💬 Fireside Chat: All About Emotions
Which one do you understand better than all the others?
Hi, it’s me.
Last week Bryan and I went to a live taping of Rachel Martin’s Wild Card podcast at Seattle’s Town Hall. It’s an interview podcast, but she asks deeper questions about memories, insights, and beliefs, based on a set of randomly chosen prompt cards she and her producers created. If you’re local and have ever been to one of our Thursday #OpenFire Nights, it’s like our beloved Question of the Week tradition that helps us dip below the surface of small-talk when we gather.
Rachel’s guest at our event was Kyle MacLachlan, whom I loved in Twin Peaks and as the Mayor in Portlandia. ❤️ He grew up in Yakima, Washington and still owns a winery there. As per usual, Bryan scored us premium front row seats for the event!
Toward the end of the evening, Rachel asked one question that stuck with me, largely because it was an unexpected twist on what could have otherwise been a basic question:
What emotion do you understand better than all the others?
“Not necessarily the one you feel the most,” Rachel said, “but that you understand the roots of or the shape of it.”
🙋🏼♀️ I’ll go first: Anger immediately came to mind for me. I used to be a person who felt and expressed so much anger toward the people I love. My temper flared often as a kid, directed mostly at my mom in the form of screaming and slamming doors. I mean, I know we all did that as a kid, but I also did it a lot as a parent of kids, so to some extent this anger had a hold on me for a very long time. I used to yell a lot and react to minor inconveniences from an attitude of entitlement, which manifested in outward rage or inward contempt. In my late thirties, I did a deep dive into myself and was able to finally understand the roots and shape of my anger, as Rachel said. These days I’m free from being controlled by my anger. Instead, I use it as a measured tool directed toward injustice and assholery.
🪵🔥 Your turn! If we were hanging out around our backyard fire pit, how would you answer this question? I look forward to learning more about you in the comments.
Gonna keep this one in my file --->
"These days I’m free from being controlled by my anger. Instead, I use it as a measured tool directed toward injustice and assholery."
I’d go with fear. Anger is the response. It stems from
Fear - fear of saying out loud how I feel, fear of disappointing myself and others, fear of letting people down, and it all manifests as anger. 😡