think a lot of people say, well, I feel this one thing, but I don't want to feel it. and so people aren't going to know that I feel it. It's leaking out everywhere. If people are paying attention, they're seeing it. But even if they're not paying attention, they may be feeling it. So if someone is sad, the other person may be feeling the sadness and then start to think, well, why am I feeling sad? Would it happen in my life that I'm feeling sad? Maybe it's the other person feeling sad and you're just feeling the sadness. And maybe they were feeling it from somebody else. When we think about war, when I think about war, when I think about epidemics and things like this, how much does the fear spread very quickly and the sadness spread very quickly. I just saw a notice about an old friend of mine, like old friend of mine, whose brother passed away. And reading the obituary that he wrote, the note that he wrote for his brother, really had me almost in tears. No, I would say tears. Because the sadness I was detecting from And how much I care about that guy, the connection that I feel to the emotions.

I don't know, I think these emotions seep into everything, you know, whether we want them to or not. And i think i get often get very frustrated when people tell me oh no no i have it very well contained no you don't you don't have very strong walls that prevent things from coming in you also don't have very strong walls that prevent things from going out and that's okay maybe it's more like an open window and that things are supposed to flow in and out and that's just how it works, I don't know as like I said I'm tired less hungry because I just ate so maybe this isn't making sense but uh finish this one and I'm gonna do one more and then gonna go out and dance so uh I will talk to you in just a few seconds bye.