The Hidden Shame Behind Conflict Avoidance
When we vilify passion and emotion in society we vilify our ability to speak from a place of authenticity.
While being part of a few think groups I have noticed a common theme rise up within myself and others. I have rectified the language within my own internal narrative and usually can speak from a place of passion where sometimes I even end up in tears. My husband recently told me a story of a work dynamic he witnessed where this was shame was the default in a passionate conversation he witnessed his coworkers having. There was a few of them and one person who had opposed their views politically. My husband used the word “attack” to describe the outnumbered coworkers and continued to tell me that at the end of the whole encounter the people involved in the attacking’ went silent after expressing their views and glumly sauntered away.
He was able to pinpoint an undertone of shame, which I believe is what led to this isolation. I knew the feeling well from pior encounters of my own. Feeling irrational in a group that vilified emotional conversation. I realize now I have enmeshed myself in circles that value my opinion even when its wrought with deep emotional countenance or maybe its the fact that I have no shame in these emotional expressions of thought and people respect that about me, as people often look up to those who are confident no matter what ideology they bring forth. Yet discussing the Collective Conforming is for another blog!
I asked what was said and if personal bias was brought up? He said no, that most of it was based in ideology. Has our way of excluding emotional conversations led to an isolationist movement?
We seem to be obsessed with controlling and coping with our emotions even in the mental health and spiritual avenues. But what we often forget is that real social change in the world was never led without a form of passionate leadership. Take Martin Luther King jr for example, his passion was clearly coming from a place of heightened emotions and you can even see this in his most epic “i have a dream speech”. I would even take it a step further to say nothing in life is done without emotionally drive. Even when you believe your arguments or conversations arenn’t fueled by emotion they truly are, because when we argue points of personal value those values came from an emotional place. You might think youre being logical in hte moment but every belief and even research study was fueled through a desire. DOctors become doctors maybe because their whole family are doctors. The desire to be a part of something they FElT made a difference by witnessing others in their family make a difference. Research is tested hypothesis through the motivation within desire. Reason and logic is never fully devoid of human emotion.
According to Dr K on ‘After Skool’, we are engaged when we are emotionally activated. They use this tactic in algorithms to keep you hooked to social media scrolling. So Imagine what we could do If we intentionally made it our duty to be engaged in what we truly valued in life. Imagine the impact we could have. Not only does expressing emotion create engagement it clears out the energy which if not taken care of will be projected into our lives in a subconscious way.
So I believe this is a good time to re-brand the definitions of passionate conversion so that we ultimately can embrace conflict in a way that includes our emotional values and desires.
In the groups I am a part of that include nuanced discussion about all sorts of topics Being polite seems to be the theme, but I have owned my values in passionate speech feel others can do the same.
Premise: Can politeness include our ability to say what we believe in an emotional manner? Can we shift the idea thtat politeness only encompasses surface level language?
Here is an enlightening video short on the topic:
https://youtu.be/cqz4-HVE2sY?si=kLqKatnM6ZMAo1He
